Genesis Scripture Index of Materials
GENESIS 1:1 Gen001.htm
GENESIS 1:1 Gen003.htm
GENESIS 1:1 Gen004.htm
GENESIS 1:1 Gen005.htm
GENESIS 1:1 Gen006.htm
GENESIS 1:1 Gen007.htm
GENESIS 1:1 Gen008.htm
GENESIS 1:1 Gen009.htm
GENESIS 1:1 Gen010.htm
GENESIS 1:1 Gen011.htm
GENESIS 1:1 Gen015.htm
GENESIS 1:1 Gen129.htm
GENESIS 1:2 Gen001.htm
GENESIS 1:2 Gen004.htm
GENESIS 1:2 Gen007.htm
GENESIS 1:2 Gen008.htm
GENESIS 1:2 Gen009.htm
GENESIS 1:2 Gen010.htm
GENESIS 1:2 Gen011.htm
GENESIS 1:2 Gen015.htm
GENESIS 1:2 Gen019.htm
GENESIS 1:2 Gen028.htm
GENESIS 1:2 Gen034.htm
GENESIS 1:2 Gen040.htm
GENESIS 1:3 Gen009.htm
GENESIS 1:3 Gen010.htm
GENESIS 1:4 Gen010.htm
GENESIS 1:6-8 Gen010.htm
GENESIS 1:11 Gen017.htm
GENESIS 1:12 Gen011.htm
GENESIS 1:12 Gen018.htm
GENESIS 1:16 Gen013.htm
GENESIS 1:17 Gen010.htm
GENESIS 1:24 Gen012.htm
GENESIS 1:24 Gen028.htm
GENESIS 1:25 Gen012.htm
GENESIS 1:25 Gen028.htm
GENESIS 1:26 Gen002.htm
GENESIS 1:26 Gen007.htm
GENESIS 1:26 Gen012.htm
GENESIS 1:26 Gen026.htm
GENESIS 1:26 Gen031.htm
GENESIS 1:26 Gen038.htm
GENESIS 1:26-28 Gen012.htm
GENESIS 1:26-28 Gen013.htm
GENESIS 1:26-28 Gen015.htm
GENESIS 1:26-28 Gen021.htm
GENESIS 1:26-28 Gen031.htm
GENESIS 1:26-28 Gen038.htm
GENESIS 1:26-28 Gen042.htm
GENESIS 1:26-28 Gen046.htm
GENESIS 1:26-28 Gen047.htm
GENESIS 1:26-30 Gen026.htm
GENESIS 1:27 Gen002.htm
GENESIS 1:27 Gen012.htm
GENESIS 1:27 Gen030.htm
GENESIS 1:27 Gen046.htm
GENESIS 1:27 Gen047.htm
GENESIS 1:28 Gen013.htm
GENESIS 1:28 Gen026.htm
GENESIS 1:28 Gen031.htm
GENESIS 1:28 Gen047.htm
GENESIS 1:29 Gen046.htm
GENESIS 2:1-3 Gen004.htm
GENESIS 2:3 Gen001.htm
GENESIS 2:3 Gen003.htm
GENESIS 2:3 Gen004.htm
GENESIS 2:3 Gen007.htm
GENESIS 2:3 Gen010.htm
GENESIS 2:3 Gen013.htm
GENESIS 2:4 Gen003.htm
GENESIS 2:4 Gen009.htm
GENESIS 2:4 Gen017.htm
GENESIS 2:4-7 Gen018.htm
GENESIS 2:5 Gen018.htm
GENESIS 2:7 Gen007.htm
GENESIS 2:7 Gen019.htm
GENESIS 2:7 Gen021.htm
GENESIS 2:7 Gen022.htm
GENESIS 2:7 Gen031.htm
GENESIS 2:15 Gen025.htm
GENESIS 2:15-17 Gen026.htm
GENESIS 2:17 Gen026.htm
GENESIS 2:17 Gen029.htm
GENESIS 2:18 Gen027.htm
GENESIS 2:24 Gen012.htm
GENESIS 2:25 Gen028.htm
GENESIS 3:7 Gen028.htm
GENESIS 3:7 Gen031.htm
GENESIS 3:7 Gen034.htm
GENESIS 3:7 Gen050.htm
GENESIS 3:9 Gen029.htm
GENESIS 3:11 Gen029.htm
GENESIS 3:14 Gen029.htm
GENESIS 3:14-19 Gen030.htm
GENESIS 3:14-24 Gen030.htm
GENESIS 3:15 Gen036.htm
GENESIS 3:15 Gen050.htm
GENESIS 3:16 Gen030.htm
GENESIS 3:17-19 Gen026.htm
GENESIS 3:19 Gen018.htm
GENESIS 3:20 Gen031.htm
GENESIS 3:21 Gen031.htm
GENESIS 3:21 Gen036.htm
GENESIS 3:23 Gen031.htm
GENESIS 4:1 Gen019.htm
GENESIS 4:1-16 Gen036.htm
GENESIS 4:4 Gen036.htm
GENESIS 4:7 Gen030.htm
GENESIS 4:15 Gen037.htm
GENESIS 4:16-26 Gen037.htm
GENESIS 4:17 Gen037.htm
GENESIS 5:1 Gen012.htm
GENESIS 5:1 Gen017.htm
GENESIS 5:1 Gen038.htm
GENESIS 5:2 Gen038.htm
GENESIS 5:3 Gen012.htm
GENESIS 5:3 Gen037.htm
GENESIS 5:3 Gen038.htm
GENESIS 5:24 Gen040.htm
GENESIS 5:29 Gen036.htm
GENESIS 5:32 Gen050.htm
GENESIS 6:1-3 Gen039.htm
GENESIS 6:1-7 Gen042.htm
GENESIS 6:3
Gen024.htm
GENESIS 6:3
Gen040.htm
GENESIS 6:3
Gen042.htm
GENESIS 6:5
Gen040.htm
GENESIS 6:8
Gen042.htm
GENESIS 6:9
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 6:9
Gen042.htm
GENESIS 6:9-22
Gen042.htm
GENESIS 6:10
Gen050.htm
GENESIS 6:11
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 6:12
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 6:13
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 6:17
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 6:18
Gen046.htm
GENESIS 6:18
Gen047.htm
GENESIS 6:19
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 6:20
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 7:1
Gen045.htm
GENESIS 7:2
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 7:2
Gen045.htm
GENESIS 7:3
Gen045.htm
GENESIS 7:4
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 7:8
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 7:9-12
Gen042.htm
GENESIS 7:11
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 7:13
Gen050.htm
GENESIS 7:14
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 7:19
Gen045.htm
GENESIS 7:19-20
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 7:22
Gen019.htm
GENESIS 8:1
Gen045.htm
GENESIS 8:1
Gen046.htm
GENESIS 8:19
Gen046.htm
GENESIS 8:20
Gen046.htm
GENESIS 8:22
Gen045.htm
GENESIS 9:1
Gen046.htm
GENESIS 9:1-17
Gen047.htm
GENESIS 9:1-17
Gen048.htm
GENESIS 9:1-17
Gen049.htm
GENESIS 9:6
Gen038.htm
GENESIS 9:17
Gen046.htm
GENESIS 9:18-29
Gen050.htm
GENESIS 9:18-29
Gen051.htm
GENESIS 9:25
Gen054.htm
GENESIS 9:26
Gen054.htm
GENESIS 9:27
Gen054.htm
GENESIS 9:29
Gen041.htm
GENESIS 10:1
Gen052.htm
GENESIS 10:1-4
Gen052.htm
GENESIS 10:1-5
Gen053.htm
GENESIS 10:3
Gen053.htm
GENESIS 10:6
Gen052.htm
GENESIS 10:6-20
Gen054.htm
GENESIS 10:7
Gen017.htm
GENESIS 10:12
Gen054.htm
GENESIS 10:25
Gen055.htm
GENESIS 11:1-7
Gen055.htm
GENESIS 11:10
Gen052.htm
GENESIS 11:26
Gen052.htm
GENESIS 11:26
Gen065.htm
GENESIS 12:1
Gen069.htm
GENESIS 12:10-17
Gen073.htm
GENESIS 14:18
Gen002.htm
GENESIS 14:19
Gen002.htm
GENESIS 14:20
Gen002.htm
GENESIS 14:22
Gen002.htm
GENESIS 15:1
Gen003.htm
GENESIS 15:6
Gen042.htm
GENESIS 15:6
Gen043.htm
GENESIS 16:13
Gen002.htm
GENESIS 17:5
Gen036.htm
GENESIS 17:9
Gen025.htm
GENESIS 20:4
Gen009.htm
GENESIS 21:33
Gen002.htm
GENESIS 22:14
Gen002.htm
GENESIS 24:7
Gen002.htm
GENESIS 25:11
Gen065.htm
GENESIS 25:27-32
Gen119.htm
GENESIS 26:24
Gen003.htm
GENESIS 27:1-41
Gen121.htm
GENESIS 27:41
Gen122.htm
GENESIS 28:11-22
Gen123.htm
GENESIS 28:13
Gen003.htm
GENESIS 28:22
Gen122.htm
GENESIS 31:3
Gen127.htm
GENESIS 31:53
Gen127.htm
GENESIS 31:53
Gen129.htm
GENESIS 33:20
Gen002.htm
GENESIS 41:51
Gen036.htm
GENESIS 49:24
Gen002.htm
EXODUS 2:24
Gen046.htm
EXODUS 3:14
Gen002.htm
EXODUS 3:14
Gen018.htm
EXODUS 4:22
Gen039.htm
EXODUS 10:21
Gen008.htm
EXODUS 10:21-23
Gen009.htm
EXODUS 10:22
Gen008.htm
EXODUS 13:2
Gen036.htm
EXODUS 13:12
Gen036.htm
EXODUS 15:5
Gen008.htm
EXODUS 15:8
Gen008.htm
EXODUS 17:14
Gen003.htm
EXODUS 18:4
Gen027.htm
EXODUS 20:17
Gen028.htm
EXODUS 21:12
Gen048.htm
EXODUS 21:22
Gen020.htm
EXODUS 21:24
Gen049.htm
EXODUS 21:25
Gen049.htm
EXODUS 24:4
Gen003.htm
EXODUS 24:10
Gen004.htm
EXODUS 29:39-41
Gen051.htm
EXODUS 32:14
Gen040.htm
EXODUS 34:7
Gen052.htm
EXODUS 35:2
Gen048.htm
LEVITICUS 3:16
Gen036.htm
LEVITICUS 10:9
Gen051.htm
LEVITICUS 11:13
Gen011.htm
LEVITICUS 11:29-31
Gen012.htm
LEVITICUS 18:19
Gen052.htm
LEVITICUS 20:9
Gen048.htm
LEVITICUS 20:10
Gen048.htm
LEVITICUS 20:13
Gen048.htm
LEVITICUS 20:15
Gen048.htm
LEVITICUS 20:16
Gen048.htm
LEVITICUS 22:17-25
Gen036.htm
LEVITICUS 23:13
Gen051.htm
LEVITICUS 24:20
Gen049.htm
NUMBERS 3:1
Gen003.htm
NUMBERS 6:3
Gen051.htm
NUMBERS 10:5
Gen046.htm
NUMBERS 13:33
Gen040.htm
NUMBERS 15:7
Gen051.htm
NUMBERS 15:10
Gen051.htm
NUMBERS 18:12
Gen051.htm
NUMBERS 18:27
Gen051.htm
NUMBERS 22:1
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:2
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:3
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:4
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:5
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:6
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:9
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:10
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:11
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:12
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:13
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:14
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:15
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:17
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:18
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:19
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:20
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:22
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:23
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:24
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:25
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:26
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:27
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:28
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:29
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:30
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:32
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 22:34
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 23:1
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 23:2
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 23:5
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 23:6
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 23:7
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 23:8
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 23:9
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 23:10
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 23:13
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 23:18
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 23:19
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 23:23
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 24:2
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 24:3
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 24:4
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 24:9
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 24:17
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 24:18
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 24:19
Gen129.htm
NUMBERS 33:1
Gen003.htm
NUMBERS 33:52
Gen012.htm
DEUTERONOMY 2:23
Gen054.htm
DEUTERONOMY 5:21
Gen028.htm
DEUTERONOMY 7:13
Gen051.htm
DEUTERONOMY 11:14
Gen051.htm
DEUTERONOMY 14:1
Gen039.htm
DEUTERONOMY 14:3
Gen051.htm
DEUTERONOMY 16:13
Gen051.htm
DEUTERONOMY 18:9
Gen129.htm
DEUTERONOMY 18:10
Gen129.htm
DEUTERONOMY 18:11
Gen129.htm
DEUTERONOMY 19:19
Gen049.htm
DEUTERONOMY 20:16
Gen019.htm
DEUTERONOMY 21:8-21
Gen048.htm
DEUTERONOMY 22:25
Gen048.htm
DEUTERONOMY 28:39
Gen051.htm
DEUTERONOMY 31:9
Gen003.htm
DEUTERONOMY 32:4
Gen008.htm
DEUTERONOMY 32:4
Gen042.htm
DEUTERONOMY 32:5
Gen039.htm
DEUTERONOMY 32:18
Gen003.htm
JOSHUA 1:7
Gen003.htm
JOSHUA 10:40
Gen019.htm
JUDGES 6:11
Gen127.htm
JUDGES 6:12
Gen127.htm
JUDGES 6:13
Gen127.htm
JUDGES 6:14
Gen127.htm
JUDGES 6:15
Gen127.htm
JUDGES 6:16
Gen127.htm
JUDGES 6:36
Gen127.htm
JUDGES 6:37
Gen127.htm
JUDGES 6:38
Gen127.htm
JUDGES 13:4
Gen051.htm
JUDGES 13:7
Gen051.htm
JUDGES 13:14
Gen051.htm
2 SAMUEL 22:1
Gen003.htm
1 KINGS 18:39
Gen003.htm
2 KINGS 10:15-27
Gen051.htm
2 KINGS 11:18
Gen012.htm
2 KINGS 14:6
Gen003.htm
1 CHRONICLES 16:26
Gen004.htm
2 CHRONICLES 9:21
Gen053.htm
2 CHRONICLES 23:17
Gen012.htm
NEHEMIAH 9:6
Gen004.htm
JOB 1:6
Gen039.htm
JOB 1:21
Gen019.htm
JOB 2:1
Gen039.htm
JOB 3:11
Gen019.htm
JOB 4:19
Gen018.htm
JOB 4:19
Gen019.htm
JOB 10:9
Gen018.htm
JOB 10:9
Gen019.htm
JOB 28:24-26
Gen018.htm
JOB 36:26-29
Gen018.htm
JOB 38:4
Gen004.htm
JOB 38:4-7
Gen006.htm
JOB 38:4-7
Gen008.htm
JOB 38:5
Gen004.htm
JOB 38:7
Gen007.htm
JOB 38:7
Gen039.htm
JOB 40:15
Gen011.htm
PSALM 2:7
Gen003.htm
PSALM 2:7
Gen012.htm
PSALM 2:8
Gen043.htm
PSALM 2:8
Gen044.htm
PSALM 2:9
Gen044.htm
PSALM 8:3
Gen026.htm
PSALM 8:3-8
Gen026.htm
PSALM 11:3
Gen005.htm
PSALM 18:1
Gen003.htm
PSALM 19:1
Gen026.htm
PSALM 22:9
Gen019.htm
PSALM 29:10
Gen045.htm
PSALM 32:8
Gen128.htm
PSALM 33:6
Gen004.htm
PSALM 33:6
Gen026.htm
PSALM 33:9
Gen004.htm
PSALM 33:20
Gen027.htm
PSALM 35:6
Gen008.htm
PSALM 37:4
Gen126.htm
PSALM 39:5
Gen040.htm
PSALM 39:7
Gen012.htm
PSALM 40:12
Gen033.htm
PSALM 45:7
Gen012.htm
PSALM 46:6
Gen002.htm
PSALM 47:2
Gen002.htm
PSALM 58:3
Gen019.htm
PSALM 70:5
Gen027.htm
PSALM 72:9
Gen029.htm
PSALM 73:20
Gen012.htm
PSALM 87:5
Gen002.htm
PSALM 89:7
Gen039.htm
PSALM 89:11
Gen004.htm
PSALM 90:2
Gen006.htm
PSALM 90:4
Gen009.htm
PSALM 104:2
Gen004.htm
PSALM 104:5-9
Gen045.htm
PSALM 104:14
Gen051.htm
PSALM 104:15
Gen051.htm
PSALM 110:1
Gen012.htm
PSALM 115:9
Gen027.htm
PSALM 119:105
Gen128.htm
PSALM 139:6
Gen018.htm
PSALM 139:7
Gen018.htm
PSALM 139:8
Gen127.htm
PSALM 139:13
Gen020.htm
PSALM 139:14
Gen020.htm
PSALM 148:2
Gen006.htm
PSALM 148:5
Gen006.htm
PROVERBS 3:5
Gen126.htm
PROVERBS 3:5
Gen128.htm
PROVERBS 3:5-6
Gen126.htm
PROVERBS 3:5-6
Gen128.htm
PROVERBS 3:6
Gen128.htm
PROVERBS 3:18
Gen024.htm
PROVERBS 15:4
Gen024.htm
PROVERBS 16:33
Gen126.htm
PROVERBS 17:21
Gen003.htm
PROVERBS 20:1
Gen051.htm
PROVERBS 21:1
Gen126.htm
PROVERBS 24:27
Gen027.htm
PROVERBS 31:6
Gen051.htm
ECCLESIASTES 3:21
Gen022.htm
ECCLESIASTES 12:7
Gen019.htm
SONG OF SOLOMOM 6:1-8
Gen001.htm
ISAIAH 2:4
Gen041.htm
ISAIAH 2:22
Gen019.htm
ISAIAH 8:1
Gen041.htm
ISAIAH 8:6-11
Gen013.htm
ISAIAH 10:9
Gen054.htm
ISAIAH 13:10
Gen010.htm
ISAIAH 27:1
Gen028.htm
ISAIAH 29:16
Gen018.htm
ISAIAH 34:11
Gen008.htm
ISAIAH 34:11
Gen009.htm
ISAIAH 40:12
Gen010.htm
ISAIAH 40:22
Gen004.htm
ISAIAH 40:22
Gen010.htm
ISAIAH 40:31
Gen127.htm
ISAIAH 42:5
Gen019.htm
ISAIAH 43:1
Gen018.htm
ISAIAH 43:1
Gen019.htm
ISAIAH 44:2
Gen019.htm
ISAIAH 45:9
Gen018.htm
ISAIAH 45:9
Gen019.htm
ISAIAH 45:18
Gen004.htm
ISAIAH 45:18
Gen009.htm
ISAIAH 48:16
Gen012.htm
ISAIAH 49:23
Gen029.htm
ISAIAH 54:9
Gen041.htm
ISAIAH 55:10
Gen018.htm
ISAIAH 55:11
Gen018.htm
ISAIAH 57:16
Gen019.htm
ISAIAH 64:6
Gen040.htm
JEREMIAH 1:5
Gen020.htm
JEREMIAH 4:23-26
Gen008.htm
JEREMIAH 4:23-26
Gen009.htm
JEREMIAH 4:24
Gen010.htm
JEREMIAH 11:20
Gen023.htm
JEREMIAH 17:9
Gen046.htm
JEREMIAH 17:10
Gen023.htm
JEREMIAH 31:33
Gen020.htm
JEREMIAH 47:4
Gen054.htm
EZEKIEL 14:14
Gen041.htm
EZEKIEL 14:20
Gen041.htm
EZEKIEL 26:19
Gen008.htm
EZEKIEL 28:1
Gen028.htm
EZEKIEL 38:2
Gen052.htm
EZEKIEL 38:2
Gen053.htm
EZEKIEL 38:6
Gen052.htm
EZEKIEL 44:21
Gen051.htm
DANIEL 1:8-16
Gen051.htm
DANIEL 4:35
Gen126.htm
DANIEL 9:11
Gen003.htm
DANIEL 9:13
Gen003.htm
HOSEA 5:7
Gen003.htm
HOSEA 6:7
Gen046.htm
HOSEA 6:7
Gen047.htm
JOEL 2:2
Gen008.htm
JOEL 2:2
Gen009.htm
AMOS 5:26
Gen012.htm
AMOS 6:2
Gen054.htm
JONAH 1:1
Gen127.htm
JONAH 1:2
Gen127.htm
JONAH 1:3
Gen127.htm
MICAH 7:17
Gen029.htm
ZECHARIAH 4:14
Gen038.htm
MALACHI 1:1-3
Gen117.htm
MALACHI 4:4
Gen003.htm
MATTHEW 4:16
Gen008.htm
MATTHEW 5:17
Gen049.htm
MATTHEW 5:20
Gen049.htm
MATTHEW 5:21
Gen049.htm
MATTHEW 5:38
Gen049.htm
MATTHEW 11:19
Gen051.htm
MATTHEW 19:1-6
Gen031.htm
MATTHEW 19:3-6
Gen012.htm
MATTHEW 19:4
Gen006.htm
MATTHEW 22:30
Gen039.htm
MATTHEW 24:27
Gen041.htm
MATTHEW 24:37
Gen041.htm
MATTHEW 24:37-39
Gen045.htm
MARK 12:26
Gen003.htm
LUKE 1:15
Gen020.htm
LUKE 1:41
Gen020.htm
LUKE 1:44
Gen021.htm
LUKE 1:46
Gen022.htm
LUKE 1:47
Gen022.htm
LUKE 3:36
Gen041.htm
LUKE 3:36-38
Gen038.htm
LUKE 3:38
Gen031.htm
LUKE 4:6
Gen031.htm
LUKE 10:27
Gen022.htm
LUKE 17:26
Gen041.htm
JOHN 1:1-3
Gen004.htm
JOHN 1:1-3
Gen005.htm
JOHN 1:3
Gen005.htm
JOHN 1:3
Gen007.htm
JOHN 3:19
Gen008.htm
JOHN 3:19
Gen009.htm
JOHN 8:12
Gen010.htm
JOHN 11:35
Gen034.htm
JOHN 14:9
Gen022.htm
ACTS 7:2
Gen069.htm
ACTS 10:11
Gen127.htm
ACTS 10:12
Gen127.htm
ACTS 10:13
Gen127.htm
ACTS 10:15
Gen127.htm
ACTS 10:17
Gen127.htm
ACTS 10:19
Gen127.htm
ACTS 10:20
Gen127.htm
ACTS 13:1
Gen127.htm
ACTS 13:2
Gen127.htm
ACTS 13:3
Gen127.htm
ACTS 14:8
Gen005.htm
ACTS 15:6
Gen127.htm
ACTS 15:7
Gen127.htm
ACTS 15:12
Gen127.htm
ACTS 15:13
Gen127.htm
ACTS 15:22
Gen127.htm
ACTS 15:24
Gen127.htm
ACTS 15:25
Gen127.htm
ACTS 17:26
Gen031.htm
ACTS 26:18
Gen031.htm
ROMANS 1:18
Gen006.htm
ROMANS 1:18
Gen029.htm
ROMANS 1:18
Gen033.htm
ROMANS 1:18
Gen036.htm
ROMANS 1:18
Gen038.htm
ROMANS 1:19-20
Gen014.htm
ROMANS 1:20
Gen041.htm
ROMANS 1:23
Gen038.htm
ROMANS 2:18
Gen126.htm
ROMANS 3:20
Gen032.htm
ROMANS 4:1-5
Gen042.htm
ROMANS 4:13
Gen044.htm
ROMANS 4:14
Gen044.htm
ROMANS 5:12
Gen008.htm
ROMANS 5:12
Gen032.htm
ROMANS 5:13
Gen032.htm
ROMANS 5:14
Gen031.htm
ROMANS 8:14
Gen127.htm
ROMANS 8:14
Gen128.htm
ROMANS 8:17
Gen044.htm
ROMANS 8:18
Gen029.htm
ROMANS 8:19
Gen029.htm
ROMANS 8:22
Gen033.htm
ROMANS 8:28
Gen126.htm
ROMANS 8:29
Gen012.htm
ROMANS 8:29
Gen013.htm
ROMANS 8:29
Gen044.htm
ROMANS 9:1-5
Gen118.htm
ROMANS 9:19
Gen126.htm
ROMANS 12:2
Gen014.htm
ROMANS 12:2
Gen128.htm
ROMANS 13:3
Gen049.htm
ROMANS 13:4
Gen049.htm
1 CORINTHIANS 2:9
Gen022.htm
1 CORINTHIANS 2:14
Gen022.htm
1 CORINTHIANS 2:14
Gen023.htm
1 CORINTHIANS 6:9
Gen044.htm
1 CORINTHIANS 6:10
Gen044.htm
1 CORINTHIANS 8:6
Gen004.htm
1 CORINTHIANS 11:3
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1 CORINTHIANS 11:8
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1 CORINTHIANS 11:9
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1 CORINTHIANS 15:21
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1 CORINTHIANS 15:21
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1 CORINTHIANS 15:22
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1 CORINTHIANS 15:22
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1 CORINTHIANS 15:22
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1 CORINTHIANS 15:24
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1 CORINTHIANS 15:25
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1 CORINTHIANS 15:38
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1 CORINTHIANS 15:39
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1 CORINTHIANS 15:44
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1 CORINTHIANS 15:49
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1 CORINTHIANS 15:49
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2 CORINTHIANS 3:18
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2 CORINTHIANS 3:18
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2 CORINTHIANS 4:3
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2 CORINTHIANS 4:4
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2 CORINTHIANS 4:4
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2 CORINTHIANS 4:6
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2 CORINTHIANS 5:14
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2 CORINTHIANS 6:14
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2 CORINTHIANS 9:8
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2 CORINTHIANS 12:9
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GALATIANS 3:29
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GALATIANS 3:29
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GALATIANS 4:1
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GALATIANS 4:6
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GALATIANS 4:7
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GALATIANS 4:18-20
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GALATIANS 5:18
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GALATIANS 5:18
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GALATIANS 5:22
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GALATIANS 5:23
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EPHESIANS 1:11
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EPHESIANS 1:11
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EPHESIANS 1:11-14
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EPHESIANS 1:13
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EPHESIANS 1:14
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EPHESIANS 2:1
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EPHESIANS 2:1-3
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EPHESIANS 2:2
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EPHESIANS 2:8
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EPHESIANS 2:8
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EPHESIANS 2:9
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EPHESIANS 5:5
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EPHESIANS 5:9
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EPHESIANS 5:17
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EPHESIANS 5:18
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EPHESIANS 5:19
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EPHESIANS 6:6
Gen128.htm
PHILIPPIANS 4:6
Gen129.htm
COLOSSIANS 1:13
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COLOSSIANS 1:16
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COLOSSIANS 1:16
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COLOSSIANS 1:16
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COLOSSIANS 1:16
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COLOSSIANS 1:16
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COLOSSIANS 1:16
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COLOSSIANS 1:17
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COLOSSIANS 1:17
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COLOSSIANS 1:17
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COLOSSIANS 2:9
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COLOSSIANS 3:10
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COLOSSIANS 3:10
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COLOSSIANS 3:16
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COLOSSIANS 3:17
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COLOSSIANS 3:24
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1 THESSALONIANS 4:3
Gen126.htm
1 THESSALONIANS 5:18
Gen126.htm
1 TIMOTHY 2:6
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1 TIMOTHY 2:8-14
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1 TIMOTHY 2:8-15
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1 TIMOTHY 2:13
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1 TIMOTHY 2:14
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1 TIMOTHY 4:10
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1 TIMOTHY 5:23
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TITUS 3:5-7
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HEBREWS 1:2
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HEBREWS 1:4
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HEBREWS 4:12
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HEBREWS 5:8
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HEBREWS 7:9
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HEBREWS 7:10
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HEBREWS 9:24
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HEBREWS 11:3
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HEBREWS 11:3
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HEBREWS 11:4
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HEBREWS 11:5
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HEBREWS 11:7
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HEBREWS 11:7
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HEBREWS 11:7
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HEBREWS 11:7
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HEBREWS 11:8
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HEBREWS 12:15-17
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HEBREWS 12:24
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1 PETER 1:3
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1 PETER 1:4
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1 PETER 1:5
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1 PETER 3:17
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1 PETER 3:18
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1 PETER 3:18-20
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1 PETER 3:20
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1 PETER 5:7
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2 PETER 2:4
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2 PETER 2:5
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2 PETER 2:5
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2 PETER 3:3-5
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2 PETER 3:4-6
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2 PETER 3:8
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1 JOHN 1:5
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1 JOHN 1:9
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1 JOHN 2:2
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1 JOHN 2:7
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1 JOHN 2:28
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1 JOHN 4:17
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1 JOHN 4:18
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1 JOHN 5:19
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REVELATION 1:8
Gen018.htm
REVELATION 2:7
Gen024.htm
REVELATION 4:1
Gen126.htm
REVELATION 12:7-17
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REVELATION 12:9
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REVELATION 21:1
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REVELATION 21:4
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REVELATION 22:1
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REVELATION 22:2
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REVELATION 22:3
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Genesis
LEGEND: "a" = summary lessons, "b" = exegetical analysis, "c" = topical doctrinal studies
Genesis-001Overview: Blessing and Cursing; The Origins of
God's Chosen People
Genesis-002God and Man in Genesis
Genesis-003Who Wrote Genesis? Genesis Overview
Genesis-004Creation and Restoration Genesis 1:1-2:3
Genesis-005Beginnings
Genesis-006Beginnings
Genesis-007God; Creation Words; Pagan Cosmogonies
Genesis-008The Gap View. Gen 1:1
Genesis-009The Gap View; Day Age View
Genesis-010Systematic Creation
Genesis-011Restoration-Creation
Genesis-012Creation of Humanity
Genesis-013Man and Dominion. Gen 1:16-2:3
Genesis-014Creation and Evolution: Irresolvable Conflicts
Genesis-015Creation and Evolution: Monkeys
Genesis-016Creation and Evolution: Time; Dating; Age of Things
Genesis-017Creation of Man
Genesis-018Creation of Man. Gen 2:4-7a
Genesis-019The Origin and Transmission of Human Life. Gen 2:7
Genesis-020When Does Human Life Begin? Gen 2:7
Genesis-021The Uniqueness of Man. Gen 2:7
Genesis-022The Soul: Immaterial Part of Man. Gen 2:7
Genesis-023The Makeup of the Soul
Genesis-024Perfect Environment; Sufficiency; Volition
Genesis-025Divine Institution 1: Human Responsibility
Genesis-026Doctrine of Divine Institutions
Genesis-027Responsible Labor
Genesis-028Temptation and Fall. Gen 2:25-3:7
Genesis-029Confrontation and Consequences
Genesis-030The Consequences of the Fall. Gen 3:14-24
Genesis-031Adam's Original Sin; Introduction
Genesis-032Adam's Original Sin: Imputation
Genesis-033The Problem of Evil
Genesis-034The Problem of Evil
Genesis-035The Problem of Evil
Genesis-036Cain: The Expansion of Unbelief; Gen. 4:1-16
Genesis-037Cain: Expansion of Civilization; Gen. 4:16-26
Genesis-038The Doctrine of Civilizations
Genesis-039Sons of God; Nephilim; Demonic Attack; Gen. 6:1-3
Genesis-040Nephili
Genesis-041The Flood: Grace
Genesis-042Corruption and Construction; Gen. 6:9-22
Genesis-043Personal Sense of Destiny; Inheritance; Heb 11:7
Genesis-044 Inheritance, II
Genesis-045The Flood; Universality; The Ark; Gen. 6-7
Genesis-046The Noahic Covenant; Gen. 6:18; 8:1, 20-9:17
Genesis-047Noahic Covenant; Dispensation of Human Gov’t; Gen. 9:1-17
Genesis-048 Doctrine of Capital Punishment, I; Gen. 9:1-17
Genesis-049Doc of Capital Punishment, II; Gen. 9:1-17
Genesis-050The Prophecy of Noah’s Three Son’s; Gen. 9:18-29
Genesis-051Noah’s Vineyard: The Doctrine of Drinking; Gen. 9:18-29
Genesis-052The Table of Nations; Japheth; Gen. 10:1-4
Genesis-053The Enlarging of Japheth; Gen. 10:1-5
Genesis-054The Descendant of Ham; Gen. 10:6-20
Genesis-055First Attempt at Internationalism: Babel; Gen. 11:1-7
Genesis-057The Descendants of Shem; Gen. 10:22-32; 11:10-058
Genesis-058Importance of Gen. 1-11; Review
Genesis-059Review Importance of Creation, Gen. 1
Genesis-060Review: Sin, Evil, Reality, Gen. 2-3
Genesis-061Review: Judgment: Grace and Salvation
Genesis-062Review: Evidence of the Flood; Young earth vs
old earth
Genesis-063Review: Babel, Genesis of Kosmic Thought I,
Gen 10,11
Genesis-064Review: Babel, Genesis of Kosmic Thought II,
Gen 10,11
Genesis-065Overview: Abraham: Friend of God, Gen 11:26-
25:11
Genesis-066Avram’s Background, Birth; Gen. 11:26-32
Genesis-067A New Covenant; A New Dispensation; Gen. 12:1
Genesis-068Called Out: Doctrine of Separation; Gen. 12:1
Genesis-069Walking by Faith; Gen 12:1; Acts 7:2; Heb 11:8
Genesis-070Abram: Worldwide Blessing; Gen. 12:1-4
Genesis-071Abram and the Land Promise; Gen. 12:4-9
Genesis-072Facing Adversity without Stress; Gen. 12:10-17
Genesis-073Stressbusters Reviewed, Gen 12:10-17
Genesis-074Dr. Dean's last class taught at Preston City Bible
Church before moving to West Houston Bible Church. November 10, 2004
Genesis-077Facing Adversity, Consequences of Stress. Genesis 12:10 December 28, 2004
Genesis-078Self Protective Strategies. Genesis 12:10 January 04, 2005
Genesis-079bDynamics of Spiritual Advance. January 11,
2005
Genesis-080b Test: Application of Grace-Orientation. Genesis 13:1-18 February 1, 2005
Genesis-081b Faith Rest Drill & Grace Orientation Mechanics. Genesis 13:1-18. February 8, 2005
Genesis-082b Utilization of Grace Orientation. Genesis 13:
February 15, 2005
Genesis-083b Blessing by Association. Genesis 14: 1-17 March 01, 2005
Genesis-084b Blessing by Association Part 2. Genesis 14: 14-20 March 08, 2005
Genesis-085c The Truth About Tithing, The Test of Gratitude. Genesis 14: 17-24 March 15, 2005
Genesis-086c Is Tithing for Today? Genesis 14: 17-24 March 29, 2005 Genesis-087c Grace-giving: Gratitude and
Generosity. Genesis:14:18-20 April 05, 2005
Genesis-088b The Priestly Order of Melchizedek. Genesis 14:17-24 April 12, 2005
Genesis-089b Imputation; Justification. Genesis 15:6 April 26, 2005
Genesis-090b The Doctrine of Imputation. Genesis 15:6 May 10, 2005
Genesis-091b "Cutting" the Abrahamic Covenant. Genesis 15:7-20 May 17, 2005
Genesis-092b Hagar: The Human Solution is a Defective Solution. Genesis 16 May 24, 2005
Genesis-093b Ishmael: Sins Unintended Consequences. Genesis 16 May 31, 2005
Genesis-094b Angel of the Lord; Grace Orientation. Genesis 16:7-16; June 14, 2005
Genesis-095b Divine Sufficiency; Omnipotence. Genesis 17:1-8 June 21, 2005
Genesis-096b The Doctrine of Circumcision. Genesis 17:2-14; July 5, 2005
Genesis-097b Promise and Faithfulness. Genesis 17:15-27 July 12, 2005
Genesis-098b Hospitality; Fellowship Meals; Omniscience and Omnipotence. Genesis 18:1-15 July 19, 2005
Genesis-099b Grace Orientation, Impersonal Love, Intercessory Prayer. Genesis 18:16-33 August 09, 2005
Genesis-100a Paganism and Homosexuality: Cultural Self-Destruction. Genesis 19:1-14 August 16, 2005
Genesis-101a Paganism and Homosexuality: Cultural Self-Destruction. Genesis 19:1-14 August 23, 2005
Genesis-102b Sodom: The Attraction and Judgment of Pagan Culture. Genesis 19 August 30, 2005
Genesis-103b Sodom: The Attraction and Judgment of Pagan Culture. Genesis 19 September 6, 2005
Genesis-104What the Bible Teaches about Homosexuality. Genesis 19 September 13, 2005
Genesis-105b Fear: HVP vs DVP Solutions. Genesis 20 September 20, 2005
Genesis-106b God is Faithful. Genesis 21:1 September 27, 2005
Genesis-107b Grace Orientation: Blessing to Others. Genesis 21:22 October 11, 2005
Genesis-108b Testing, Vindication, Spiritual Growth. Genesis 22:1 October 18, 2005
Genesis-109b Faith Rest Drill; Abraham's Final Exam. Genesis 22:1-19 October 25, 2005
Genesis-110b Confident Expectation: No Turning Back. Genesis 22:20-24; 23:1-20 November 1, 2005
Genesis-111b God Provides a Bride for Isaac. Genesis 24: November 8, 2005
Genesis-112A Abraham, Friend of God. Genesis 25: November 15, 2005
Genesis-113A Abraham, Tested for Growth. November 29, 2005
Genesis-114A God's Faithfulness: What happened to Isaac? Gen. 25:19 - 35:29 December 13, 2005
Genesis-115b Birth or Jacob; Election Gen. 25:19 - 26 December 20, 2005
Genesis-117b Selection of Jacob: Salvation or Blessing; Malachi 1:1-3, Romans 9-11; January 3, 2006
Genesis-118b Election of Jacob in Malachi; Romans 9:1-5; January 24, 2006
Genesis-119b Birthright, Inheritance; Genesis 25:27-32, and Hebrews 12:15-17. February 7, 2006
Genesis-120b Isaac: Faith Rest and Grace Orientation Test; Genesis 26: February 14, 2006
Genesis-121b Deception and Unintended Consequences; Genesis 27:1-41 February 21, 2006
Genesis-122b Doctrine of Separation; Genesis 27:41 - 28:22 February 28, 2006
Genesis-123b Stairway to Heaven; Genesis 28:11-22 March 21, 2006
Genesis-124b Divine Guidance; Divine Discipline. Genesis 29. March 28, 2006
Genesis-125b God's Sovereign Grace. Genesis 29. April 4, 2006
Genesis-126b Divine Guidence and the Will of God. Genesis 31. April 11, 2006
Genesis 127b Divine Guidence and the Will of God Part 2. Genesis 31. April 18, 2006
Genesis-128b Wisdom and Decision Making Part 3. Genesis 31. April 25, 2006
Genesis 129b Balaam and the Will of God. Numbers 22. May 2, 2006
Genesis-130b People Testing: Divine Direction. Genesis 31:1-21. May 9, 2006
Genesis-131b People Testing; Spiritual Skills. Genesis 31:22. May 16, 2006
Genesis-132b Testing; Growth, Maturity, Service. Genesis 31:22. May 23, 2006
Genesis-133b Resolving Family Conflict. Genesis 31:17-31. May 30, 2006
Genesis-134b Humility and Orientation to God's Authority. Jun 6, 2006
Genesis-135b Humility, Reconciliation. Genesis 33:1-20. Jun 13, 2006
Genesis-136b Corrupted by the Kosmic System. Genesis 35: Jul 13, 2006
Genesis-137b Dynamics of Human Failure and Divine Faithfulness. Genesis 35
Genesis-138a Divine Faithfulness. Genesis 25:19 - 35:29 Jul 25, 2006
Genesis-139a Joseph: Divine Providence. Genesis 25:19 - 35:29
Genesis 140b Dreams and Visions. Genesis 37:2 Aug 8, 2006
Genesis-141b Reap what you Sow. Genesis 37:18 - 36 August 15, 2006
Genesis-143b Joseph's Leadership Training. Genesis 37:18-36. August 29, 2006
Genesis-144b Doctrine of Rejection; Grace Orientation. Genesis 37. September 5, 2006
Genesis 145b Providence, Protection and Provision. Genesis 38. September 12, 2006
Genesis 146b Providential Preparation. Genesis 39. September 26, 2006.
Genesis-147b Dreams, Providence, and Patience. Genesis 40. November 28, 2006
Genesis-148b Suffering for Blessing: Divine Promotion. Genesis 41. December 12, 2006
Genesis-149b Exposing Guilt for Forward Momentum. Genesis 42. December 19, 2006
Genesis-150b Guilt, Grace, Forgiveness, Restoration. Genesis 43. December 26, 2006
Genesis-151b Confession, Cleansing, Recovery, then Repentance. Genesis 43. January 2, 2007
Genesis-152b Confession in the OT. Genesis 42. January 23, 2007
Genesis-153b Confession Prayers of Ezra, and Nehemiah. Genesis 42.
Genesis-154b Forgiveness and Restoration of Trust. Genesis 42-43. February 13, 2007
Genesis-155b Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Genesis 45-46. February 20, 2007
Genesis-156b Wilberforce, Slavery, and the Bible. Genesis 47. February 27, 2007
Genesis-157b Forgiveness; Wisdom; Discipline on a Nation. Genesis 47. March 6,2007
Genesis-158b Preparation for Death. Genesis 48. March 27,2007
Genesis-159b Jacob's Prophecy: Reuben. Genesis 49:1-4. April 3,2007
Genesis-160b Jacob's Prophecy: Simeon, Levi, Judah. Genesis 49:5-12. April 10,2007
Genesis-161b The Lion of Judah; Zebulon; Issachar. Genesis 49:8-14. April 17,2007
Genesis-162b Dan: Serpent to Israel. Genesis 49:15-16. April 24,2007
Genesis-163b Dan: Samson and Idolatry. Genesis 49:15-16. May 1,2007
Genesis-164b Dan and the Development of Idolatry. Genesis 49:15-16. May 8,2007
Genesis-165b Lucky, Happy and the Wrestler. Genesis 49:17-19. May 15,2007. May 15,2007
Genesis-166b Future Trends for Joseph. Genesis 49:17-19. May 22,2007
Genesis-167b Jacob's Blessing: Benjamin. Genesis 49:27,28. May 29,2007
Genesis-168b The Tribes in History and Prophecy. June 26,2007
Genesis-169b Doctrine of Dying, Prepared and Dying Grace. July 10,2007
Genesis-170c Dying, Preparation,Dying Grace, and Grieving. July 17,2007
Genesis-171c Dying: Death and Grieving. Genesis 50:1. July 24,2007
Genesis-172b Burial of Jacob; Death of Joseph. Genesis 50. July 31,2007
001-Overview: Blessing and Cursing; The Origins of God's Chosen People
LEGEND: "a" = summary lessons, "b" = exegetical analysis,
"c" = topical doctrinal studies
The author of Genesis is Moses. Moses is the one who put together the final rendition or the final edition of the Pentateuch. That does not mean that everything in Genesis was originally written by Moses, as we will see. There are ten points in the Hebrew text where it uses the word toledot, and it is usually translated, “these are the generations of, this is the history of,” and most scholars believe that these sections were taken from scrolls, oral history, and written history that went all the way back to Adam. So when Moses was in the wilderness with the Israelites during the 40 years of divine discipline before the nation could enter the land he had in his possession there earlier documents. Under inspiration, under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit, he took from those documents the information he needed in order to present the history of Israel. So Moses is the final author, he wrote between 1446 BC, the time of the exodus, and 1446 BC which is about the time he went to be with the Lord. During that time he penned the entire Pentateuch which is a term that refers to the first five books of the Bible—Genesis through Deuteronomy, sometimes referred to as the Torah or the Law, the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses.
The title “Genesis” as we have it in our English Bible really derives from the Latin Vulgate. The Hebrew title is taken from the first word in the first verse. It is the Hebrew word bereshith. It is the preposition be, meaning “in,” and then the term “the beginning.” It doesn’t have a definite article there because in Hebrew when you attach a preposition as a prefix to the word it supplants or replaces the definite article. So it should be translated “In the beginning,” the Hebrew title for the book. The Latin Vulgate derived the title from the phrase, “The book or the history of,” the translation in the Vulgate of toledot, Biblos Genesios, meaning “The book of beginnings.” As such it emphasizes the origins, that Genesis is the book of origins.
Moses wrote this to Israel. This is important to understand to catch the framework for why Genesis was written. There are a number of reasons that we could come up with but the primary reason is that Moses is sitting out in the wilderness with about two to three million Jews who are about to go into a land that God has promised them, and they are going to go into military conflict and take this land forcibly from its possessors, the Canaanites. So the question he is answering is: Why us? What is our right to the land? What is the source of divine blessing? What is the historical basis for God’s covenant with Israel? So he goes back to the beginning. But the thrust of this book has to do with the beginnings of Israel. That is why it is divided the way it is. The first eleven chapters have to do with the beginnings of mankind, and then it is from chapter twelve to chapter fifty that you get the emphasis on the four individuals, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. So if we look at where the emphasis lies we can see that there is a lot of information and time covered in those first eleven chapters that Moses just seems to skip over—it leaves us with a lot of questions—but the thrust in those chapters is simply to provide an introduction to why God calls Abram in Genesis chapter twelve.
Genesis is the book of beginnings, and there are numerous beginnings in Genesis.
1) It is the beginning of the space-time continuum. Before Genesis 1:1 there is just God and the third heaven, there is no universe, no such thing as space or time.
2) It is the beginning of the universe. He creates a space-time continuum, which is a special location for the universe.
3) It is the beginning of our solar system.
4) It is the beginning of vegetation and animal life on planet earth.
5) It is the beginning of earth as the home for the human race, not necessarily the beginning of earth as a planet but the beginning as a home for the human race.
6) It is the beginning of the human race.
7) We see the beginning of the institution of marriage.
8) We see the beginning of the institution of family.
9) We the first sin and the beginning of sin.
10) We see the first divine judgment on sin.
11) We see the announcement of God’s plan of salvation.
12) We see the beginning of law and the judicial system.
13) We have the beginning of economics—buying and selling, and principles that should undergird all economic theory.
14) We have the beginning of labor. Labor begins before the fall.
15) We have the beginning of society and social structures.
16) We have the beginning of language and learning.
17) We have the beginning of cities and the first urban development.
18) We have the beginning of God’s grace because man is no longer deserving and is fallen.
19) We have the beginning of animal sacrifice as a picture of the future work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
20) We have the beginning of music.
21) We have the beginning of metallurgy.
22) We have the beginning of demonism.
23) We have the beginning of idolatry.
24) We have the beginning of globalism and internationalism, and the first United Nations comes about in chapter eleven.
25) We have the beginning of government and national distinctions.
26) We have the beginning of Israel, the Jews as a distinct race.
When we look at the overall structure of Genesis there is a literary organization of the text that occurs in the Hebrew. It is not necessarily obvious in the English because the English translators do not always translate the Hebrew in the same way. The Hebrew word is toledot. Sometimes it is translated “record,” sometimes “generations,” sometimes “history.” But the best way to understand this is “these are the records of so and so,” or “this is what happened to so and so.” So these are structural markers that occur throughout Genesis. The first occurs in 2:4, “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth,” and it should be translated “This is what happened to the heavens and the earth.” After God creates [recreates] the heavens and the earth in Genesis chapter one, and you have perfect environment on the restored earth, what happens? How did it get from perfect environment to the state it is in now? That is covered from 2:4 to 4:16. Then in 5:1 we have “This is what happened to, or this is the record of, Adam and Adam’s descendants,” and that goes down to 6:8 which is where the flood is announced. Then in 6:9 we have, “This is what happened to Noah,” and we have there the story of the world-wide flood. In 10:1 to 11:9 we have, “This is the record of Noah’s sons.” That concludes with the episode at the tower of Babel. From 11:10 to verse 26, a short section, there is the record of Shem and his descendants. That concludes with Terah, the father of Abram. In 11:27 we have, “This is the record of Terah and his decendants,” and that goes down to the death of Abraham in 25:11. From 25:12 to verse 18, another very short section, “This is what happened to Ishmael.” This is not tracing the line of the seed but it is going to wrap up the loose ends related to Ishmael and his descendants. Then from 25:19 to 35:29 we have, “This is what happened to Isaac and his descendants,” and that includes Jacob. In 36:1 to 37:1 we have Esau. From 37:2 to the end of the book, 50:26, we have what took place for Jacob and his descendants, and that entire section focuses on Joseph.
By way of an overview we organize Genesis into two basic sections. The first revolves around four events. This is the primeval history of mankind. The word “primeval” means early, or ancient. We have four events covering the history of mankind or the Gentiles, starting with creation and the restoration; the fall; the flood; and the story of the tower of Babel. That is the primeval history of mankind, the introduction to the book. The second section revolves around four people. This is the patriarchal history of Israel—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.
The theme of Genesis is the theme of blessing. What is blessing? What does blessing mean? Blessing in the Scripture is not just happiness, it is the place of life—real, genuine life—in relationship to the creator, happiness, a place of enrichment and prosperity. Especially in the Old Testament there is a strong element of physical and financial prosperity and enrichment. In contrast to blessing we have the theme of cursing which is to be defined as the imposition of a barrier to life and happiness. Often this cursing is judicial in nature, it is the judgment of God.
The creation and restoration in Genesis 1:1-2:3. We see the beginning of the universe in 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” But there is something amiss by the time we get to verse 2, which should be translated “And the earth became formless.” Something takes place, there is now darkness on the planet, and this indicates there has been some element of divine judgment. Then God the Holy Spirit begins to move on the face of the waters in verse 2 and there is restoration. In the face of cursing in the second verse there is restoration and blessing in verse 3. Specifically we are told in chapter one that animal life was blessed, human life was blessed, and the seventh day, the Sabbath, is blessed. There are three specific blessings in this chapter. Mankind begins in a state of blessing, a state of perfect environment and a state of harmony with God. Mankind, we are told in verses 26 and 27, is created in the image and likeness of God. Man is created in order to represent God to the creation and to rule the creation. The fall begins in 2:4 and it is in this verse that we have our first toledot. Chapter two is a repetition of creation from a different perspective and it sets the stage for chapter three. The focal point of chapter two is the creation of the man and the woman, and the test of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It sets the stage to the fall so it is the precursor to the fall and in that chapter we see the beginning of human responsibility, the first divine institution; we see the beginning of marriage, the second divine institution. Then chapter three is the episode of the fall itself. So there is the loss of the original state of blessing that is replaced by the curse on sin. A curse from a biblical viewpoint, remember, is defined as a barrier that is erected in a position to prevent blessing. A curse in Scripture is God’s announcement of divine judgment on people as a result of their disobedience to Him. It is an explanation of the consequences of sin. The penalty for sin is spiritual death. The curse that is outlined in Genesis 3 is the outline of God’s judgment for sin on the different people who were involved.
The first toledot covers the section from 2:4 down to 4:26 and it actually covers more than simply the fall. It goes down through the early civilization section which takes place prior to the fall in Genesis 3 and 4. This shows the outworking of sin on the human race. There is the episode of Cain versus Abel in chapter 4 where Abel is obedient to God and Cain is disobedient to God, and as a result of Cain’s disobedience there will be cursing upon Cain and he will be cut off from others on the earth. Abel is murdered but is replaced in terms of a believer in the family line by the birth of Seth. Adam has other children and they marry one another. There is intermarriage at this time, there is no difficulty or problem between siblings. In fact, there is not a law against siblings until you get to the Mosaic law and we will discuss the reasons for that when we get there. In the early stages of the human race when there were limited options there was intermarriage within the family. It seems strange to us but when you look at what the options were there weren’t any. In chapter three is the development of chaos within the family as a result of sin, and there is cursing.
Then we come to the second toledot in 5:1: “This is the book of the genealogy of Adam.” Chapter five really describes the area leading up to the flood. This is what happens to Adam’s descendants and it begins with blessing. It reminds us of the status of blessing which Adam enjoyed at the creation: “In the day that God created man He made them in the likeness of God.” He created them male and female, blessed them, and called them mankind in the day they were created. Then we are reminded again and again as we read through this chapter that that blessing has been turned to cursing, and we are reminded of death at every step of the way, that each of these men died. So death and cursing pervades the fifth chapter. It is a reminder that the earth is not what it was originally created to be and that the reason that there is evil, suffering and death in human history is because of Adam’s decision to disobey God. And that evil increases in the world at this time because men get further and further away from God, and the more that mankind disobeys God, the more they get away from the Lord, the more there is a fragmentation of society and the more that chaos enters into human history. This is exemplified finally by the time we get down to chapter six when there is a demonic invasion of the human race. As a result of that the Lord makes a comment in verse 5: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” So there is no hope for the entire human race, with the exception of Noah and his immediate family, and a few others who all die before the flood. But the second toledot ends with a note of hope in verse 8: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” So 6:1-8 announces the extreme curse of catastrophic world-wide death/judgment on man that would come through a world-wide flood.
This brings up the third toledot, the toledot of Noah which begins in 6:9 and extends to 9:29. Again, the theme is judgment, cursing, divine judgment on the entire world with the exception of Noah and his family through the world-wide flood. But nevertheless there is blessing in the midst of cursing. God’s grace preserves a remnant in Noah. It is through that remnant, and through Noah who functions as a second or new Adam that God will begin to repopulate the earth. What we see in the episode of the flood is a restoration of the chaos that occurred in the original primeval chaos of Genesis 1:2 where the earth was covered with water. So the flood restores the earth to the primeval chaos of judgment on Satan. Noah is a new Adam. He is set to repopulate the earth, and at this point God institutes a new covenant with Noah. He promises that there will be no more global watery destruction, that there will be meteorological stability for the most part, and delegates responsibility to mankind to govern himself. So with the Noahic covenant we have the beginning of the fourth divine institution which is human government. Nevertheless, though God has blessed Noah and his sons in 9:1, man is still sinful. At the end of the chapter we discover that Noah gets drunk from the wine of his vineyard, and then there is the episode where he is found lying naked in his tent and his grandson comes in and covers him.
There is an interesting twist at the beginning in Genesis one where Adam and the woman are naked and are not ashamed. Now nakedness is something to be ashamed of and something to be covered, and by treating that lightly there is a curse placed upon Canaan. This clearly reveals the disrespect that Canaan has for his grandfather, and it reveals certain tendencies in his line that will become more evident, specifically in the Canaanites. When Ham comes in to cover him Noah doesn’t curse Ham, he curses the grandson, Canaan, because he knows that these tendencies that the father showed are going to be developed more fully through Canaan. What is happening when Moses is writing this? Moses is in the plains of Moab and the Israelites are getting ready to go into the land to take it forcibly and violently from the Canaanites. So there is a rationale developing for why the Canaanites are not worthy to keep the land, because they have become so perverse and so sinful that it is now time for God to remove them in divine discipline.
So there are three sons of Noah: Ham, Shem and Japheth. Ham is not cursed but one of his sons, Canaan is cursed because of his father’s misbehavior in relationship to Noah’s drunkenness. Then the other two sons are blessed. Noah blesses Shem in v. 26, “And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.” It is through Shem that the Hebrews come, that revelation comes, that the Bible comes, that redemption comes through Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christianity therefore is going to have its largest impact on Japheth, the Gentile descendants that we would relate to mostly western Europeans, and mostly North Americans are descendants of Japheth.
In chapter 10:1 we have another toledot: “This is what happened to the sons of Noah.” So 10:1-11:9 is going to tell us what happens to the sons of Noah as a whole, and this focuses on their failure to disperse and the curse of the division of languages which begins national distinctions. That takes place at Babel where instead of expanding and filling the earth as they were commanded to do mankind decides to unite, they are going to make a stand against God, disobey God; they are not going to voluntarily take control of the earth, so God has to scatter them. He announces that judgment in 11:4.
Then we come to the fifth toledot, which is still part of the Babel episode—this section between the flood and Abraham. It is given in 11:10. “This is the genealogy of Shem.” This sets the stage for God’s renewal of blessing through the descendants of Shem. The genealogy here goes from verse 10 down through verse 26 where it talks about Terah, so it is specifically Abraham through whom God’s redemptive plan will transpire.
This brings us to the second major division of the book where we talk about the four people in the patriarchal history of Israel. It introduces the sixth toledot, beginning with Terah in 11:27 and goes down through 25:11, and that whole section really tells the story of Abram who is renamed Abraham. It is, again, and extension of the theme of blessing and cursing but now it is localized to Abraham and his seed. In Genesis 12:3 we read, “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curse thee lightly.” This takes us to the Abrahamic covenant which is specifically divided into three sections: a land promise, a seed promise, and a blessing promise. We need to pay attention to these three words (land, seed, blessing) because these three ideas: the tracing of the land promise from generation to generation; the tracing of the seed, God’s preservation of the seed through Isaac, Jacob and Joseph; and then we find the motif throughout this last part of Genesis of how God blesses the descendants of Abraham, and He blesses by association those who are friendly to them and He judges those who are hostile to them.
Starting in 12:10 through 15:21 the emphasis is on the land. God is going to develop this theme and show how He is going to protect and preserve the land for Abraham and his descendants. So there is an emphasis on the land, and first there is a famine test. Abram leaves and goes down to Egypt. Rather than relying upon God he decides he is going to handle the problem on his own and he leaves the land. So God has to work to destroy his human viewpoint strategy and get him back to the land. Then in chapters 13 & 14 there is a problem developing with Lot, his nephew. Abraham is to divide and separate from Lot. God told Abraham, “And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.” So there is the promise of the land and the division of the land. Then in chapter 14 there is the invasion of the land by the kings of the east. It is Abraham who eventually destroys the armies of the four kings. He came back and instead of giving a tribute to the king of Sodom he gives tribute by way of the tithe to Mechizedek. His name means King of Righteousness. He was the king of Salem, which is now Jerusalem, and he is seen as a religious leader. In chapter 15 God reaffirms and confirms His covenant with Abraham. This is where the Abrahamic covenant is actually, formally ratified. There is an emphasis on the land. God continuously throughout this period says, This land is yours, I am promising to give you this land. And as Abraham understood that to be a physical piece of land, we should too.
There is an emphasis on the seed through chapters 16-21. There is a human viewpoint solution to the seed in the 16th chapter where Sarah suggests that Hagar should be taken as Abraham’s wife, so he follows her instructions, gets himself in trouble, Hagar is pregnant and she gives birth to Ishmael. This, of course, is the beginning of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In chapter 17 we have the introduction of circumcision as the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. This is to keep the line distinctive, that there would be a distinctiveness to the Jewish males because of circumcision. Then in chapters 18 & 19 is the episode of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorah. This is the protection of the seed. God is going to protect the seed from coming under their perverted influence. Next is a second human viewpoint solution in chapter 20 where Abraham is living near the Philistines. He has Sarah pose as his sister. But Abimelech closes the wombs of all the Philistine women, and he wakes up realizing that something is going on and that Sarah is actually Abraham’s wife. Sarah is kept from possible sexual relations with someone else and the interference with the promise of the seed. Then in chapter 21 there is the birth of the seed: Isaac. Abraham is then tested in chapter 22 where Abraham is told to take his only son and sacrifice him. Abraham is willing to do that, when know from Hebrews 11, because he knows that God can raise Isaac from the dead. His faith is now so strong that he understands that God’s plan will come to pass whether he sacrifices Isaac or not. God, of course, stays his hand, provides a substitute ram in the bush which is a picture of Jesus Christ who dies on the cross as our substitute.
Then we have the conclusion of this section in chapters 22-25 where Abraham purchases land for burial for Sarah, and this is a sign or guarantee for future ownership of the land. The seed is protected because Isaac gets a wife, Rebecca, and than Abraham blesses Ishmael and sends him on his way, and this shows that God is going to protect the land from any kind of inheritance conflict and protect the seed from conflict with Ishmael.
The seventh toledot is in chapters 25:12-18 which ties up the loose ends related to Ishmael and his descendants. That covers up to Abraham.
Then we come to Isaac. Not much is said about Isaac. Most of what we know about him is really told in terms of the story of Jacob. This is the eighth toledot, 25:29-35:29, it covers Isaac and Jacob. Isaac is 40 years old when he marries Rebecca. Initially she is barren. This is a major theme that runs through here, the women are all barren. But that is to show that God is a God who brings life where there is death, He brings blessing where there is cursing, and due Isaac’s prayer and his dependence upon the promise to Abraham God opens Rebecca’s womb. She conceives and the story of the seed continues. Isaac abuses his birthright, trades it for a bowl of pottage, and that shows that he has no concern or care for his inheritance in relationship to Abraham. There is a test of famine in chapter 26. Isaac keeps the family in the land, which is a sign that he has learned something at least from his father’s leaving the land during times of famine. He goes and associates himself with the Philistines and is a blessing to others. In chapter 27 there is the story of the deception and manipulation to get the blessing, where Isaac tells Esau to go hunting and bring back some wild game for his favorite meal. By this time Isaac is very old, is blind, can’t hear well, but he wants his favorite son Esau to make him a good meal of wild game. When Esau is gone Rebecca comes along and because she wants her favorite, Jacob, to get the blessing she creates a deception and the manipulation works. The thing is that God was going to bless Jacob anyway, so what we see here is God’s grace and His control of history which overrides all the manipulations and deceptions of mankind. Jacob has to flee because Esau is understandably angry with him. He flees to his relative, his uncle Laban in the area of Mesopotamia, and there he finds a wife, Rachel, and the perpetuation of the seed. In the story of Jacob in chapters 28-35 we have his conflict with Laban. Laban is a conniving, deceiving, duplicitous man who just cheats his nephew in any way he can. Remember Jacob’s name means “heel-grabber, the deceiving one.” Jacob ends up working 14 years for two women, and then another six years to get his finances in order, and during that time Jacob is blessed by the Lord. His flocks, his herds all multiply, despite the conniving of Laban. Finally, Jacob flees Laban, he needs to get back home, and God blesses and protects him.
During this time Jacob has twelve sons and one daughter, and these become the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel. These twelve sons had no spiritual interest whatsoever, they are on negative volition and in rebellion against God, and when they get back to Canaan they want to take Canaanite wives. Abraham and Isaac and their wives, Sarah and Rebecca, had made sure that their children would not marry Canaanite women. That would destroy the line. But there is no concern here for maintaining the distinction from Canaanite culture among the 12 sons. Judah marries a Canaanite wife. Several others marry Canaanite women, and this is why God is going to ultimately take them to Egypt. It is to protect the line because in Egypt the Egyptians hated the Jews. They were extremely prejudiced against the Jews and wouldn’t even eat in the same room with the Jews. So they didn’t want to have anything to do with the Jews and that would preserve the line so that there wouldn’t be this intermarriage with the pagan Gentiles and introduce false religious beliefs into this line of redemption that God was developing.
The ninth toledot comes up at the end of this episode with Jacob. It deals with Esau, mentioned twice (36:1 & 36:9), and in chapter 36 what happens to the descendants of Esau. That is important because it establishes the identity of all of Israel’s future neighbors.
In chapters 37-50 we come to the story of Joseph. We have the various tests of Joseph. Initially he is given these dreams and visions where he can understand what God’s plan is for his life. He tells his brothers because he is not very humble and so he fails the humility test. They get angry at him, sell him into slavery, and he is taken down into Egypt. This time there is an interlude and Judah, one of the brothers who wanted to kill him, is tested. His sons end up marrying Canaanite and they die because they are so wicked that God kills them both. Tamar, one of the wives of his sons, survives. She is supposed to be married to the third son. Judah forgets all about that so she prostitutes herself, disguises herself, and he goes to her as a prostitute. She gets pregnant and it eventually comes back on Judah. It shows that Judah’s evil is judged and righteousness is established. Judah is going to turn around as a result of that and become a hero later on. After that there is a second cycle of suffering and testing. Joseph still remains faithful. He is sold into slavery, he is faithful to Potiphar, despite his wife’s advances on Joseph, and he is faithful to God.
Joseph is thrown into prison and tries to get the butler, also imprisoned, to help get him our when he is freed. In other words, he is relying on his own scheming to get out rather than resting in the provision of God. Then after he is finally released and because he correctly interprets dreams about the future of Egypt, Pharaoh elevates him to the second highest position in the land. There are seven good years during which time he administers the kingdom and he builds tremendous storehouses. When the seven years of famine begin in all of the Middle East, everyone has to come to Egypt to get grain because he has done such an excellent job of storing the grain.
Back home Jacob and the boys are growing hungry so Jacob sends the boys, except for Benjamin, down to Egypt to get grain. They come across their brother but they don’t recognize him. This is another test for Joseph. Is he going to yield to mental attitude sins of vindictiveness? Is he going to want top destroy his brothers? Or is he going to treat them in grace and blessing. Of course, he treats them in grace. He tells his servants to put all of their money back in the grain bags. This was a test for the brothers to see if they had learned honesty. As they head home they discover they have all this money back in their bags and they know they are going to get in trouble. But they go home and tell their father about it, and when they run out of grain their father sends them back and they take all the money back to show their honesty. They don’t know they are being tested. It shows that over time they finally got the picture and decided that they were going to have some integrity in their lives.
They get back on the second journey. Joseph had told them that when they come back to bring their younger brother. Jacob doesn’t want to release the youngest son, his favorite, he has already lost one son; he thinks Joseph is dead. The brothers had left Simeon there. They were just going to leave Simeon to hang out to dry there, it seems, but Jacob sent them back to get Simeon out of hick, as it were. They brought all of the money back that had been restored to them, plus more money to purchase grain. When they come back the test that Joseph has for them is, will they still protect Bejamin’s life? In other words, have they learned their lesson of brotherly love. They have and they pass the test, especially Judah.
In chapters 45-50 is the epilogue which shows how the Jews ended up in the womb of Egypt and how God is going top protect them and preserve them in the midst of the famine, and how God is going to use that time to make a great nation of them. All of this sets the stage for the beginning of the book of Exodus.
What do we learn from this?
1) That Jesus Christ controls history, that no matter what man does God controls history.
2) Blessing and cursing in history is ultimately related to God’s plan for Israel.
3) God’s grace overcomes all obstacles, evil plots, conniving, manipulation, mental attitude sins of mankind. God’s grace overcomes everything; nothing is too great for the grace of God.
4) God’s plan of redemption cannot be thwarted by human schemes. God will bring about our redemption, He will bring about our salvation, because it is not dependent upon who we are or what we have done but on who He is and what He has done.
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002-God and Man in Genesis
We have to keep in mind the context of Genesis, that this is the prologue, as it were, the introduction to the Pentateuch which provided the foundation for the nation Israel. So in Genesis Moses is answering the question that is being asked: Where did we come from? Why are we as Jews the special people? What is God’s plan for us? What gives us the right to the land? God clearly addressed why they were going to go into the land and why there was a reason for them to annihilate every man, woman and child among the Canaanites, and what gave them a right to take that land from the Canaanites. This is the function of Genesis, to explain why God had to call out a special nation from among all of the nations, what the purpose for that nation was, and how God would use that nation to bless all of the nations. So the foremost message that we get in Genesis, if we want to summarize much of it, is to the Jew. In other words, if you were a Jew sitting on the plains of Moab about to go into the land of Canaan, about to go into battle and take this land from its current inhabitants, then what would you be learning as the main idea from Genesis? That would be that the God who created all things, the God who created man, the God who sustains all things, is the same God who called Abraham, the same God who created Israel as a nation, the people as a new race, and it is the same God who sustains Israel through all her travails. We can take that a step further in terms of application for us, that the same God who created all things from nothing, the same God who sustains the universe, the same God who can bring about the incredible judgments of the flood, the judgments against Sodom and Gomorah, is the same God who can protect us and preserve us, no matter what crises we encounter, no matter what national travail we may go through, no matter what kind of difficulty men and women may face in combat, is the same God who sustains the universe and who sustains Israel and is the same God who can sustain us and protect us.
Having said that there is a tremendous amount in Genesis that we can learn about God. What do we learn about God? This is one of the main reasons that Moses wrote Genesis: to teach the Jews about this God who had called them out and what that God could do. We learn a number of things about God in Genesis but the first way we learn about God is by observing the names of God in Genesis. Remember that to a Jew, a Hebrew, to someone in the ancient world, a name is not simply nomenclature, not simply a tag. A name says something about its inherent nature, its essence, its character. The names of people said something about their character, their background, their attributes, and so the names for God tell us something about who He is and what He can do.
Eleven different names that are used in Genesis to refer to God, primary names that are used of God to teach us, and would have taught the Jews, something about who this God was who had called them as a nation.
1) El or Elohim is the standard or generic name in Semitic languages for deity. The word El is roughly a cognate for the Arabic word Al or Allah. But that does not mean that they are the same God. The form Elohim where you have that plural ending him, that indicates plurality. Writers often emphasize that the term Elohim is a plural of majesty, so don’t try to read the Trinity into this. But in disagreement with that, in many places this plural noun is used—e.g. Genesis 1:26, 27, “and God [Elohim] said, Let us make man in our image.” So you not only have a plural noun but a plural pronoun that goes along with it. Although that does not necessarily teach the Trinity it certainly suggests a plurality in the Godhead. That is later developed and there are other passages on the Old Testament that give a much clearer indication of the Trinity, but to just dismiss this as a plural of majesty does it a tremendous amount of injustice.
2) The second word that we find in the text is the word Yahweh. Elohim is used in Genesis chapter one exclusively, you do not find any other name for God in the chapter, and it is not until Genesis chapter two that we are introduced to the title, or God’s personal name, Yahweh. This is based on the sacred tetragrammaton, which means four letters, because in early Hebrew especially there were no vowel points. All there they had were consonants. So there were four letters: YWH. What has happened is that over the years there have been a tremendous number of Germans working on Hebrew. There were a number of Jews living in the area of Germany who have contributed to this. Remember that in German the Y is written with a J, and the W is pronounced like a V. So that is where the letters J and V are picked up, and then you had JH and VH. Another word that is used in Hebrew which is a generic term for Lord, is the Hebrew word Adonai. It was actually vocalized as having more of an E at the front. So if the vowels E, O, and A are inserted you come up with the name Jehovah. But Jehovah is not a Hebrew word at all, it is a compound of Yahweh plus Adonai. The Jews treated the name of God with reverence, so they would never pronounce Yahweh. Actually they added different vowel points so that the vowel points would remind the reader to read Adonai instead of Yahweh. It was that compound of the consonants from one name and the vowel points from another name that produced this sort of hybrid word, Jehovah. This is one of the problems with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They think that you have to pray everything to Jehovah but Jehovah doesn’t really exist! Yahweh is the personal name for God, and it is emphasized as the covenant name for God for Israel. So whenever they see that name it is going to remind them that this is the God who entered into a personal covenant relationship with Abraham and with Moses, and that this is the God who is the specific God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The key verse for Yahweh is found in Exodus 3:14, “I AM WHO I AM.” This name Yahweh is based on the Hebrew verb hayah, the verb to be or to exist. So it is generally understood that the name of God emphasizes His existence, that it refers to God as the self-existent one and that He is the one who has no beginning and no end.
3) Frequently we have these first two names in compound: “The LORD God,” Yahweh Elohim. You will always know when Yahweh is at the back of the English word Lord, because in most English Bibles they will make those four letters L-O-R-D in small caps. If you see a name for God, Lord or God, in small caps what underlines that in the Hebrew is the term Yahweh. So Yahweh Elohim takes the generic term God and focuses it on the Yahweh who is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
4) Genesis 14:18, 19, 20, 22, “The Lord God Most High.” “Most High” is the term El Elyon. This name emphasizes the exalted status of God, that He has overwhelming power. It emphasizes His supreme majesty, and it was the sin of Lucifer to want to be like the Most High. It is referred to in the Psalms. It is El Elyon who is the place of shelter. He is the Rock in the midst of our adversity, our ever present help in time of trouble. In the Psalms it id God who is referred to as El Elyon who has the deepest concern for Israel and for Zion: Ps. 46:6; 87:5. In Genesis 14:22 God is referred to first as the Lord God Most High [El Elyon], and then He is described as the possessor of heaven and earth. That word translated “possessor” is the Hebrew word which means to own something, to possess something, to acquire or purchase something. So it refers to God as the Most High God, the owner of heaven and earth, that He is above all gods and everything that occurs in heaven and earth is under His dominion and under His sovereignty. So this term, El Elyon, is going to emphasize God as the owner of the heavens and the earth and therefore the one who has the right to rule the heavens and the earth. Several times in the Psalms God is referred to as the Most High God, El Elyon: Ps. 47:2, His parallel to a great king, emphasizing His sovereignty, His rule over the universe; 97:9; 91:1, 9, an emphasis on the protection of God for all believers; 78:35.
5) El Roi, Genesis 16:13, Hagar says, “You are the God who sees.” She uses the verb to see to indicate God’s perceptiveness about people. He knows the future, He knows Hagar’s predicament, and He comes along and predicts her future and the future of her son, Esau. He is the God who sees, and the God who sees her travails and her problems and difficulties is the same God who sees and knows about all of our difficulties and problems.
6) El Shaddai. This term is used twice in Genesis, 17:1 & 35:11, and it means God the Almighty. It emphasizes God’s power. This term is used most often in Job. It is used 48 times in the Old Testament, 31 of them in Job. Job is the book where we see the hero, Job, going through the most difficult suffering imaginable. It is in the context of that suffering that God is referred to as God the Almighty, that He is more powerful than any difficulties we can face in time. The name emphasizes His omnipotence, His ability to perform whatever He desires.
7) El Olam, the eternal or everlasting God, Genesis 21:33. Here it emphasizes God’s attribute of eternal life, that God has neither beginning nor ending. He is the self-existent one, not simply an uncaused cause; He is a person. He has no beginning and no ending and all of His attributes are infinite.
8) Jehovah-jireh, which actually in the Hebrew is Yahweh-jireh. It is found in Genesis 22:14 in the context of Abraham following God’s command to sacrifice Isaac. The emphasis in the name is that God supplies all of our needs, especially our need for salvation.
9) Yahweh the God of the heavens, Genesis 24:7. That indicates his sovereignty over all of the heavens, that God is the king of the heavens, the ruler of the heavens, the ruler of the earth and the affairs of mankind.
10) El Elohe Israel, the God of Israel, Genesis 33:20.
11) The final name is really a title, a description of God, “The Shepherd or Rock of Israel.” Genesis 49:24. This emphasizes God as the leader of Israel, the shepherd of Israel. He is the one who takes care for Israel. It is God who protects and provides for Israel in the wilderness. It emphasizes His role as the leader and protector of Israel.
These eleven names and titles emphasize the character and attributes of God that are learned in the book of Genesis.
There are several different attributes of God that are emphasized in the book of Genesis.
1) The first is that God is a living God who is deeply involved in His creation. So that the laws of nature are really the laws of God, the laws that He set in motion and that He continues to watch over, and the laws that He continues to sustain. God is eternally existing and He is distinct from all creation: Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” This statement stands in marked contrast to every other statement in the ancient world or even modern times about creation.
2) We see God in Genesis as one who interacts with man. He comes and walks in the garden in the cool of the day and teaches Adam and the woman before the fall. He is the one who seeks out and takes the initiative to spend time with him, to find out what the problem was after they disobeyed Him. He is the one who takes the initiative to provide a solution to the problem that man has created. It is God who speaks, it is God who sees, it is God who hears the problems of man, it is God who rests at the end of the creation week. God is intimately involved with His creation. He interacts with mankind throughout creation. We see this in Genesis chapters 1, 2,3, 17, 18, and other chapters.
3) He is the one who created mankind as a reflector of Himself. Man is created in the image and likeness of God. We are to reflect God’s character, His attributes, we represent God. We were originally created to represent God and to rule over creation—Genesis chapter one.
4) God is the one who enters into the human arena with a human form and human acts—Genesis 12, 18, 32. This shows the divine initiative of grace.
5) He reveals Himself. God is not hiding from man. He is not playing sort of a cosmic hide and seek game with man. He is continually giving testimony to Himself. The psalmist says the heaven declare the glory of God. Paul says in Romans 1 that the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen in the creation. If people don’t see God it is because they don’t want to see God. Yet He is the one who is continuously seeking man, saving man, disclosing Himself and revealing Himself to mankind.
We see the emphasis on the sovereignty of God in Genesis.
1) God is the ruler of the heavens and the earth, the one who disposes as He wills. He is called the Most High God, as we have seen already. He is, as we see in Genesis 1, the creator of everything. There is nothing in the heavens or on the earth that does not owe its existence and its sustenance to God. He controls everything.
2) We see His acts in Genesis 1 as a God who names some things and individuals. He names the light day and the darkness night. His naming of things indicates His control. He determines the limits, the animals will procreate after their kind. He determines the limits, the boundaries of the waters and the land, and He determines nature. It is God who determines that something that is what it is, it is not what it is because of chance. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you believe the Scriptures, if you believe that Genesis one is a clear statement of a seven day creation and restoration, as we will see, then if you look at an oak tree you do not se the same tree that an unbeliever sees. You see leaves and acorns and branches, but what you see is something that was intricately created and designed by God, and what they see is something that is there by pure random chance. That means that whatever else is said about that tree believers do not see the same thing as unbelievers. The implication of that is profound because that means there is no neutral ground. We cannot go out there in the creation and say, Well let’s find some common ground in the creation we can agree on. We can’t agree on anything. The tree you see and believe in is not the tree they see. What they see is the product of time and chance and it just happens to be there. What you see is something that was purposely put there and designed that way by an omnipotent, sovereign God. And that makes all the difference in the world.
3) God sets forth mandates and prohibitions for all things. After creating the animals in Genesis chapter one He says they are to multiply according to their kind, and He blesses them and gives an order to all living things to be fruitful and multiply. This indicates that He rules, nothing is there by chance.
4) God brings about judgment in the curse. When He is disobeyed He judges that disobedience, and He outlines the consequences of that disobedience in the curse in Genesis chapter three. He brings about judgment on the evil of man at the time of the world-wide flood under Noah. He brings about another judgment on rebellious mankind at the tower of Babel. And He brings about judgment on Sodom and the cities of the plain.
5) God is able to prophecy and predict the future, indicating His control of human history. God controls human history and brings about His purposes in history, and that is why He can prophecy the future—Genesis chapters 15 & 46.
6) God disposes of people and property. He gives Canaan to His people. Notice that He gives Canaan the right to the land. He tells Abraham in Genesis 12 that their evil has not reached its fullness yet, so He does not take the land away from the Canaanites until the proper time, and then He takes it away and gives it to His people. This shows that God has the right to determine who will live where and who own what property.
7) God promises kings to Sarah. He says, You will have kings that come forth from you. He is able to control who their descendants are and what their powers will be—Genesis 17.
8) God controls people’s dreams. Abraham has dreams in Genesis 15; Jacob has dreams in Genesis 28, 31; Joseph interprets dreams in chapters 37, 40, 41. God controls people’s dreams and communicates through those dreams.
9) God establishes and removes people in political power. He raises up some and He removes others. Genesis 41, God sustains Abimelech in his rule over the Philistines.
10) He tests people—Genesis 22. He tests Abraham’s faith by ordering him to sacrifice his son, Isaac.
11) God rules over nations, economies, and life—Genesis 40-41. Ultimately, economics are not determined by the market, they are determined by God.
12) God chooses whom He will bless. He chose to call out Abraham; He chose to make a special people out of Abraham; He chose to bless him. The choosing of Abraham did not involve his eternal salvation, it involved God’s special plan for Abraham and his descendants, that God would bless them and use them to bring about His redemptive plan.
Then we see an emphasis that God is omnipotent throughout Genesis.
1) He is the one who creates the heavens and the earth, and every detail within the earth. God is in control of all of the details of creation, and certainly God can oversee the details in our lives.
2) He creates the human race, mankind, and sustains mankind. God is all-powerful.
3) He prevents Enoch from dying in Genesis chapter five. Enoch walked with the Lord and he was not. He did not die, he just walked off into heaven with God one day.
4) He controls the time and the duration and the extent of the world-wide flood at the time of Noah.
5) He protects Abraham--Genesis 15—from the assaults of the four kings.
6) God controls the womb. In many cases He closes the womb so that Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel could not give birth. This is not because God was mean-spirited, but God was teaching that He alone brings life where there is deadness. It is a picture of our spiritual life where there is spiritual death. Genesis 20, 21, 25, 30.
7) God controls the fertility of the flock, so that when Jacob is raising his flock separate from Laban’s flock, and Laban sets up conditions, all of a sudden all then sheep are giving birth to spotted lambs. So Jacob is blessed. Whatever conditions Laban set up Jacob continued to prosper because God is the one who controls the fertility of the flocks.
8) God is the one who can cripple a man. He cripples Jacob with simply the touch of His hand—Genesis 32.
Then we see that God is righteous and just in Genesis, that He is not a capricious God but a God who is righteous and just in contrast to the gods of the Gentiles.
1) He punishes disobedience with death. Spiritual death is the punishment for the disobedience of Adam and the woman in the garden of Eden.
2) God is the one who announces a just judgment on sin or disobedience to Him. So He applies His righteous standard to the affairs of mankind.
3) He punishes Cain for murder, but because it is at such an early stage of the human race He does not take Cain’s life but puts a mark on him and protects him. That is a sign of God’s graciousness in Genesis.
4) We see in Genesis 6 that God destroys the inhabitants of the earth because man is evil and the thoughts of his heart are evil continuously.
5) God scatters the nations because of their rebellion—Genesis 11.
6) He curses and blesses people due to how they treat Abraham’s seed. This is a major theme throughout the rest of Genesis. Blessing by association.
7) God refuses to judge the innocent along with the guilty. He will not judge Lot and his family if they are righteous along with all the unrighteous in Sodom and Gomorah.
8) Go treats the kings of the earth justly. When Abraham goes to Abimelech and says Sarah is his sister God warns Abimelech and instead of destroying him He protects him, He treats him justly, even though Abimelech is an unbeliever.
9) God is the one who protects and vindicates His people. Rachel and Leah, the two daughters of Laban, are treated unjustly by their father Laban, yet God vindicates them and they finally leave and head back to the promised land. Jacob works for Laban and even though he is treated harshly and mistreated by Laban, God protects and ultimately vindicates Jacob.
10) God made things right for Joseph, even though Joseph was unjustly charged and unjustly imprisoned. Eventually he was released and placed in the second highest position in Egypt. God exercised His righteousness toward Joseph and so the supreme court of heaven took care of the details. It was not up to Joseph to vindicate himself.
We see an emphasis in Genesis on the grace of God
1) God provides everything for mankind in the perfect environment of the garden. There is nothing left to chance. God always supplies everything, His grace is sufficient.
2) Then, after their disobedience, God provided a physical covering for them, the sinners, despite their disobedience, and He provides salvation and life for mankind. They do not deserve it or earn it but God graciously provides.
3) He protected Cain from avengers and put a mark on him to warn off those who would avenge him, that they would suffer the justice of God if they avenged the death of Abel.
4) He gave grace to Noah and the earth. It took Noah 120 years but it was a 120-year warning period to warn the earth about the coming judgment. It was during that time that Noah and his sons went throughout the world preaching the gospel and yet there was no one who responded.
5) He remembered Noah in Genesis 8 and Abraham in Genesis 19, and God blessed them and protected them.
6) God provided water and protection in the wilderness for Hagar in Genesis 16.
7) God preserved the righteous in the covenant in chapter 19.
8) God intervenes time and time again when people fail, chapters 12, 20, 26, and he always supplies what is needed.
9) He freely established His covenant and blessed deceptive Jacob.
10) It is God who graciously sent angels to watch over and protect Jacob in Genesis 28 32. He watches over and protects us even when we don’t deserve it, even when we are in rebellion.
11) He gave prosperity to Jacob in chapter 33; He prospered him.
12) He blesses Egypt with the future knowledge of a coming famine, and provided Joseph as someone to lead them through the crisis in chapters 39ff.
Finally, we learn 8 things about mankind.
1) Man is created with a mortal body framed from the dust of the earth.
2) Man’s immaterial nature comes directly from the breath of God.
3) Human life is composed of biological life, the physical life formed from the chemicals of the soil, plus soul life, the immaterial life that is breathed into man by God. This makes man in the image of God. He is unique from all other creatures because his life comes from God.
4) Man is the image of God, and this term refers to his function, not his form—his function and his fellowship with God. He is to serve God and obey God, and he is to rule over creation and administer the kingdom for God.
5) Man was created male and female and they are to compliment each other. The man is the leader and the woman is to assist him in fulfilling the mission that God has given them.
6) Man is created perfect, but his disobedience destroys the perfection of the universe and brings horrendous consequences upon himself and the universe. His sin doesn’t just affect himself, it doesn’t just bring a fall to man, it affects the animal kingdom, nature, everything in creation. That one bad decision that Adam made reverberates throughout the entire universe.
7) Man now has a disposition for evil, toward rebellion, toward self-sufficiency and autonomy. Man is a rebel against his creator and seeks to be like the Most High, following in the footsteps of Lucifer.
8) That means that man is in desperate need of a savior. But it is God in His initiative who is going to provide a savior and provide salvation.
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003-Who Wrote Genesis? Genesis Overview
We continue with what is still an overview and we focus on one particular subject and answer a question: Who wrote Genesis? We need to remember that all doctrine is important to us even though all doctrine is not immediately applicable or relevant. It is always relevant at some point and in some way—all Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. That includes, even as we will see, the genealogies in Genesis. The second reason this is important is that this will at the very least strengthen your confidence in the Scriptures, that the Scripture is what it claims to be, i.e. the Word of God, the revelation of God, God revealing Himself to man. So this should strengthen confidence in the historical reliability and veracity of Genesis. Then, you might never know when you might need to know this. You may be challenged by somebody in the future and you will fall back on this information. You never know when you might need this. Many will have children or grandchildren who are going to run into this in their classroom, and your knowledge will forearm them for that eventuality. This information should be transmitted in prep-school in the category of Christian evidences. We also need to have this on file just in case anybody needs the information.
The challenge to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is not simply something that is doctrine only in some sort of ivory tower university classroom somewhere, but it comes home in odd little ways to haunt people. Just about any movie you see which has to do with biblical themes is going to be advised by somebody who buys into this theory that we are talking about. This is constantly being brought up as a challenge to biblical truth. And the reason it is important is that if the Bible isn’t what it claims to be, if the Pentateuch isn’t what it claims to be as the writings of Moses, if we can’t trust that, then how can we be sure we can trust anything else that is covered in Genesis, especially when it comes to the first eleven chapters. So it is important to understand this issue.
To summarize, the prevailing view in modern liberal [those who do not believe that the Bible is the God-breathed revelation of Himself to man] scholarship is that the Bible is just a natural product of human ability and instead of being God’s revelation to man it is man’s record of his religious experiences. The Mosaic authorship is rejected because their presupposition is that God just doesn’t communicate like this to man. Instead of Mosaic authorship they believe that the Pentateuch is was actually written by a series of authors, multiple authors, and these authors are identified by basically four letters. It is called the JDEP view of the Pentateuch. So instead of Moses writing the Pentateuch there were at least four different authors and then some editor of redactor comes along several hundred years later and sort of blends all these things together.
The background on this. Up until the nineteenth century it was almost universally believed that Moses was the author of Genesis and the Pentateuch. The Jews and Christians both believed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. But at that time many trends that had their source in the 17th century and the birth of the Enlightenment came together and culminated in a world view that is known as naturalism. In naturalism you have the view that everything has a natural cause within the creation. God does not speak within the creation. God is outside the box and God never speaks in the box, and so everything happens and is caused by events in the box. The first person to challenge Mosaic authorship was a Jewish rationalist by the name of Spinoza. Following Spinoza there were several who put forth different views. One man came along at the beginning of the seventeen hundreds and said, You can identify the different backgrounds by looking at the fact that one author prefers to use the title of Elohim for God and another author prefers to use the name Yahweh. So they identify two different sources there. Then, by the end of the 18th century there was a German scholar by the name of Eichhorn who came along and distinguished two other sources. So you have the J source which is the writer who prefers the name of Yahweh, and then you have the E source for the man who prefers the name Elohim. Then D would be the Deuteronomist, the person who puts together Deuteronomy and adds a few other things in some other books. And then you have a priest who comes along and adds more liturgical information and talks about sacrifices, and he adds that material later on.
The basic motivation here is to discredit the Bible. They make a basic assumption. The hidden assumption that they approach all the evidence with is a presupposition of anti-supernaturalism. They assume from the get go, without any evidence or data, that God can’t speak to man, that there is no such thing as a miracle, that there is no such thing as the supernatural. This is indicated by a quote by Miller Burrows who was one of the men who worked on the Dead Sea scrolls and was a professor at Yale university: “The excessive skepticism of many liberal theologians stems not from a careful evaluation of available data but from an enormous predisposition against the supernatural.” That is their agenda. They do not believe that God will, could, or can (if He exists) communicate to man. Therefore when they look at the data, no matter how wonderful or convincing the data is, they are not convinced because God by definition cannot, will not, and would not communicate with man. Second, their agenda is to discredit Mosaic authorship because if Moses did not write the Pentateuch and the Bible is not what it claims to be, then they have destroyed the veracity of the early chapters of Genesis. Therefore man is not what the Bible says he is. There is no such thing as God, no basis for the atonement. It is an attempt to destroy everything else in the Bible.
By the late 19th century there were two German theologians, K.H Graf and Julius Wellhausen, who came along and popularized this view. At that time they would say that the J author wrote about 850 BC, the E writer wrote about 750 BC, the D writer wrote about 621 BC, and then the priestly writer wrote about 570. But within 20 or 30 years, by the time you get into the 20th century, those dates are all out and they would say that everything was written after the Babylonian captivity, during the period known as the second temple period, after they returned and rebuilt the temple under Zrubbabel. So this becomes the foundation for what becomes known as 19th century Protestant liberalism. It is a rejection of Mosaic authorship and ultimately a rejection of any divine authorship. And it is an attempt to discredit everything in the Bible. We should be aware of the fact that many people who have written and critiqued their views always point out that across the board they rejected, denied and just ignored archaeological evidence to the contrary. And liberal scholarship has consistently ignored the reputations that have been made available and put in print by conservative scholars, and they have built a theory that is today nothing more than a working hypothesis. But it is the working hypothesis of every liberal theologian, even though the details on which this thing was originally built can no longer be validated. But they can’t throw the whole theory out because if they do the only option left is to believe the Bible! We will see tremendous parallels between this and the whole acceptance of evolution. There is the same manufactured evidence, the same circular reasoning. There is the same fact that back in the early 18th century there were certain positions developed based on certain conjectures, assumptions, certain evidence that they thought was there. That evidence fell apart because of archaeological discoveries in the early 20th century, but the conclusions continue to live.
A major Hebrew scholar of the previous generation critiqued this view in detail, and in his introduction to his book on the documentary hypothesis, he comments, “There was not a scholar by the 1920s who doubted that the Torah was compiled in the period of the second temple. . . . It is true that differences of opinion with regard to details were not lacking. One exegete declared that this source was earlier and another exegete that source was earlier. Some attributed a given section refers to one document and some to another document. Certain scholars divided a verse among the sources in one way, others in another. There were those who broke down the documents themselves into different strata and others who added new sources to those already mention, and so forth. Nevertheless, even though no two scholars held completely identical views, and though these divergences of opinion betrayed a certain inner weakness in the theory as a whole, yet in the basic principles of the hypothesis almost all the expositors were agreed.” Furthermore, Kenneth Kitchen who is one of the foremost British Egyptologists on the scene today, writes in his book on the ancient orient and the Old Testament: “Nowhere in the ancient orient is there anything which is definitely known to parallel the elaborate history of fragmentary composition and conflation of Hebrew literature as the documentary hypothesis would postulate. Conversely, on the other hand, any attempt to apply the criteria of the documentary theorists to ancient oriental compositions that have known history but exhibit the same literary phenomenon, results in manifest absurdity.” In other words, you can’t find any parallel to the modern theory in the ancient world, and you can’t make the modern theory work on anything that we have information on. It is just a theory that has been made up out of thin air.
So what did they set forth as proof? The first proof they set forth was that writing wasn’t known in Moses’ time. This argument soon fell out of use due to archaeological discoveries (However in the 1970s this was still being taught in a university classroom). There were discoveries in 1929 at a place called Ugarit, which is in north-west Canaan, that dated to the same period as Moses. It was a rich discovery of documents and literature demonstrating that in that area there was a tremendous amount of writing taking place. Remember that the exodus took place at approximately 1446 BC. One hundred years after that we have what is known as the Armarna correspondence which is variously dated from about 1350 to about 1250 BC. It was letters that were written from people and some leaders in the Palestine area as they were writing back to the Egyptian Pharaoh and reporting on the circumstances and situation in Palestine. So there are many other evidences. Then in the mid-seventies there was a discovery at a place in Syria called Ebla. At Ebla they discovered a rich library in a palace and many of the names were similar to the names found in the Bible. And that dated from a period of about 2100 BC, some 600 years before Moses.
Second, they had an assumption that there were no known law codes that existed as early as the Mosaic law. Therefore this had to be a fabrication because nobody had such a details technical code that early. However, the code of Hammarabi of Babylon was discovered by archaeologists and the date there was between 1700 and 2000 BC, a good 3-400 years before Moses. Furthermore, in Mesopotamia there was the discovery of what is known as the Lipit-Ishtar code which dates to about 1800 BC, 400 years before Moses. In 1945 there was discovered near Iraq an extremely technical law code written in Akadian that dated to about 2200 BC, approximately 800 years prior to Moses.
Their next assumption was that various names for God indicated different authors. In some passages Elohim is used exclusively. In other passages Yahweh is used exclusively. So they supposed that this must indicate different authors. Examples: Elohim, the generic appellation for God is used exclusively in Genesis 1:1-2:3. There is no other name for God in that section, so they would say Genesis one is the writing of the E document, and then starting in 2:4 is the phrase, “This is the history of … in the day that the LORD God [Yahweh Elohim] made the earth and the heavens.” So that is the first mention of the name Yahweh, and they would say that starting in 2:4 there is the introduction of Yahweh, so this and chapter three were part of the J document. This would be their contention. There is just a slight problem here. There are a lot of technical evidences that could be cited. The facts don’t fit the theory because in chapter three verses 1, 3, 5 is the term “Elohim,” Yahweh is not mentioned there. So obviously that doesn’t fit the hypothesis. Then in chapter four the name Yahweh occurs several more times until the end of the chapter, when all of a sudden Elohim alone is introduced again. So that doesn’t fit the scenario. When we come to the flood story in chapters 6-8 the name Yahweh is used sometimes and then there is a switch to Elohim, so it goes back and forth. That doesn’t fit the theory that they have. Then, in Genesis 15 Yahweh occurs when God is giving His covenant to Abraham. Yahweh, remember, is the covenant name for God in the Old Testament for Israel; it is the name always associated with the covenant. So Yahweh is in Genesis 15 and that would fit the theory. However, in Genesis 17 where God introduces circumcision as the sign of the covenant the name that we find there is not Yahweh but Elohim. Clearly there are changes in the text. Why does the author go back and forth between Yahweh and Elohim? These are not accidental or haphazard, but they are there by design and because of the purpose of the author. They relate to the different roles. Furthermore, the Jews knew that there was only one God. In I Kings 18:39 we have the phrase, “The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God.” The term “LORD” is Yahweh—Yahweh, He is Elohim. They knew Elohim as a generic term but LORD is the name of God, the specific, technical name of the God who is associated personally with Israel and who has entered into a personal covenant relationship with Israel. Elohim is the name that the Gentiles use for God but Yahweh is a term that is specifically associated with God’s relationship to Israel. So when we go back and do an analysis of the use of the terms in Genesis we realize that throughout the Pentateuch Elohim was used when the lessons and material focused on God as the transcendent God, when the emphasis is on God as a more abstract distant God, when the focus is on God as creator of all life, the ruler of all the universe, and the source of life, and when His actions are related to all of mankind. Then Yahweh is used when the lessons and the materials focus on God as the personal, holy, righteous God, when the focus is on the God of Israel who interacts personally in human history, when His specific attributes are in view, when the text is emphasizing the majesty and glory of God, and when the emphasis is on God as a personal God who enters into concrete relationships with man. Genesis 1:1 portrays the transcendent God who created Jew and Gentile alike, but in Genesis chapter two we have the more intimate God who is in the process of creating man and woman in His image and likeness and setting forth the ethical demands of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is the God who is intimately involved with people. Furthermore, an analysis of the names of God in the Scriptures reveal that in the prophets, minor and major, and in the legal literature—Deuteronomy, Leviticus—and much of the poetry except for what is called wisdom literature, Yahweh is used exclusively for God. Elohim is not used alone in those passage, it is always used in conjunction with Yahweh or it is not used at all. Yet in the wisdom literature, like Job and Proverbs, Elohim alone is predominant. There is little mention of Yahweh. Why is that? If we look at all the ancient near eastern literature—Babylonian, Egyptian, Akadian, Persian—this was typical. Whenever they were writing about their particular god they used the technical name of the god, but when they wrote their wisdom literature, which were universal principles of life, they would always use the generic name for their god. This was the standard way of writing throughout the ancient world. Furthermore, this type of distinction continues throughout all Talmudic literature and Rabbinic literature. In that literature which specifically focuses on God and His relationship to Israel they never used the name Elohim, it is always the name Yahweh. So this usage plays out that Elohim is used when the focus is on God and His roles related to all of mankind and Yahweh when the emphasis is on His attributes, His righteous standards, and His specific relationship to Israel. No other ancient near eastern text is ever thought to be compiled in this sort [documentary hypothesis] of patchwork quilt manner. It is ridiculous to even think about applying this to the Mesopotamian creation documents. In fact there, three different deities are mentioned that have double names, just as God has a double name of Elohim and Yahweh, so this is standard operating procedure in ancient near eastern literature with a single author. There is no evidence that the different names for God in the Bible indicate different authors or different sources, but they are used to bring to bear by one author different emphases about the person and character of God.
Another argument is used that there are different styles and different vocabularies in different places which indicate different authors. One argument given is a fairly technical Hebrew argument based upon the use of two different words. You have the phrase “so and so begat somebody else.” There are two different ways this word “begat” is written in Hebrew. The first is using a hiphil stem where is uses a word that is transliterated holid. It comes from the Hebrew word yalad. In the qal stem it looks different again. In some of the genealogies you have holid and others you have yalad. So in the documentary hypothesis the liberal comes along and says, See, this shows different sources. But it is really a circular argument. For example, in Genesis :1-16 there is the name LORD of Yahweh used in the account of Cain versus Abel. Then starting in versus 17 down to the end of the chapter there is a genealogy. In it the writer uses the term yalad, so the documentary hypothesist says, See, you find yalad here in Genesis four so that means that this must be a J word. So wherever you find yalad, that is a J document. So wherever we find yalad, that is a J document, so if it is a J document it has Yalad in it and if it has yalad in it, it must be a J document! The premise has not been established at all. Furthermore, the verb yalad in the qal stem occurs a number of times with synonymous meaning of holid, the causative meaning from the hiphil stem in passage such as Deuteronomy 32:18; Hosea 5:7; Psalm 2:7; Proverbs 17:21. So there is an interchangeability between these two words that does not necessitate different authorship.
Then a further argument that they try to use is that of two different phrases. For example, “to make a covenant” and to “cut a covenant” in the Hebrew. The liberal comes along and says these are different, but one means to give security to a contractual agreement and the other is used when a covenant or contract is fulfilled, established, brought to completion.
The liberals make an assumption that the J document is going to look at God in a certain way and in the J documents God always reveals Himself in an appearing form. So when you find God appearing, that is going to be a J document. If God appears in a dream or a vision, then that is the Elohim document, an E document. And if God just speaks alone without appearing to man or using a dream or a vision, then that is a P document. These are hard and fast assumptions that these scholars make. But the theory never fits reality. Genesis 15:1, “After these things the word of the LORD [Yahweh] came unto Abram in a vision.” But wait a minute! Only the Elohim document has God appearing in a vision! So it doesn’t fit. Genesis 26:24, “And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake.” Here Yahweh appears at night, but it is Elohim who is supposed to appear at night! So now we have another verse that doesn’t fit the theory. In this case the critics just take the verse out and say it shouldn’t be in the Bible at all! Then in Genesis 28:13, “And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac.” Here is the Lord appearing. It is Yahweh who is supposed to appear, but this is Elohim, “the God of Isaac.” But the liberal comes along and says obvious this has been conflated, and there are really two statements, so they take out their scalpel and cut the verse in two and completely rewrite the verse so that it fits their theory.
Then there is another problem. That is the claim that there are two different accounts of creation: Genesis 1 being one account, but there are contradictions with Genesis chapter two. Firstly, it is a pretty standard approach for all ancient near eastern literature to describe an event in general summary terms and then come back and give the specifics and deal with one element of it in a more detailed fashion. So it fits the pattern of ancient near eastern literature.
There a re a couple of other little things the liberals point out, so look at Genesis 2:4, “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” They would say, Look, this is in the day when God made everything but He didn’t make man until the sixth day in chapter one, so how do you make this fit? The phrase here is the Hebrew word b’yom, “in day”, literally. If it was replacing a definite article it would be pointed differently, it would be ba yom. But it is not replacing a definite article, which means that yom is considered to be indefinite—not “in the day” but “in a day.” Whenever you have yom with a number or an article affixed to it, it refers to a 24-hour day. That is one of the reasons the six days in chapter one are 24-hour days. But furthermore, when you have this phrase it is a Hebrew idiom, “at that time.” It is used that way in places like Numbers 3:1; Psalm 18:1; 2 Samuel 22:1. So it reads, “In the time that the LORD God made the heavens and the earth.” It is not talking about the specific day. Then in verse 5, “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew.” But didn’t God create the plants on the third day, not on the sixth day? they would argue. It is interesting, if you look at the Hebrew words there that are used for the plants there is a repetition of those ideas at the end of Genesis chapter three—3:17, 18, “ … cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” It isn’t saying in 2:5 that there were no plants and no vegetation on the earth, but two specific kinds of vegetation were not yet present on the earth and were not present until after the fall. The reason they are not present is because the fall changes things. Man’s food is graciously supplied by God through the fruit of all the tree in the garden. He doesn’t have to till the soil to produce vegetable and herbs for food, but he does after the fall. So that is not a contradiction.
Another the liberals come up with is in Genesis 37. In some sections those to whom Joseph was sold into slavery were Ishmaelites, and in other sections they were called Midianites. But the Midianites and Ishmaelites are the same people, so it doesn’t indicate different authors, it just indicates different terminology is used.
Kenneth Kitchen concludes here that “there is no incompatible duplication here at all. Failure to recognize the complimentary nature of the subject distinction between a skeleton outline of all creation, like Genesis one on the one hand, and the concentration and detail on man and his immediate environment on the other, borders on obscurantism, they are just purposely ignoring the facts.”
Another line of evidence they come up with is really based on the assumption of evolution: that monotheism had not really evolved yet, by 1450 BC. Their assumption is that all cultures move from simple to the complex, so they assume that polytheism is more simple, monotheism is much more abstract and technical, so as man got further and further away from the stone age background his religious ideas evolved until he finally came up with this masterful idea of monotheism. However, once again that doesn’t fit the evidence. There is no straight-line development in culture. A work that is usually ignored by scholars, written by a Jesuit scholar in the 20s, named Wilhelm Schmit, (A 6-vol. Work in the French), an anthropologist who investigated every culture, every known religious belief system back to an original monotheism. It is an incredible documentation that all known world religions, no matter how obscure, all began with a single God. This is exactly what the Scriptures teach. However, liberals have an agenda to reject God.
The biblical evidence is clear that Moses wrote the Pentateuch: Exodus 17:14, “And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua.” There is internal evidence to support this. The writer of the Pentateuch has an intimate knowledge of the customs of that day, and these customs would not have been known 500 years later. He knew Egypt, he knew the desert, he knew the language. He is intimate with the geographical locations he describes. This would not have been so 500 or 1000 years later. Furthermore, he wrote in a second millennium contract form called the Suzerain-vassal treaty form, that was not know 500 years later. The Pentateuch claims Mosaic authorship in passages like Exodus 17:14; 24:4—“Moses wrote all the words of the law”; 24:27—“The Lord said to Moses, Write these words”; Numbers 33:1, “Moses wrote down”; Deuteronomy 31:9, “So Moses wrote this law.” So the Pentateuch claims Mosaic authorship. Other Old Testament books taught Mosaic authorship: Joshua 1:7, “ … according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you”; 2 Kings 14:6, “the book of the law of Moses”; Daniel 9:11, 13; Malachi 4:4. Not only does the Old Testament teach that Moses wrote the Pentateuch but Christ taught it in Mark 12:26; John 5:46, 47. Furthermore, the Jews in their tradition believed this. The Samaritan Pentateuch holds to Mosaic authorship, as does the Palestinian Talmud, Philo in his work on the life of Moses, Josephus held to Mosaic authorship.
The bottom line is, you must take every verse and claim of Scripture as absolute truth whether you fully understand it or not. If you pick and choose, then you make yourself the authority and in effect you are judging God. This is the position the liberals have placed themselves in, that they claim to be God and they claim to know what is true and what is not true without any aid from outside divine source. It is clear that the Bible is exactly what it is, and it is the Word of God about the origin of the universe and the creation of mankind. So we can be confident when we come to read the Pentateuch and the early chapters of Genesis that this is giving us absolute objective truth.
004-Creation and Restoration Genesis 1:1-2:3
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” There is no statement in all of literature that can stand up to that opening verse in Genesis. It is in the opening chapter of Genesis that we have displayed for us all of the glory and grandeur of creation. In that chapter God is the subject of almost every verse. He is the one who creates and restores the universe and the earth, and all that is in them. It is this chapter that forms the foundation for the book of Genesis. In turn, Genesis forms the foundation for the rest of the Bible. That is why Genesis chapter one stand in the bulls eye or the target for those who are hostile to the Bible, those who are in rebellion against God, and those who would assert human autonomy and try to free man from what they think are the shackles of religion and Christianity. Satan and all the forces aligned against God and the Bible know that if you can discredit Genesis you can discredit the rest of the Bible. And if you can discredit Genesis 1-11 you can discredit the book of Genesis. And if you can discredit Genesis chapter one, then you can discredit Genesis 1-11, all of Genesis, and undercut the Bible.
Over 200 times Genesis is either directly quoted or indirectly referenced in the New Testament. In fact, every book in the New Testament except for Philemon, 2 & 3 John reference Genesis. Twenty-five times Jesus directly refers to Genesis, quoting from Genesis chapters 1, 2, 3 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 17, 19, 28. Notice the heavy emphasis on 1-9. Of those first eleven chapters He doesn’t quote from 8, 10, or 11 but He quotes from all of the others, indicating that He accepted them as written, that He interpreted them literally and did not have some sort of allegorical understanding of them. And He based doctrine on what was in those chapters. So if what happened in those chapters didn’t happen as literally portrayed then the doctrine based on those is not true. Twenty-four times in the New Testament Genesis chapter one is either directly quoted or alluded to. Genesis one is foundational not only to Genesis but also the entire New Testament. The veracity of those first eleven chapters of Genesis is so important that if they are not true then nothing else in the Bible is true; you can’t rely on anything else in the Scriptures. So this is not some secondary issue, some side debate. The New Testament is grounded on Genesis 1-11. Furthermore every doctrine, and not just major doctrine but every secondary doctrine as well, has its origin in Genesis 1-11.
It is in Genesis 1 that we are confronted with the God who stands unique among all of the gods devised by human imagination. In fact, Genesis one is written in such a way that it takes a sort of back-handed slap at all of the other religions that were popular that that time. There is an undertone of polemic (an argument against something) in Genesis one against the world religions at that time, especially the religions the Jews were going to meet when they came into Canaan. The reason to point this out is that there are so many Christians today who say we should not get involved in some sort of debate with human viewpoint, with some form of controversy with false systems of thought. The Bible at its very core is an assault on all false systems of thought. To say that we don’t need to do that is to say that the Bible and the Holy Spirit were somehow wrong in the way they approached the revelation of God’s truth. God’s truth is always juxtaposed to the error, the human viewpoint of the day.
So in Genesis one we have a portrayal of God’s creation. It is a magnificent portrayal of everything that God did. It is simple. If we read through the chapter we are struck with the simplicity of the narrative. It doesn’t go into excessive detail but once you start probing what is there we realize how detailed it actually is. There is a sublime characterization of the creation that comes across in the simplicity of the narrative. The emphasis in the chapter is always on God. He is the subject of every verse. The emphasis is on His majesty, His omnipotence, and His sovereignty. And it is in Genesis chapter one from the first verse that we meet the God who stands apart from the creation and everything else in the universe. This was revolutionary in the ancient world. All of the other religious systems had a god that was generated by the universe itself, and then in turn those gods generated other gods and creation. In all other mythologies and cosmogonies the gods are part of creation that in turn gives birth to man.
To properly understand Genesis chapter one we must begin with an overview, a summary of the entire chapter from 1:1 down to 2:3. We must try to recapture in our minds the original context in which this was first written and first read. Moses penned this book to provide the foundation for the nation Israel. Origins are important. To know why we do something we must know why we came into being in the first place. So Genesis was written to ground the creation of Israel and the existence of Israel in the sovereign work of an omnipotent God who planned, executed and sustained the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. Too often when we come to Genesis we want to look at it in the light of the modern issues of science and the Bible—evolution versus Darwinism. We will eventually come to that but before we address those issues, which are really application, we need to examine this chapter as a whole in terms of its overall structure and the doctrines that are contained here. Then we want to exegete the passage verse by verse. Finally, when we have taken everything that we can from the text, then we will analyze what we have learned in light of ancient and modern myths of origins. Modern origin myths is exactly what modern science has provided for us in Darwinism and modern theories of evolution: modern science from its theories about the age of the universe, the age of the solar system the age of the earth, the age of man, to its theories about the origin of the universe, the evolution of life on the planet. It has built an elaborate and detailed technical cosmogony, reinforced by a sophisticated scientific superstructure and explanation in order to explain the origin and development of the universe apart from God. It is that presupposition that God is not in the equation at all, that does not exist, that God did not create that reverberates in every single statement that modern science makes about the origin of the universe and the origin of man. Somewhere in every statement they make about origins there is a theological presupposition that God does not exist, and that is a religious statement. It is a religious statement to say that God exists; it is a religious statement to say that God does not exist. So modern evolutionary theories are just as religious as any other religious statement which they claim to reject. So everything that modern science has, from its dating schemes to origin schemes, falls apart once they are examined closely. They are simply a modern myth constructed to explain the origin of a Godless race.
In 1406 BC there were between a million and a million and a half Jews in the Moab desert on the verge of war to conquer the land, to take the land away from the Canaanites. It involves an invasion against a more numerous people, against giants, against walled, fortified cities. In most cases the technology of warfare that the Canaanites had is superior to the technology that these wandering Jews had. Because the Jews had spent the past 40 years in the desert they are not operating from any kind of industrial base or any kind of strength. They have minimal equipment, minimal training in terms of military techniques. So this is a time when it is conceivable under just a human viewpoint look at the circumstances when chaos may erupt. It is a time which from the human viewpoint standard seems uncertain. And yet Moses is reinforcing for them the doctrine that the God who began history controls history, that the God of the universe who sustains it is the same God who created Israel and will sustain them in the conquest. This God who spoke all things into existence from nothing is the same God who is going to guarantee their victory over the Canaanites.
In this whole chapter there are three major doctrines that are emphasized in relationship to God. The first is the power of God over creation, i.e. His omnipotence, that He creates everything, that there is nothing in the universe that was not created by Him. The second major doctrine that is emphasized is the sovereignty of God over human history, that God is the ruler of that which He has created, and everything in that creation should be subordinate to Him. He controls history and will work history out to His ultimate purpose. The third doctrine covered here is the authority of God over all His creatures, especially the human race and every human being, because He as the creator has the right to be followed as the ultimate authority of every one of us. Psalm 89:11, “The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fullness thereof, thou hast founded them.” Because God has created everything He has the right to run it according to His will.
The first major doctrine related to the power of God over creation is what is called the creator-creature distinction, and this is fundamental to understand and to apply in all of our thinking. In Genesis 1:1 because God creates the universe we see that He is completely distinct from His creation. He is not part of creation, He is beyond creation. Whereas we can learn many things truly through empiricism we cannot understand absolute truth or origins, that which goes beyond our senses, other than through revelation. That is a contrast. It is empiricism versus revelation and only the creator who was there can reveal to us what happened. What we have with modern science is men who were not there telling us on the basis of what they find today what happened ten-million years ago or ten-billion years ago. They weren’t there, nobody was there, but we believe that we have the Bible, written by the omniscient, omnipotent God who was there, who is absolute veracity and cannot lie, and He has told us how He created things. So He is completely distinct from His creation. That means that when God created the havens and the earth, if you back it up five minutes before that instant, there were no physical laws, no scientific laws. There was nothing except God existing in the Trinity. All His absolutes that we have revealed in Scripture, while they may reflect His character, did not come into being until after creation. You can’t come along and say that before creation there was such and such a law that God had to follow. There was no law, there was just God and His righteous character. So we see in the creator-creature distinction that God is completely distinct from His creation, that He is the one who makes everything, He is creates all matter, all energy, He is the creator of time and space. He is the creator of all physical laws and He stands above those physical laws and uses them and shapes them to His end. Thus we must conclude that scientific laws are not eternal absolutes but they are subject to the control of God and may be shaped and modified by Him at will. This is how miracles take place.
Since God made everything and man is in God’s image it is foolish, then, to make an image to God because He is distinct from the creation. So implicit in Genesis one is this polemic against the gods of the Gentiles and all of their idolatrous systems. As they seek to make images of God what they fail to understand is that they themselves are the image of God.
Though little is said in Genesis one about specifics related to polytheism, pantheism, monism, and other religious systems, this is mostly because they did not develop until some later time. Most of the world’s religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, did not exist in the Old Testament period. However, by the time of Moses the worship of god’s were identified with the forces of nature. They did have polytheistic gods. They identified them with the forces of nature, they identified them with the stars, the moon, the sun. They specifically identified their gods with fertility, and in doing so these gods were often represented by water, storms, rain, thunder, lightning. So it is at the very beginning that we see this God who creates all of those things, that those are not the gods but it is God Himself who creates the stars, the sun, and the moon. And there is not even in the initial earth rain or thunder or storms. Furthermore, water as described in Genesis 1:2 is “the deep,” the uncontrolled water, is under God’s control and power. So it is a slap in the face to the religious thinking of those cultures that surrounded Israel. 1 Chronicles 16:26, “For all the gods of the people [Gentiles] are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.” Nehemiah 9:6, “Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven [angels] worshippeth thee.” Thus, if God is sovereign then the gods of the nations pose no real threat to Israel. That is the point. If God created everything, God created the heavens, the sun, the stars, God is in charge of fertility, then why are you afraid of the gods of the Canaanites, they have no power.
A second major thing that we see here is that God reveals Himself, that the God of Israel is not only a God of power but a God who speaks and reveals Himself to His people. He is the one who speaks, just utters a word and all things come into existence. For there was nothing, absolute nothing. God speaks and something is there. It is God’s Word which has power, and it is that same Word which comes to Israel through Moses and the prophets in terms of direct revelation. Psalm 33:6, “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” Hebrews 11:3, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
We see that God restores life. This is another major theme and doctrine in the first chapter. God restores life where there is death. This demonstrates that He is the one who takes this barren, chaotic earth in Genesis 1:2 which is under divine judgment, and is able to bring forth life where there is no life. He is the one who restores order where there is chaos. He is the one who brings forth dry land when all there is is a watery mess. This is a major theme of Genesis. Ultimately it foreshadows the redemption solution that God can bring life where there is death, but it also shows how God can bring forth life in Israel where there was once death and chaos. It is the same theme that you have with the barren women, the matriarchs who give birth to Israel. God is demonstrating He has power to bring forth life where there was death.
Thus Genesis chapter one shows that God is the unique and distinct creator. He is the sovereign over the universe, the sovereign over man and over each individual, and thus He speaks to man with power and truth, and He is the only one who has and can provide a redemption solution.
The structure of the chapter. The section goes from 1:1 to 2:3 because we have a tolodote in 2:4, “This is the generations of the heavens and the earth.” That begins a new section in the book. The first thing we note that each day includes a statement about God speaking, “And God said.” The first day begins in verse 3. In the structure of the Hebrew this indicates sequential action. We have a formula, “And God said,” and then there is a statement of the results of His speech, “Then there was; it was so.” Then there is an evaluation, “It was good.” And then there is a time frame, morning and evening. There is a clear pattern in each and every day. Each element of this formula would be understood at face value. Thus just as the statement “God spoke” was understood literally, so too the phrase “evening and morning.” If any of those are taken in a non-literal way then it would break up the whole formula. The seventh day has a distinct pattern. You don’t have God saying or creating anything on the seventh day. Instead, the emphasis is on a completion that fits perfectly with God’s design or blueprint. The very structure of the text in the Hebrew highlights this theme. There are 35 words in the Hebrew text of those three verses, a multiple of seven. The three middle clauses found in 2a, 2b, and 3a in the original have seven words in each clause. Each clause also has within it the adjective “seven.” So you have glaring at you just from the very structure and literary formation of the text itself this emphasis and re-emphasis on seven, and seven is the number of perfection and completion in the Bible. So the reader is delivered a reinforced statement that the seventh day is a day of completion. God said on the sixth day that it was very good, which is a statement implying that it was exactly as He intended. Therefore, perfect creation came from the hand of God—not a moral perfection but a creation that was perfectly in line with what he intended it to be and for His purposes.
There is a debate over the relationship of the first two verses to each other. It has been debated for years whether or not there is a time gap between the first verse and the second verse, whether the first verse is merely a topical sentence or not, whether the first verse states an original creation or not. We will see all this later on, but our view is that there is a time lapse between 1:1 and 1:2, but it is completely inappropriate and without any textual reason to insert anything into that time lapse other than the angels and the fall of Satan. It is not a place to try to ram, cram and jamb historical geology, the geological ages, some sort of pre-Adamic race to account for the Neanderthals, etc. There is no basis for that. What we do see is that in the first two verses is an indication that there has been an original creation and a subsequent judgment. The focus is on the state of the earth when God began to restore that earth in verse 2.
The organization of the first chapter down to 2:3 is:
1:1 – 2:3 provides us with an introduction and the original creation.
vv. 3 – 31 describe the six consecutive 24-hour days of restoration.
2:1-3 gives the conclusion.
The main idea of this chapter is that God creates the universe out of nothing. Unmentioned, undefined, and not part of the context is why the earth has become without form and void, and darkness, and covered with a chaotic salt sea. So there is an unmentioned judgment here, but the Spirit of God prepares the earth for restoration. Where the chaos is ordered, the emptiness is filled, in order to provide a perfect environment for mankind to rule over and to enjoy as God’s representatives. The application to Israel as they sit out in Moab is that just as God reformed the chaotic earth He is going to restore the land that has become chaotic under the Canaanites. Just as the Spirit of God was able to restore the earth in Genesis 1:2ff, so God is going to be able to give the land that He promised to the Jews. Remember we have to keep in mind why all of this is being written. It is not being written to the 20th century to give an answer for scientific questions about origins.
In the first two verses God creates, judges and then begins the restoration process. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The point here is that God is the unique creator of all things and He is distinct from everything in His creation. The first verse describes the creation of the heavens and the earth. In Hebrew there is no word for “universe.” What is there besides the universe? Nothing. Everything in the universe, material and immaterial, are all created by God. Genesis 1:1 expresses that initial creation. The angels have already been created. Job 38:4, 5, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; when the morning stars [sons of God] sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” So when God lays the foundation of the earth all the sons of God, a united angelic host, shouts for joy over that creation. Furthermore, the angels are united, there is not yet a disruption at this point in the angelic host. Therefore sin has not yet, at the point that God created the earth, any evil in the universe, no angelic revolt. That comes later.
In verse one God creates. It is not the universe that creates, it is not matter that creates, it is not energy that creates; it is God who creates the universe, energy and matter. All other pagan cosmogonies have some sort of existing something out of which, even if it is just a watery chaos, everything comes. But there is always the existence of something, and this is no different from what we find in modern evolution. We have the big bang, but what was there ten seconds before the big bang. That has to have something there. But the Bible says that there was nothing there. God creates. The verb that is used here in the Hebrew is bara. It is a special verb that is only used for the creative activity of God. There are other verbs in Hebrew that speak of creation but only this verb speaks of God’s creation. This verb never has anything or anyone other than God performing that action. So whenever bara is found God is always the subject of the verb. Then the phrase, “In the beginning.” This refers to the beginning of the universe, the beginning of the space-time continuum. By universe is not mean the galaxies and the stars and the constellations. You look at the heaven. It is finite. There is an end to the universe. It locates a space, it has height, width and depth. That is space. So God creates this space, and so what must go along with space is also time, and God creates time. God creates the space-time continuum. He doesn’t create stars yet, that doesn’t come until the third day. What He creates at the first day is simply the space-time continuum, and in the midst of that space-time continuum is placed a planet. That is all we know we have at the end of Genesis 1:1. And it seems that this planet is the center of angelic activity prior to Genesis 1:2.
Verse 2 is not, cannot, and does not describe an intermediate stage or the initial stage of creation. This cannot be argued on the basis of the Hebrew syntax. The Hebrew syntax starts of with the waw consecutive, which is the conjunction “and,” and it is linked to a noun. When you have sequential action in Hebrew, which is standard narrative form that you have for the rest of the chapter, you have the waw prefix. It is either connected to a noun or a verb. When it is connected to a verb it is sequential action, it indicates one thing after another. But if you want to use that conjunction as a “but” to show contrast, to show a stop in the action, to show what grammarians called disjunction rather than conjunction, you attach it to a noun. And that is what we have at the beginning of verse 2. There is a disjunction here, which means that there is a break between what happens in the first verse and what happens in the second verse. Furthermore, other passages like Isaiah 45:18 indicate that God did not make the world empty and void. The phrase here where “the earth was without form and void” is the phrase tohu waw bohu in the Hebrew, which means formless and empty. Furthermore, there are three phrases in chapter two—“empty and waste, darkness, the deep.” These three terms are used in the rest of Scripture to indicate some sort of judgment as a result of sin. The threefold repetition of terms that everywhere else in the Scriptures speak of some kind of judgment, some kind of chaos, as a result of rebellion against God suggests that this is exactly what happened: there was a judgment on the planet because of sin. And the only sin that fits the bill is the sin of Satan. So here we have the angelic conflict, the rebellion of the angels, along with Satan, against God. Their headquarters are judged. Satan makes a case to God that He is not really fair, He hasn’t given them an opportunity to do what he can do, to show that he can be god, and God decides that He is going to give Satan an object lesson. The rest of the object lesson, that God is indeed just, that the creature cannot operate independently of the creator and enjoy any measure of success and happiness. God is going to demonstrate that it is only by being a servant to the Almighty in genuine humility can there be any guarantee of success and happiness in life. It is those themes, those virtues, that are carried out throughout the rest of Scripture. Jesus came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. He humbled Himself to the point of the cross. He is demonstrating the exact opposite characteristics of Satan in showing that it is only when we have humility, dependence upon God, trusting God, that the creature can have any measure of success and happiness in life. The main doctrine covered here is that God brings judgment on rebellion and sin.
Then, at the end of verse 2 we have the Spirit of God preparing the planet for restoration. It is God and God’s initiative that comes to restore the consequences of sin. This restoration is going to be so profound that it would have totally removed any vestige forever of evidence of any previous existence on the planet. There are those who think that there was some kind of animal life before this, or some kind of human life, and that this is what is preserved in the fossils. But if this were true this renovation of the planet that takes place in the next six days is so profound that it would have removed any evidence if there had been anything. The doctrine here that we see that is foreshadowed is regeneration, that is it the Holy Spirit who brings life out of chaos, and that it is God who is the source of meaning and order.
In the next section, from 3-31, we have the description of how God calls all things into existence by His Word. Here we see that there is a play on the tohu waw bohu theme of verse 2. It is formless and empty. God begins by giving form. On day one He gives form, He creates light and separates the light from the darkness, and there is a temporal separation—evening and morning. Day two, He gives form. There is the atmosphere. He separates the upper waters from the lower waters and creates the atmosphere on the earth. So there is special separation. Then there is a logical development. It talks about what He has done with the waters on the earth, then He begins to work on those waters on the earth. In day three He separates the waters from the land. Dry land appears, vegetation comes forth, and there is a geographic separation. So He has created these three spheres of environment—light and darkness, the atmosphere, the seas and continents. On day four He puts the light into light bearers and puts the sun, moon and stars into the heavens. On day five He fills the atmosphere with the creatures of the air, and He fills the waters with the creatures of the waters. On day six He fills the continents with land creatures and with man. So it is a perfect balance. First He creates their environment, then He places them in their environment.
On day one God creates light, separates it from darkness. To this point there was no light, except that God is light. So where did the darkness come from if God is light. The darkness must comes as a result of judgment. So God is going to bring forth light where there was judgment. We are told, “God said.” This is how God creates, it is through His creative and powerful Word, Psalm 33:9; John 1:1-3; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Colossians 1:16. There is a hidden play on words here, it is by His Word that all things come into power, but His Word is the LOGOS [Logoj] of God, the second person of the Trinity, Colossians 1:16. The earth is in a state of darkness, so God’s first act is to call into existence light. This isn’t just physical light, the light that we see associated with luminaries. This is light that entails in terms of physics the very core element of all things. It brings forth light as it exists in both particle and wave and it is light that pervades every area of the universe. This light also has a symbolic value as that which overpowers darkness. Then God separates the light from the darkness, indicating that God has the power to distinguish and divide. God then calls the light day and the darkness night, which indicates that He has the right to determine what things are. Things are not what they are because that is what they are, things are what they are because God said so. So man can’t come along and say that he is what he is because of empiricism, man must be who he is because God says who he is. Everybody and everything is what it is because God says that is what it is, and we have to define what our role is according to how God has described it. Then God says that there was evening and morning in one day, indicating the normal progression of sunset and sunrise which would indicate to the Jew sitting out in the desert a 24-hour period, which is exactly what this is.
So in terms of doctrine this is the root of all later biblical imagery over power and sin and darkness. God makes distinctions and defines what they are. Also, God begins to initialize human vocabulary. This is one of the most remarkable things in terms of language. Scientific studies indicate, as far as we can push them, and there is a lot to be learned about how mankind learned to speak. This can’t happen apart from having some sort of programming of language, formatting of language, ahead of time. So God formats, initializes, as it were, human vocabulary. And then man takes over. Then God begins the task of defining things and initializing human vocabulary.
On day two God creates the atmosphere. The old King James version said, “Let there be a firmament.” This sounds like it was something solid and firm, and that is because the Hebrew word here translated “expanse” is the word for atmosphere, and that word was translated by the Latin word “firmamentum,” meaning it indicated something solid. But this is the atmosphere. “God made the expanse and separated the waters which were below the expanse [under the atmosphere], from the waters which were above the expanse, and it was so. And God called the expanse heaven, and there was evening and there was morning a second day.” A couple of things to note: the continuation of a waw consecutive plus the verb indicates sequential action. This follows directly on the action at the conclusion of the previous verse. Here we see that God brings order into the atmosphere of the earth. The watery chaos of verse 2 is now divided into the waters above and the waters below. Earth, it appears, has some sort of water vapor canopy, a water canopy. This is where the water comes from for the later Noahic flood. (Just a side point. There was probably less water on the earth between creation and the flood than there is today, so there was more dry land on the earth) God separates and divides, which shows there is organization and planning. It is not chaotic, it is not random. The expanse, the atmosphere, that God creates is made up of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, helium, and a number of other gasses which provide a perfect mixture for the survival of later plant, animal and human life. In the Scriptures it is described metaphorically as a tent curtain in Psalm 104:2; a veil in Isaiah 40:22; and as a clear pavement like sapphire in Exodus 24:10. What does this mean? There is a lot of speculation here. Some suggest that this was a water vapor, because apparently you could see that there were stars out there. Some suggest ice crystals because it is in the upper atmosphere and the water vapor would be frozen. Some suggest that it was a band of solid water that was translucent that could be seen through. Normally it is thought to have enveloped the earth like the cloud cover around the planet Venus. That is how many creationists have expressed throughout the last forty or fifty years. However, some recent studies in a book called “Starlight in Time,” has suggested, very interestingly, that the band of water was outside the universe. It is interesting because the text seems to suggest that this is possible, because the same word for expanse that we have here is the place where the sun ands the moon are placed. If we restrict expanse to the upper atmosphere of the earth, then the sun and the moon only appear to be there, they are not really there. But the text says that God placed the sun and the moon and the stars in the expanse. So there is room for that. There is so much to be studied here that we should be willing to investigate.
Throughout this section there is a continued polemic against the pagan gods. The gods of the ancient world inhabited the heavens and were associated with the heavens, and here we see that God created the heavens. The point is that God is over the gods of the pagans. The doctrine that is emphasized here is that God is above all other gods, and God created all the details necessary for life. So if God can create and sustain life God can handle any other problem.
On the third day we have the development of the dry land and the oceans. “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.” So here God separates the waters from the dry land.
Verse 11, 12, “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” The point here is that God creates plant life and trees. There is an apparent conflict with the second chapter, but the conflict is only apparent because there God is talking about the plants of the field. It is a distinction that is important to bring out. We see in these verses that there is the continued sequential progression and logical progression. God moves from separating the waters above from the waters below, to dividing the waters below from the land. Then God brings forth vegetation on dry land. The decree of fertility here is important. They are to bring forth vegetation “after their kind.” This decree of fertility is in contrast to the fertility ideas of the Canaanite religions that claimed fertility is the activity of the gods. Every year they would have the death of the crops in the fall and then there would be renewed life in the spring, so they explained that in the fall the god would be captured or died, carried away to the abyss, and then he escapes in the Spring and brings forth life. But you don’t have those kinds of seasons when there is a universal temperature in the early earth. Furthermore, what we see here is that God creates the seasons and God is the one who builds fertility as a mechanism into plant life and animal life.
On the fourth day God puts the sun, the moon, the stars in the heavens. “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.” So there is a mechanical purpose, for illumination. These are not gods. Again the polemic, the gods of the Canaanites were associated with the stars, the sun and the moon, the gods of the zodiac, the gods of the astrology. But it is God, the God of the Jews, who created all of these things. On the fifth day God creates life in the sea and the sky.
In verse 22 there is a pronouncement of divine blessing. “And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.” Again, the emphasis on fertility, that God builds fertility into the system, it is not something that the gods demand be placated so that there can be fertility.
Finally, the crowning event of creation on the sixth day. God first created the animals. Notice: “after their kind.” The kind is broader than species but narrower than genus, but there is no movement from one kind to another kind. God creates the original prototype and then they develop from there. Then in verse 26 God creates man in His image. Man is to represent God to the creation. Man is not to create images of God for man is the image of God. Man is to dominate creation. Creation was provided for man to meet all of man’s needs. Man is to rule creation responsibly but man is different from nature, distinct from nature, not part of nature. All of the pantheistic religions, all of the nature religions, all of the religions that the ecologists base all of their rantings on, are based on the idea that man is just another part of nature. What undergirds much of the modern ecology is just pure evolution, that man is no different from anything else, and yet Scripture says man is distinct from everything else because he is in the image of God. And nothing else is in the image of God.
Then, vv. 30, 31, God rests. He provides everything for man kind, looks at all that He had made, “And behold, it was very good.” Good is not moral here, good is it fit the plan. Remember that God says on the 6th day in chapter two that it wasn’t good for man to be alone. “If “good” means moral or righteous then we have a problem, because God created man and it is not good, it’s not good for man to be alone. That can’t fly, so good has to mean it doesn’t fit the pattern, doesn’t fit the plan. So it is all good, exactly as God intended. He created a perfect environment. And, by the way, there would be no fossils here as remnants of some sort of pre-Adamic life because fossils are dead things and God created a perfect environment, not a graveyard. So you can’t try to force some sort of historical geological framework into Genesis 1:1 and 1:2.
God rests on the seventh day; 2:1-3 sanctifies it. He rests not because He is weary but He is simply establishing a pattern for man. The best translation is: “Once the heavens and the earth were completed, on the seventh day God ceased from His labor.” This God establishes a pattern for labor. At this point He stabilizes the laws of physics as they were known before the flood. At this point whatever laws were in operation when God restores in these six days are different from what takes over in terms of sustaining the universe from 2:4 on. They change again when Adam sinned and they change again after the Noahic flood.
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005-Beginnings
Genesis 1:1 “ In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” The Bible begins with a clear assertion of not only the existence of God, which is not argued for at all, it is just stated, but with the clear statement that God has created everything in the universe and that God is completely distinct from everything in the universe. Sometimes we—Christians who have been in a church context, studying the Word for much of our lives—take this a little bit for granted. Sometimes we are so familiar with what is stated here that we miss the impact. We often forget the resounding impact of this first verse in Genesis and the impact it had at the time Moses wrote. AS Christians we sometimes think that this is something people always believed. It is not. This was a minority position when Moses wrote it. It was just as much fought against during the Old Testament by the pagan cultures surrounding Israel, the truth of Genesis 1:1 was resisted by many in Israel, it was resisted by those the apostle Paul preached to in his missionary journeys, it was just as controversial when Paul went to Thessalonica, Berea and Athens as it is today. We need to remember that what is taught in Genesis chapter one in terms of a creation emphasizing a distinct creator was as revolutionary and controversial in that day as it is today. No culture held that view, they all held other views that are not too different from modern Darwinistic or evolutionary views.
Why is it that we study the doctrine of origins? First of all the origination of anything is directly related to its purpose or its meaning. In divine viewpoint Scripture teaches that God intentionally planned and executed the creation of mankind. God is a God or order, a God of reason; He does things with purpose. Therefore mankind was created for a purpose. This means that the life of every human being has meaning and purpose and value which is derived from the creator and defined by the creator. It is the creator who defines who and what we are and the purpose and meaning of life. In contrast to divine viewpoint, human viewpoint, whether we are talking about some religious system or some philosophical system, life is always the product of time plus chance. In human viewpoint, since life is the product of time plus chance, the only meaning that man can have is derived from either, a) society—what society, culture, country assigns the meaning to be. When society determines the value and meaning of the purpose that gets into a generally Marxist philosophy of history; or, b) the individual. This fits into more of an existential framework. The only meaning that I have is the meaning I create. So in pure existentialism when there is no meaning and purpose in life, except what you create, then you have to do something significant in order to give meaning to your life. Since there is no ultimate reality, no ultimate absolute, there is no such thing as a right or wrong, so it doesn’t matter whether you commit genocide or whether you help somebody—some tremendous altruistic endeavor, it doesn’t matter which it is—either one validates your existence and gives it meaning. There is no basis for judging whether one is right or wrong. So life gains its meaning either from society or from the individual assigning meaning to himself, or there is just no meaning at all—the position of the nihilist. A fourth view would say that the only meaning that man has is derived from what it produces, and that would be a utilitarian meaning. So in human viewpoint there is no inherent meaning, it just comes from whatever else something in the creation assigns to the individual. The Bible says that we come from God, He created us in His image, so that gives us a meaning and purpose and defines our purpose and our meaning.
Secondly, origins provides the foundation for society, life, law, civilization and institutions. Whatever the society is, whatever the religious beliefs, the view held of origins is what will determine the nature of society, the meaning of life, the foundation for all ethical decisions, and thus it is the foundation for law and legal theory, the foundation for that civilization and for all the institutions in that civilization. So origins defines everything in life, from education and government to health care. Whatever it is, at some point it always goes back to the view of origins. Ps. 11:3, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” In this psalm the psalmist recognizes the importance of the foundation or origins.
Origins are the Archimedian fulcrum. On origins everything else in society moves, no matter what it is. For example, if you change your view of origins you change your view of ethics. If everything is flux and evolution is change and everything is going through a process of change and movement, then there are no absolutes. Apply that to law: If you have a creationist, absolutist mentality when you go to the Constitution, the Constitution has an absolute meaning. But if you have an evolutionary framework and you apply that to law, then the Constitution is a “living-breathing document” that is reinterpreted for every generation. That comes out of an evolutionary view of reality. So creation gives us a basis for saying that outside of the world there is an objective point of reference on which everything turns. If you have an objective point of reference that is outside the universe, as it were, then you have a basis for saying that something is absolute truth versus absolute falsehood, that you have a basis for saying that something is absolutely right versus absolutely wrong. But if there is no external fulcrum point then you end up with nothing more than relativism and all judgments become simply a matter of opinion which is then enforced by might as opposed to right.
Whatever you choose as the basis for origins defines ultimate reality. So if you decide that the universe is the result of a big bang, that everything comes out of matter and energy, then matter and energy can’t produce anything other than matter and energy, so ultimate reality means that everything is material—so we end up worshipping that which is material, and you produce a materialistic society because that which is spiritual doesn’t exist and has no value. And if you live in an ancient world where you believe that ultimate reality was a watery chaos, governed by gods that personified the forces of nature, you end up worshipping the forces of nature. So whatever you ground your ultimate metaphysic [beyond the physical or that which is observable] in that becomes ultimate reality. So whatever you choose as the basis for origins defines for you ultimate reality, and then that ultimate reality always becomes the ultimate object of worship for mankind.
The use of creation in Scripture.
Some people get the idea that creation is just a controversial subject, let’s not get into that if we get involved in a little witnessing to somebody and they bring up the idea of creation or evolution, so just step around that and focus on Jesus Christ and the gospel. Otherwise they may turn off to the gospel. But that reflects so many falsehoods. If somebody is positive they are going to respond to the gospel. The idea is based on a false assumption. The gospel itself is the story of the God of creation, the God who made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, redeeming His creation. It emphasizes through the New Testament in passages like Colossians 1:16, 17 that the Jesus who saved us is the Jesus who made us. In Him and by Him and through Him were all things made. John 1:3 says there was nothing made that came into being apart from Him. So you can’t hold to a biblical Jesus if that Jesus didn’t create everything from nothing.
Second, this idea that creation is somehow just too controversial, don’t muddy the water with it, is based on a false assumption that it hasn’t always been controversial. But creation has always been controversial. If we decide to just step around creation and think it is not important in witnessing we should pay attention to how the apostle Paul spoke to gentile pagan audiences who had no frame of reference in the Scripture, who were committed to another position of origins. Acts 14:8ff, “And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked: the same heard Paul speak: who stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked. And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men.” Notice the people’s reaction. Paul performs these miracles and he has proclaimed the gospel, and the people completely misunderstand what he has said. It frequently happens that when we are trying to communicate the gospel or divine viewpoint to someone with no frame of reference, to someone operating on pure human viewpoint, that they completely misunderstand. Paul is clearly misunderstood and their response in v. 11 is “the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.” What has happened is that they have taken the truth and completely reinterpreted it. They didn’t think about it, it wasn’t necessarily a conscious thing. This is how human viewpoint works, it just reinterprets truth into its own framework, no matter how clear and objective it was. No matter how clear and precise Paul’s teaching was they interpreted it in their own frame of reference, their own presuppositions.
And look at how Paul handles this. Verses 14 & 15, “Which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, and saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein.” First he challenges them by saying “We are of the same nature as you are.” He challenges their assumption of creating gods in their own image. The second challenge is to turn, the idea of genuine repentance, i.e. to change their thinking. When Paul says to change their thinking he is not simply talking about changing their thinking about Jesus. Notice that he is talking about the fact that when Christianity comes it is going to overhaul everything. People think that if the Holy Spirit is going to show up and overhaul your life it is like calling in the interior decorator and they are going to put up new curtains, hardwood floors instead of wall-to-wall carpeting, pain the room a different color, etc. But what happens is that when the Holy Spirit is the interior decorator He comes in with the bulldozer because He is going to take down the whole structure and move the foundation. And what Paul is challenging here is their foundation, that their foundation was off. It happens so often in evangelism that people are urged to trust Jesus, but Jesus is not identified as to who He is or what He is saving them from, all of which presupposes an understanding of Genesis 1-3, and the end is that there are people running around thinking they are saved because they trust Jesus. But their Jesus is a funny looking Jesus, and these people aren’t even sure they believe in a God who created everything. And the Jesus of the New Testament is the eternal second person of the Trinity who exists in hypostatic union, who became flesh and dwelt among us, and He is the creator of all things. When John starts off identifying who Jesus is in John 1:1-3 he identifies Him as the creator of everything that is, and that nothing that has come into being has done so except by Jesus. So if you are communicating a Jesus who isn’t the creator of the universe then you are not communicating the Jesus of the New Testament.
So Paul says they have to turn from these “vain things.” The “vain things” indicates their entire religious superstructure and foundation to a living God who is defined as a creator, the one who made the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them. So Paul does not back away from putting creation and a controversial creator God right out there in front. And notice, he is witnessing, and has he mentioned Jesus yet? He hasn’t mentioned Jesus or the cross or the sin, but the first thing he gets out there is the creation.
Note Acts 17. This is when Paul was on his second missionary journey. V.16, “Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.” V. 22, “Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious [very religious]. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands …” Notice Paul hasn’t talked about Jesus or the cross yet. He goes straight to creation. We need to ask what they believe about creation.
One of the ancient Greek poets was Orpheus. He believed, in terms of his expression of Greek ultimate realities, that the ultimate reality was time. There is no actual beginning, so this is an always-existing time. Time, remember, has dimensions to it. Time generates chaos. In modern parlance we might call chaos pure chance. So we have time plus chance. That is exactly the formula of Darwinistic evolution. So the ancient Greeks began with time plus chaos [chance], and then chaos is an enormous space that contains night, mist, and the upper regions of the air which they called the ether. As chaos just generates this night/darkness, mist and ether it begins to swirl around, and all of these molecules get closer and closer and tighter and tighter together until it creates a definable mass that takes on the shape of a huge egg, that after it has congealed and solidified, then splits apart into two halves which become heaven and earth. In mythical terminology we have time plus chance creates a big bang out of which comes an orderly universe. Homer saw the earth pretty much the same way, except when the egg split apart the earth is surrounded then by water. So we can see that there are certain similarities and parallels to what we have in Genesis, but Genesis is profoundly distinct. The earth is flooded by the god Oceanis who personifies the ocean, and it is out of this ocean, then, that life begins—first the gods are generated, then all the other life on earth. So there is some sort of space-time-
Matter reality. That is exactly what you find in the beginning of the big bang. This is a mythological cosmogony. (Cosmogony is an explanation of ultimate origins)
Every religious or philosophical system has some sort of cosmogony or explanation of origins. In the mythological systems of the Greeks what we see is that the power of the cosmos—there is some kind of inherent generating power in the universe itself in the matter of the cosmos which generates itself—is personified. By the time of Paul there had passed the fifth century BC, the classical period, where the philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle debunked the whole mythology. After following Aristotle there was the development of the following of two major schools of thought: Epicurianism and Stoicism. Epicurius lived from 342 to 270 BC. He was a follower of Aristotle who died while Epicurius was a young man. He denied that there was any purpose in nature, so there is no meaning to anything in nature and everything therefore would be a product of chance and just random events. He believed that there was a infinite number of worlds and that there was no God. So the universe in itself is eternal and self-generating, and everything on earth evolved directly from the matter of earth itself. So he sounds fairly modern. It is pure random, there is no intelligence.
Today there is a big change taking place in science because there are certain people like Michael Beahey who wrote a book called Darwin’s Black Box. He doesn’t argue for creationism but he argues for intelligent design. He is a biochemist and he basically says there is too much information in the basic cell that Darwin had no idea about. There is too much information in a DNA chain for it to just happen randomly. Something had to put it there with intelligence. There has to be a source of intelligent design.
So the Epicurians that Paul is addressing are not any different from the evolutionists that we might meet today. Yet what is the first thing that comes out of Paul’s mouth? Creation! He recognizes that a Jesus who isn’t the creator isn’t the Jesus who is the redeemer.
It is the same with the Stoics. They emphasized the simple life, fatalism and a submission to circumstances, whatever they are, and the believed that the order of the world wasn’t evidence of a creator. But for them the creator is purely pantheistic. (Pantheism means that the creation = God; God is in everything) It basically deifies all of nature, which is really the ultimate metaphysic of all the environmentalists and environmentalism because they have elevated nature above and beyond that which God established.
Paul is not addressing an uneducated crowd but one that is the advocates and proponents of their world view system. In contrast to this the Bible claims that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1,“In the beginning” gives us a time frame—bereshith [be, the preposition “in”; reshith, “beginning”]. “Beginning” is a definite noun, it is an inherently definite word in Hebrew, so it is not “a beginning,” it is in “the beginning,” a specific beginning. In other words, there was a time when the universe did not exist, when the universe was not. There are only two options. Either the universe is eternal or it is temporal; it has either always been here or it had a beginning in time. So the very first statement that the Scripture made is a slap in the face to every single cosmogony that was available on planet earth when Moses wrote it. The Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks all have an eternal cosmos, some sort of eternality in time, chaos, matter. The very first statement is Scripture says they are all wrong, there was a beginning, the universe is not eternal; it has boundaries; it was created by God.
The next assertion that God created the heavens and the earth means that God is distinct from creation. The term “heavens and the earth” is a phrase that must be taken collectively. Just as we would say “part and parcel” of something, “the heavens and the earth” was the Hebrew way of expressing the universe. There is no one-word concept in the Hebrew language for universe. So the term includes everything that is. Divine viewpoint says here that God is the starting point and is the place where we must start because is the creator; He defines everything. The starting point is not matter, not molecules, not gas or energy. In contrast, human viewpoint, no matter what the system, says that the universe (some form of matter, energy, hydrogen gas, or whatever) is the starting point, and everything in he universe, then, must find its ultimate meaning in this ultimate reality of pure matter or gas, or whatever it is. A third observation is that there is a beginning to the creation, which is located in time, and given enough data we can perhaps date this. We probably don’t have enough data but we can come up with certain conclusions in terms of answering the question, When did this happen?
The problem of dating Genesis 1:1
1) It could be billions of years, millions of years, or it could be just a few thousand years or few hundred years. There is nothing anywhere in the Bible to suggest that it is more than a few decades or a few hundred years. That may be a whole new idea to some because there has been this tendency to think it could be billions of years.
2) Where do we get this idea of billions of years anyway? Until the advent of evolutionary science—historical geology, Darwinism—based on a principle called uniformitarianism no one who believed the Bible held to long ages. The most famous chronological system was that of an Anglican bishop by the name of James Usher. He went through all the genealogies, added everything up, and said Genesis 1:1 occurred in 4004 BC. And, of course, so many people ridicule him today. However, Usher did not fall off the turnip or watermelon truck, he was one of the most brilliant men in his day. Not only was he brilliant but he did something that was not uncommon, and that was to use the numbers in the Scripture, accept them at face value and try to come up with a date for original creation. According to the Jewish calendar, creation occurred in 3760 BC. According to the numbers in the Septuagint it has a date of creation of around 5270 BC. (The Hebrew OT that out OT is based on is called the Massoretic Text. It was finalized and formalized in about the 9th century AD. We didn’t have anything older than that until they found the Dead Sea scrolls which were dated around the 2nd century BC. When they dug those up they found there were very few differences. But there are more differences in the LXX. Apparently the Hebrew MSS they had varied somewhat in some places from the Hebrew MSS that were accepted by Massoretes) Josephus had a date of 5,555 BC. Johannes Kepler who was one of the founders of modern physics held to a creation date of 3993 BC. Note that there is a vast difference between a date for the creation of the universe of 3993 BC or 5555 BC and five-billion years! Modern evolutionary chronology places the origin of man at 3-million years BC.
3) It is popular to ridicule this dating as pre-scientific, i.e. they just didn’t understand what we do about geology and our dating systems in geology are absolute. That is the assumption. It is not true. Usher lived between 1581 and 1656, from the time of the birth of modern science. One man who accepted his dates without question was Isaac Newton. He had a few aberrations in his theology, he was not a Trinitarian, but he wrote more about theology and the Bible than he did about science. Many of the early scientists were that way—very interested in Scripture, Bible-believing creationists, and they wrote more commentaries and more about theology than they did about science. Newton accepted Usher’s dates without question. In fact, Newton wrote a book called The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms where he amended and challenged the chronological schemes of the ancient Egyptians and said that they were wrong for setting the date of the first dynasty before 5000 BC, because he knew that the earth wasn’t that old. In fact, no educated man in the 17th or 18th century would think of the earth as being more than 6-7000 years old because they accepted what the Bible said at face value. There are problems with dating and we need to identify these. There are some problems in the numbers between the Massoretic Text and the Septuagint and the Samaritan text, so we can’t be precise. But remember, these differences aren’t large. These differences make up something like 4, 5, 6, or 7-hundred years, they do not make up tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of years. Another problem is the contention that there are gaps in the genealogies in the Bible. The problem is that it is easy to look at some genealogies where it says that A begat B, and begat can cover a number of generations. There are gaps in some of the non-technical, non-specific genealogies, like in Matthew and Luke where we have these large gaps. But in other genealogies we have the precise information. There a confusion with datings systems that come out of archaeology.
All dating systems used by archaeology presuppose an evolutionary, uniformitarian structure. What is uniformitarianism? Statement by Mark Ridley, an evolutionists: “All that is needed to prove evolution is observed microevolution added to the philosophical doctrine of uniformitarianism which underlies all science.” This word is recognized in all evolutionary literature as the key philosophical presupposition to all evolutionary thought. The Bible specifically defines uniformitarianism in 2 Peter 3:3-5, “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” In other words, everything continues at the same rate of decay. That is the idea of uniformitarianism, that you can measure the rate of decay—like carbon 14 or other elements in something and then extrapolate backward based on a uniform decay rate how long that has been there. That is called The Clock, and they have different ways of measuring this, but if you can measure a decay rate over the last 150 years and you get a scientific formula that you can extrapolate back and work out how old something is. It is flawed in a number of ways: a) It is a gratuitous assumption that decay rates have been the same. With Noah’s flood you have the destruction of all decay rates and everything changes because of that catastrophe. But also, not everything gives the same decay rate. For example, if you measure the decay of the earth’s magnetic field, and there has been a specific decay rate over the last 200 years, and extrapolate backwards, then the age of the earth cannot be any older than 10,000 years. If you look at the influx of radio carbon to the earth, the earth, again, cannot be more than 10,000 years old. If you measure the influx of meteoric dust from space, it is too little to calculate. If you measure the influx of sediment to the ocean through rivers then the age of the earth is 30-million years. If you measure the leaching of chlorine from the continents into the oceans, then it yields an age of only one-million years. If you measure the decay rate of carbon 14 and Precambrian wood, then the earth is 4000 years old. If you measure the influx of lead to the ocean via rivers, then the earth is 2000 years old. If you measure the influx of aluminum to the ocean via rivers, then the earth is only a hundred years old. If you measure the influx of silver to the ocean via the rivers, the earth is 2.1-million years old. If you measure the influx of potassium to the ocean, then it is eleven million years old. If you measure the influx of titanium into the ocean, it is only one-hundred and sixty years old. If you measure the instability of the rings of Saturn, the solar system is one-million years old, but then if you measure the accumulation of dust on the moon, then it is only 200,000 years old. In other words, the whole methodology is flawed and the presupposition is flawed. So you can’t assume that dating systems have validity because they are grounded in philosophical presuppositions and assumptions that can’t be proven that are based on evolution. It is circular reasoning. Ultimately they presuppose the uniform process to prove the uniform process and the longevity of it.
The problem is that up until the early 19th century or late 18th century no one who studied the Bible at face value ever came up with the age of the earth and the creation of Genesis 1:1, even with the fall of Satan in there and everything else, of more than 10,000 years. What happened? When science, almighty science, came along on the basis of evolutionary and uniformitarian presuppositions and started saying that the earth was 20,000 or 50,000 years old, then they didn’t think that was a big enough number and tried to fit it in somehow. But it wouldn’t fit. What happened was that it went from 25,000 to 50,000 to 500,000, to 5-million, to 5-billion years, and it got out of control.
So when we look at Genesis 1:1, and even though there is a time lapse between 1:1 and 1:2, there is no reason to just jump in and say it can mean millions or billions of years. The only reason people have introduced those big numbers is because evolutionary scientists came along and said everything has to be that way.
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006-Beginnings
No matter what you think about in life your understanding of origins and creation impacts how you think about that. Origins and understanding the issues related to creation, especially in light of evolutionary doctrine and thought, is not something secondary. Divine revelation is the only revelation that can provide the framework for understanding the details of creation. Example: there are many things that Adam could learn empirically in the garden. He could go around and see that certain plants were green, some were greener than others, some were short, some were tall, some produced fruit, etc. He could observe many different things about the different plants, the different trees in the garden. But no matter how much time he spent looking at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he could not know that if he ate that he would be under a judicial penalty. God had to tell him that if he ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would instantly die. He couldn’t know that information empirically, so empiricism is ultimately limited. We can learn some things about God through empiricism but we can’t learn specifics. For example, Romans 1:18-22: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” What is the truth they are suppressing? It is not specific proof, it is proof related to the existence of God. “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them [evidenced in them]; for God hath showed it unto them.” Every single human being who rejects God’s existence knows that God exists, it is evident within them. God revealed it to them. How? Explanation, v. 20: “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” Paul starts with the creation. This is what is called general revelation. It is non-verbal revelation, revelation that when you look out on the earth you see evidence of design, evidence of purpose, and from that you extrapolate that there must be an intelligent designer. But it doesn’t tell us a lot about who God is, it tells us that there is this intelligent designer, that there is this omnipotent power, but it doesn’t tell us anything about who he is. What the Scriptures show is that this is clearly enough to hold people accountable. That means that the unbeliever at the great white throne judgment cannot say he didn’t know God existed. Verse 21, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations [futile in their speculations], and their foolish heart was darkened.” There is no atheist in history that did not at one time know beyond a shadow of doubt that God exists. Verses 22, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” In General revelation you can derive from empiricism certain general data and get enough information to know that God exists, but you don’t know how to be saved, you don’t know that God is a righteous God, that God is a God of judgment and accountability, and that He is a God who is loving and He provided a savior through Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins. You can’t learn that, it can only come through special revelation, through verbal revelation and prepositional revelation. We can only derive a certain amount of revelation generally and can only know how to properly interpret that information from special revelation.
Dr Hugh Ross is a Christian, not a trained theologian, doesn’t know the original languages, is an astronomer and a physicist. He makes a number of claims in his books, including rejection of the young earth view. In fact, he claims that when he was 17 years old, just picking up Genesis and reading it for the first time, that it was more than obvious to him that Genesis one covered billions of years. He was at that age already immersed in evolutionary thought so he was reading that from within his preconceived framework. Since his views are in the public domain they are available for analysis and critique, and we need to learn how to think critically about different issues that are raised because none of these views that he raises are original with him. If we start to teak Genesis one it is going to leak out into other areas of theology.
He makes a number of interesting claims in relationship to his views which are called “progressive creationism.” Progressive creationism is the idea that the time period of Genesis one is more than six literal 24-hour days. It teaches that after each creative act there was a certain amount of diversification. So God creates and then there is a long time period, then he creates something else and then there is a lot of development and evolution, and then He creates something else. There are different terms that are used for this, like punctuated creationism, threshold evolution, which are really different forms of theistic evolution. But progressive creationism has really come to represent a couple of different views. One view is called the day-age view. That is the idea that each of the days of Genesis really represents lengthy periods of time. The other approach is that you have day one, a 24-hour day, where God creates X. Then you have a million years, and then day two—for the six days. These views don’t hold up. Dr Ross makes a statement related to non-verbal revelation: “The plan of salvation as stated in the Bible can be seen through the observation of the universe around us. Thus all human beings have a chance to discover it. The Bible is the only one of all religious writings which declares a message in full agreement with and, of course, amplification of the gospel message seen in creation.” So for Dr Ross, what he basically does is come along and say general revelation is big; special revelation is small. It [special revelation] may expand on some things in general revelation but every important detail in the Scripture is just clear from observing nature, so we can use, then, general revelation to judge and interpret special revelation. So what he is saying is that what he discerns empirically can then be used to judge and interpret revelation from God, not the other way around. In doing this he shifts away from the historically orthodox position that general revelation simply indicates that God exists and that man can affirm through creation a few ideas about God and His existence, and enough ideas to be held accountable for rejecting God. The conclusion from this is that because Ross falls apart from his basic system of knowledge he is going to do some damaging things to doctrines in Scripture, because he is going to let empiricism be his ultimate basis of knowledge rather than the Scriptures. This is the typical arrogance of human viewpoint.
Genesis 1:1, the Bible speaks about four beginnings. The first, God, isn’t really a beginning. He is eternal, everlasting, not temporal, Psalm 90:2, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” God has no beginning and no ending, He always is. The phrase “In the beginning” is the phrase that John picks up at the beginning of his Gospel. John is writing from the Jewish perspective and that phrase would take a Jewish reader right back to Genesis one, and he would be thinking about that beginning of space-time history. “In the beginning was the Word [Jesus Christ].” The word “was” is a translation of the imperfect active indicative of the Greek word EIMI [e)imi] the word for existence, and it could be translated, “In the beginning the Word was continuously existing already.” In other words, it takes us to a point of time when time began, when space began, when matter began. He says, “At this point in time the LOGOS was,” imperfect tense, continual action in past time. The LOGOS was existing, emphasizing the eternality of the second person of the Trinity. So God has no beginning or ending, He is eternal.
Then we come to the second beginning in Scripture, the angels. The angels are not eternal, they are creatures. Psalm 148:2, “Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.” The term “hosts” is the Hebrew word which means armies. It is a synonymous parallelism where the angels are synonymous to armies. Then in v. 5 of that psalm, “Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded, and they were created.” This attributes the creation of the angels to Yahweh. This is a strong argument for the deity of Christ because in Colossians 1:16 where Christ is said to be the creator of all things, including angels, “in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers [terms related to angels]: all things were created by him, and for him.” So Paul in the New Testament says it was Jesus Christ who creates the thrones, dominions, authorities. In Psalm 148:5 it says it was Yahweh. Yahweh, then, equals Jesus Christ. Then in Job 38:4-7, a crucial passage for understanding some dynamics in Genesis chapter one. God is confronting Job with his finiteness. Job has been complaining and groaning about his suffering and questions whether God is really a just God. Why don’t you tell me why I suffer? God is not going to answer Job. He is not answerable to us for why He allows certain things into our lives. And in order to demonstrate to Job that Job is just a miserable little creature and has no right to question God as to His purposes or His actions, God begins to fire a number of rhetorical questions to Job, all of which reinforce the idea to Job that he really has no right to question God. “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” The phrase “morning stars” is parallel to “sons of God,” and the term “sons of God” is a term that always refers to the angels. It is not talking about believers. Only when we get into the New Testament does becoming a son of God become a term for believers. The angels were present when God was creating and laying the foundations to the earth, and when He is doing that they are not divided. Notice it says, they sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. This would be before Lucifer fell, before the angelic conflict revolt.
Then we have a beginning for man, referenced in Matthew 19:4, “And he [Jesus] answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning …”
The fourth beginning. John refers to the beginning of the Church, 1 John 2:7.
The next key word in Genesis 1:1 is “God.” What do we mean by God? This is the problem that missionaries run into when they go into pagan, primitive societies. Their concept of God is not a personal, infinite God; it is an impersonal force. So the God that you are talking about is not the God that they are hearing you talk about. You have to go back and clarify these things, otherwise when it is all said and done they don’t have a clue who they have believed in because when Jesus is the Son of God He is just the son of some impersonal force, and that is not who Jesus is in the Bible.
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007-God; Creation Words; Pagan Cosmogonies
There are different views as to when God created the angels. 1) God creates the angels before Genesis 1:1; 2) God created the angels between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2; 3) God created the angels on day 3, and this is usually argued for on the basis of the analogy that is found in the Scriptures where the angels are spoken of metaphorically as the stars of heaven, e.g. Job 38:7. Then you would not have the angelic conflict or the fall of Satan until after Genesis 2:3. The first view, that the angels were created before Genesis 1:1, is preferable.
In Genesis 1:1, the next word we look at is “God,” even though this is the third word in the Hebrew text. What do we mean by the term “God”? People think that they can just generate out of their own mind, their own frame of reference, who God is. It is all personal opinion, and it is very rare to fond someone who will stop and say, “The Bible says that God is this way … God has revealed Himself to be a God who is righteous and holy and just, who is sovereign, love, eternal,” etc. We live in an era today when people think that they can figure out spirituality just from generating it up from their own subjective impressions, and that is true about the meaning for God. There are all kinds of views of God so we have to address the question as to what this means. What we see in Genesis 1:1 is that God is the creator of everything. The word that is used is the Hebrew word Elohim. There are a number of Hebrew words for God and Elohim is a sort of generic term for God. The im suffix is plural, and the reason it has been said that this is not translated “Gods” is that this is the plural of majesty. But there is a disagreement with this because there is a tendency among scholars to go too far overboard and say you can’t find the Trinity in the Old Testament so don’t go to the plurality of God’s name. The reason that is a problem is the way Elohim is actually used in the context of Genesis chapter one. For example, in verse 26 there is not only the noun Elohim which, if it was a plural of majesty, would always be dealt with in terms of the verbs and pronouns as a singular. But we have “And Elohim said,” in v. 26, “let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.” So the plural pronoun that is used in v. 26 mitigates against the argument that this is simply a plural of majesty. The plural of Elohim would include the concept of at least a plurality in the Godhead. It doesn’t teach the Trinity in and of itself, it just contains within itself the idea of a plurality in the Godhead. So have just the statement that God creates. But we know from later revelation that God exists as a Trinity, and we know from subsequent revelation that all three members of the Trinity are involved in creation. There are different roles within the Godhead. They are not subordinate to one another in terms of essence, they are equally God, but they are subordinate in terms of role function. God the Father is viewed as the architect, the planner. The Son is the contractor, as it were, the one who is more immediately involved in the construction of the universe. Then the Holy Spirit is the one who is involved in renewal and renovation. Colossians 1:16; John 1:3. The unique characteristic of God against all other gods is His act of creation. It is this act of creation, ex nihilo [out of nothing], that is the defining event in all history for revealing who God is. This almost beyond anything else distinguishes God from everything else in history.
In Revelation chapter five John takes us into the throne room of God and describes what he sees in the heavens. In 5:9 we see the emphasis on redemption. However, what precedes this? In 4:11, before we come to a praise of the Son for His act of redemption, first we have praise for God for His act of creation. “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” So it is in the presence of God that the angels praise Him continuously because He created all things. So to learn who God really is we must abandon pagan deceptions that surround creation. That is not an easy thing to do because all thought systems in human history have some sort of pagan notion about who God is and what He is like, and the whole concept of Scripture is to completely renovate our thinking. So as we go to the end of the Bible we see that even in Revelation there is an emphasis on creation. This comes through even at the very end of Revelation. Revelation 21:1, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.” Then in v. 4, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Can verse 4 be understood if Genesis chapter three and the fall of man is not understood? It becomes meaningless. And not only that. If God created the heavens and the earth through some sort of long-term evolutionary process, then there are real problems interpreting the immediate creation of a new heavens and a new earth when it comes to Revelation 21:1. You have to have a consistent system of hermeneutics or interpretation through the Scriptures. In verse 1 we read that the first creation was removed. 2 Peter describes it, it burns up in some sort of nuclear explosion. And God creates instantly a new heavens and a new earth for the habitation of believers throughout all eternity. So if we don’t believe there was an instantaneous creation in Genesis 1:1 then we have no reason to believe that there is an instantaneous creation of a new heavens and earth in Revelation 21. The issue in Genesis and in origins is such that if you tweak with it, twist it out of line, it is going to destroy soteriology. As we will see, evolution is really an attack, a subtle but damaging attack, on the cross and the need for a savior to go to the cross and die for man. There are further implications in Revelation 22:1, “And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” Notice that there is a river that flows out of the throne of God in the new earth and in the new Jerusalem. Then v. 3, “And there shall be no more curse.” How can you understand v. 3 if you don’t understand Genesis 3? If Genesis 3 isn’t literal, then how can Revelation 22 be understood in a literal sense?
The next word we come to in Genesis 1:1 is the verb “created.” This is in the qal stem, almost compared to the indicative mood in Greek. We have the qal stem of bara, and this verb is used about 50 times in the Old Testament. Every time it is used in the qal stem only God is the subject of the verb. Man never bara’s, only God bara’s. So bara is a word that emphasizes divine creation. There has been a claim that bara had the idea of ex nihilo creation inherent in the meaning of the word. But that is not true. Ex nihilo is Latin for “out of nothing.” In other words, two seconds before Genesis 1:1 nothing existed except God and the angels. God created the angels out of nothing; He created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. The word bara is used in Isaiah chapter 43:1, “But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.” God is talking to the nation of Israel, calling them Jacob. The word “created” there is the Hebrew bara. Was Israel created out of nothing? No, they were created from already existing materials. Abraham came along through the normal process of procreation. The reason we can say that this has the idea of “out of nothing” is not because of the core meaning of bara is “out of nothing,” it simply emphasizes the uniqueness and the creation of something by divine command. What bara emphasizes is just this uniqueness of God. Other passages in the context of Genesis make it clear that this is out of nothing. For example, Hebrews 11:3, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” So that is ex nihilo creation. We also have the fact that in Genesis 1:1, “God creates the heavens and the earth,” indicates that there was nothing there before He created them.
There are three other words we need to pay attention to when we talk about creation. Bara is the first word. The second word is asah, found in Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let us make man in our image.” The word for “make” is asah, usually translated “do, make,” sometimes “create,” and it is a more generic term for the act of making, fashioning, shaping, creating something. It is used in some passages as a synonym for bara, but a point to be made is that when it is used as a synonym for bara it is the more technical bara that defines the meaning of asah, and there are too many scholars who want to destroy the significance of bara by coming along and going from asah and saying it is a general word, don’t make such a big deal out of bara, it is used in parallel with asah in these passages, so it is not a big deal. No, the technicality of bara restricts the meaning of the broader word. And that is always true in any kind of poetry, that if you are paralleling two words and one word is more precise than the other word that restricts the field of meaning of the more general word. So asah is the more general word used for create. Then in versed 27, “So God created [bara] man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” This indicates that man was uniquely created by God. In Genesis 2:7, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,” the mechanics. Here we have our third word for creation, yatser, which has the idea of molding, fashioning, or shaping. This would be the word a potter would use for shaping a clay vessel, so it is a particularly appropriate word for the construction or formation of the male physical body; “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” The biological life is yatser, the soul life is bara, and together the entire process is referred to as creation, asah. A fourth word is banah, which means to build. When the woman was made, she was “built,” banah.
Questions that are raised.
a) Isn’t Genesis one “myth” compatible to other ancient legends and mythologies?
b) Could there be millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, and couldn’t this be the time frame for historical geology, all the ages of the dinosaur, and take all of evolution and just basically dump it into this Genesis 1:1-1:2.
c) How long are the days? Are these really 24-hour days, and must we understand them to be 24-hour days? Or could they be seven long periods of time?
d) Could God have used evolution as a mechanism for creation?
In order to answer the first questions we should look at one of the other legends that was popular at the time. The one that was most well-known is one that was discovered between 1848 and 1876, and is a Canaanite creation story, so it is right in the context of the land of Israel. It was in King Ashur-bani-pal’s library in Nineveh. The library dates form about 668-630 BC, and the foremost expert on this document was Dr Alexander Hydell, and this is how he desribes the story: “ … is the principal source of our knowledge of Mesopotamian cosmology. Yet, it is not primarily a creation story at all, its prime objective is to offer cosmological reasons for Marduk’s advancement from the position as chief god of Babylon to that of the head of the entire Babylonian pantheon.” In other words, this is really a political move and a coup take-over by a secondary god, Marduk, who is the god for Babylon, who is going to take over all the gods. This is just a justification for Babylonian ascendancy. This story has a real epic tone to it. Whenever you have something of epic proportions it always drives you back to origins. Origins and the beginnings are always brought in to some degree. In the beginning the heaven and the earth wasn’t named, there was just the presence of water. The chaotic sea was personified. There was the presence of water, three deities, and the use of the heaven and the earth, formlessness and chaos. Everything begins with chaos but there is something that is there. There is matter and chaos already there. There is violence where one of the gods is split in half. Half becomes the heavens and half becomes the earth. Notice the parallelism with modern evolution. It starts with existing matter, we don’t know where it came from. It is in a chaotic state. It is from matter that everything is created, and somehow order is brought to bear.
Notice the difference between that and the simplicity of “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” So you just can’t come along and claim that the Bible just fits into the milieu of ancient pagan cosmogonies, it is radically different.
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008-The Gap View. Gen 1:1
We have had introduced four questions which must be addressed as we begin to move beyond the first verse of Genesis one into the remainder of the chapter. These questions are important because there has been a tremendous amount of pressure for the last 200 years on Christians to somehow assimilate what is found in science with what the Bible says, that somehow to put the two together to make them harmonize. And there are a number of assumptions associated with that attempt that at least need to be pointed out, and many of them are somewhat dangerous. The primary pressures come from the idea that science has somehow discovered Truth, absolute truth, about origins and so make the Bible fit what apparent conclusions from science are. We have to first of all understand what the Bible does teach. This is important because there have been a number of things that have occurred over the centuries where people have not been clear on what the Bible teaches. They come to a false conclusion of what the Bible teaches and then that is juxtaposed with science. The classic case is Galileo being tried by church courts because he wanted to shift from a geocentric solar system, an earth-centred solar system, to a helio-centric or sun centred view of the solar system, which we know is correct.
Just about any time you bring this subject up, when you are talking with a proponent of evolutional science, they will say that this is a case of science versus the Bible, a case of science versus religion. And that is a completely false construct and it betrays the ignorance of the evolutionist as to what was going on, or he is just unwilling to face the historical reality of what took place during the middle ages. Also the fact that Christians cower when they are faced with this indicates that they are pretty ignorant of the situation too. What had happened in the middle ages, going back to about the 11th or 12th century, especially as the Moslem hordes were putting pressure on the Byzantine empire, is that as that pressure developed people were fleeing from the Eastern Orthodox Church and from Greece up in to Europe and they were bringing their libraries with them. They were bringing with them the ancient Greek MSS of Plato and specifically Aristotle. Aristotle made tremendous impact on an Aristotilian view of science and the universe and on the western church. And what happened was that the western church began to assimilate their view of Scripture and to begin to interpret their Scripture within an Aristotilian framework. So what we actually have taking place in the middle ages is not a view of science and a view of the solar system and the universe as being something that was purely biblical, but it is the Bible being reinterpreted within this framework so that you end up with a geocentric view of the solar system. This is because they were taking the Bible plus Aristotle, so it is not a purely biblical interpretation. Furthermore, there were problems with things in language. Another example would be that Job talks about the four corners of the earth. The Hebrew there for corners is one of many words that are used. Actually it means the four directions on the earth or four dimensions of the earth, it is not necessarily the technical word for corners, that is, a right angle. So because it is a mistranslation and a misunderstanding of the Hebrew word it let some people to believe that to take the Bible literally leads to a flat-earth theory. The Bible does not have this view of either a flat earth or of that the heavens are some sort of solid mass, neither does it teach an earth-centred solar system. But when you have a lack of correct understanding of the original languages, and when trying to take a biblical view and interpret it within a human viewpoint philosophical framework, this will always come up with erroneous conclusions.
It is important for us to make sure we accurately understand just what the Bible says and what it doesn’t say, and then once we formulate and understanding of creation based on what the Scriptures say, then we can on that model can have a framework for correctly interpreting the empirical data that science develops. Of course, modern man wants to do it the other way around. We want to conclude that science and empiricism correctly discerns the way things actually are, and then we want to bring that in to govern the interpretation of Scripture. As long as we believe in the sufficiency and inerrancy of Scripture we will always start with Scripture, and no matter how real or how clear something may appear according to science today we know that we walk by faith and not by sight. Walking by faith doesn’t mean that we are going to believe it despite the evidence, but it does mean that the evidence can clearly be falsely interpreted by modern science, and so the Word of God which is clear is going to be more real to us than what our experience may bring to bear.
The second question we need to address is, Could there be millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, and could this not be the time frame for historical geology, the dinosaurs and cavemen? This is an important question. There are really two questions here. One is, Is there a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, and how long is it? The second is, Can we cram historical geology, the dinosaurs, the fossils, everything that doesn’t seem to fit into the Bible, into the gap between these two verses? Yes, there is a time gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. First of all, we know that God is perfect and His work is perfect. Genesis 1:1 is a complete sentence s6ntactically in the Greek. Then 1:2 tells us that the earth was empty, deserted, distorted. The way the verse is punctuated in the English Bible is wrong. There are three circumstantial clauses. The main verb doesn’t actually come until verse 3. The point we make is, How does the earth become “without form and void”? Where does the darkness come from? And why is it necessary for the Spirit of God to generate a flutter over the face of the deep? To answer this we have to compare with other scriptures.
1. Because God is perfect, His work is perfect. God does not create something less than perfection. Deuteronomy 32:4, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” In Genesis 1:2 we are told three things about the condition here. It is formless and void: it has no form, it is chaotic, and it indicates that something disastrous has happened. In other places, as we will see, it indicates judgment and chaos. This is not a case of God just creating the random parts of the universe.
2. Elsewhere in Scripture “heavens and earth” are used of a completed, working universe. The retort to this is that Genesis 1 is distinct so we are going to have to use all of these terms different from the rest of Scripture. The problem with that is that it would be fine if this were actually recording revelation that was given at the beginning of creation. But remember, this was Moses writing down the Scripture in 1446 BC. So the Jews on the plains of Moab already have a history of biblical or revelatory terminology and they are going to interpret words on the basis of that. Everywhere else in Scriptures words like light and darkness imply light is good, darkness is evil. “The deep” has an evil connotation; tohu waw bohu has a connotation of judgment; so if the second verse in Genesis has these three phrases and that is being written for people living in 1440 BC who already have an oral tradition that has given certain baggage to those words, then when they hear those words at the beginning it is going to have that connotation for them. Same thing with “heavens and the earth.” You can’t just come along and say this is different because it is the starting point in creation. So what we have here is a specific Hebrew syntax or grammar that indicates a change; it indicates a break, a disjunctive waw. When you have a disjunctive waw it is not action that is consecutive to the preceding action. It doesn’t read, “In the beginning God created the earth and the earth was without form and void.” That would be consecutive, and it is how some people want to read it. You read it as a break, and it should be translated, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but the earth was without form of void.” Then coming to the main verb, the perfect of the Hebrew verb hayah, it normally indicates a state of condition, and since it is not the original state of 1:1 we can translate it “became” – “the earth became formless and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep.” Since these are circumstantial clauses that relate to the main verb of “said” in verse 3 we should translate, “Now the earth was without form and void,” because it is stating the condition the earth was in when God spoke in verse three. It is not the same condition of verse one, the waw consecutive breaks the action. So it is clear from the grammar that you have an original creation inverse one and then there is this break where there is some sort of introduction of chaos between v.1 and v. 2. Then verse 2 takes up what is happening in terms of six days of more accurately stated restoration.
3. Then there is a lexical argument from word meaning. This is based on three terms that are used here. Tohu waw bohu basically means formless or shapeless, or something that is completely out of its original design. Bohu means empty. These words are used together. Tohu is used a few times by itself but bohu is never used apart from tohu. Looking at a couple of passages that are related to this you see that there is a sense of judgment that is in the context of these passages. Jeremiah 4:23-26 is a passage where Jeremiah is warning the Jews of the southern kingdom of the coming judgment of Babylon on Judah. In order to portray the destructiveness of this judgment he borrows imagery from creation. Isaiah 34:11 is another passage, the judgment of the nations at the time of the Lord’s vengeance—the end of the Tribulation. Now where did the judgment of tohu waw bohu comes from in Genesis 1:2? Here we have to make a theological deduction. Job 38:4-7, when God laid the foundation of the earth the angels of God shouted for joy, they were all united. They were present. It seems that there has to be a time period for the fall of Satan, described in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. When did Satan and the angels fall? There are only two options. They either fall between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 or they fall after the creation week. The judgment terminology in v.2 suggests that what we are talking about here is the aftermath of the fall of the angels. So what we have here is a chaos which is the result of Lucifer’s fall and the angelic rebellion. As a result of that there is a judgment on the angels. Their abode prior to the fall was on the planet. Earth became the scene of Satan’s rebellion against God and his judgment, so God basically turned the lights out in the universe. God exists in unapproachable light, and when you come to Revelation at the end of the Bible there is no darkness. Where does the darkness come from? It is something that is added, it is not just there. A completely dark universe is going to be frozen because there is no light and no heat. It is during this time that God judges the angels who fell, and it is at this time that Satan raises the challenge to God’s ability to rule His creation and that God had not given him a fair chance and opportunity to prove what he can do. It is at this point, then, that God is going to restore the earth and set up this new universe in which He is going to set forth a test case on planet earth to give Satan the opportunity t demonstrate what he can do, and for God to demonstrate that no creature can live or operate independent from the creator. The concept of darkness in Scripture always has a negative connotation. E.g. Exodus 10:21, 22; Psalm 35:6; Joel 2:2; Matthew 4:16; John 3:19. Then the third word that is used is the Hebrew word tahom which means “deep,” and is often symbolic of chaos and death. For example, in Exodus 15:5, 8 related to the Red Sea, “the deeps covered them.” Then, Ezekiel 26:19, “ … I shall bring up the deep over you, and the great waters will cover you.” When we look at these texts we should infer that there is something radically different that has taken place here as a result of some action that is not mentioned in verse 1 that describes the circumstance on the earth when God spoke in verse three. This indicates that there is some kind of time gap. It is based on grammar, on vocabulary, and on theology.
Then the second part of the question: Can we put into this time gap the geological ages?
1) That idea was set forth in the 19th century. A little history of this interpretation: It can be traced back to at least the 9th or 8th century AD. So the idea that there is a time gap between 1:1 and 1:2 didn’t originate in the 19th century, it goes back to the early church.
2) It was not there in order to ram, cram and jamb historical ages in there. It was understood to be the time frame when Satan fell. It was the only use of that view up until the 19th century. This was the view expressed by Milton in Paradise Lost, that this was the time within which the angels were created and Satan fell. At the end 1700s there was the rise of historical geology. This is in the period of the Enlightenment, and in the Enlightenment man’s reason reigns supreme and there is a definite anti-biblical slant to man’s thinking. There is a rejection of God’s Word. Up to that point scientists almost without exception held that there was a literal Noahic flood that lasted a year and that all of the fossils were formed in the flood. There was a clear belief in flood geology. But starting in the late 18th century there was a rejection of the Bible, a rejection of Noah’s flood as a reality, and that fossils were formed gradually over a long period of time. There was the development of the uniformitarian view of geology, which now, incidentally, is falling out of vogue with modern geology. As a result of that historical geology was postulating a date of the earth of 45,000 years. At that time there had already been the influence of science and Enlightenment thinking on he church for about 150 years—that somehow you could come up with Truth apart from Scripture. So science is developing its reputation that this is true, they know what they are talking about, and they have accurately interpreted the data and that we have a 45,000-yr-old earth. A man by the name of Thomas Chalmers who was a Presbyterian pastor in Scotland, one of the foremost Scottish Presbyterian theologians at that time, set forth the theory that all they needed to come up with is 45,000 years. So it was decided to put the fossils into this gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Notice that the pressure is coming from a secular interpretation of geology that the earth is only 45,000 years old, and so he is trying to come up with only 45,000 years. By the end of the 19th century the talk was something like a million years or several million years, and now it is up to about 300-million years. It keeps getting larger. It is one thing to come up with 45,000 years but quite another to come up with 300-million years. Chalmers’ view was very popular and by the end of the 19th century there was a man by the name of G.H. Pember who wrote a book called “World in Chaos.” He holds the same view, and he tries to put the geologic ages in between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. This became known as the gap theory. What they really did was hijack the theory that had been around since the early church in order to try to assimilate and compromise with the findings of science, thinking that the findings of science were accurate. Remember we have already seen the fact that dating systems may be extremely flawed, but they were assuming that the dating systems were accurate. So they began to shift the interpretations of Scripture in order to fit the conclusions of science. But there are some basic and fundamental problems with that view. First of all, if you have some form of pre-Adamic race and all of animal life prior to Genesis 1:2. When the judgment occurs, what happens to all this life? It’s dead. This presents some serious problems to theology. Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” In that passage “death” has the definite article emphasizing a unique death. But it seems that with Romans 5:12 you can place an argument from context that this is spiritual death. Spiritual death is the penalty for sin and physical death is the consequence for sin. So even though a lot of people want to use this verse as a argument here, it doesn’t work because Romans 5:12 is a passage that deals with spiritual death primarily. But there is still the passage in 1 Corinthians 15:21, 22 to deal with, “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” In order to do that attention must be paid to the context of chapter 15—physical resurrection. E.g. v. 20, “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.” What kind of death is in view in v. 20? It is physical death, not spiritual death. The Paul states a principle is v.21: by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. So it is clear that the death here is not spiritual death. Furthermore, death here does not have the article in the Greek, which indicates it is the qualitative idea of death, death in principle came through man. So we are talking about the principle of death. It cannot, according to this verse, precede Adam. If you have anything die physically before Adam then Christ did not need to go to the cross. If death enters into the world before Adam sinned, then death, even in the animal kingdom, is not the result of Adam’s sin, and therefore it would mean the cross was not necessary. And that is heresy. That is why evolution is a subtle attack on the necessity of the cross. Furthermore, if there was physical death before Genesis 1:2 and the fossils were there, then the contention is that Adam is put in perfect environment, but a perfect environment that is a graveyard! That is not perfect environment. Then, the contention is that you could have two catastrophes, one before Genesis 1:2 to form fossils, and another at the flood. This is impossible. Fossils don’t always flow in the same pattern; they are all mixed up. All the fossils have to be formed by the same catastrophic event. It is either the catastrophic event of a judgment in Genesis 1:2 or it is a catastrophic event at Noah’s flood. If it is a catastrophic event at 1:2 then you have a world-wide flood where the waters swirl around the earth with incredible power for an entire year in Genesis chapter six, and there is no trace left of it in the geologic record. That’s absurd. All the fossils are found in sedimentary rock. What lays down sedimentary rock? Water. So if all of those fossils were laid down in Genesis 1:2 all of that evidence would have been destroyed by the flood in Genesis 6. So the only option we are left with is that all the fossils had to have been formed by the Genesis 6 flood. Furthermore, there are examples of tree trunks in multi-strata deposits. That is, there is one tree trunk going through several strata, indicating it was all laid down at one time. Then there are those who presuppose that dinosaurs couldn’t live on the earth with man. But that is assuming that they lived on the same piece of real estate. Lions and tigers do not co-exist compatibly with human beings, but we don’t occupy the same piece of real estate. There are many animals alive today that do not live compatibly in the same environment with man. So what we have is the existence of these creatures but they didn’t exist in the same area as man. Then there are fossilized evidence in Texas that are dinosaur footprints fossilized in the same strata as human footprints. What happened to the dinosaurs? They died out after the flood.
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009-The Gap View; Day Age View
We have begun to answer four key questions. These are important questions that are often addressed and answered in studying Genesis because there is such an incredible amount of pressure from the cosmic intellectual systems to accommodate the Bible with these other views. This is the essence of syncretism, the idea that you can take the Bible and then merge it with whatever seems to be the thinking, the accepted realities of the culture around; to somehow knock the rough edges off the Bible so that it doesn’t always seem to have this head to head confrontation with the world around us. But the whole doctrine of creation is just that, and it always has been. The world is quite adept at constantly trying to undercut the teaching of Scripture and attack Genesis 1-11. The reason is that if Genesis 1-11 is thrown out in any way, shape or form, then everything else in the Bible suffers. Everything else from Genesis 12 to Revelation is built upon what is taught in Genesis 1-11. So we have to be very careful that we don’t fall into the trap of accepting the conclusions today of empirical science as absolute fact. We have to stick with the Scriptures and interpret the Scriptures in light of the Scriptures, and then no matter how much it may run foul of modern theories of science we must be willing to accept the Bible for what it says.
Genesis 1:2 begins with a conjunction in the Hebrew, then a noun, and then a verb. But this is not standard Hebrew sentence structure. Standard Hebrew sentence structure is conjunction, verb, and then noun. So when you have conjunction then noun this introduces what is called a disjunctive phrase. That means you are introducing a new topic, something that is different from the previous topic. So this can be translated “but,” or in some ancient Latin translated it is actually translated “however.” So there is a contrast. Verse 2 consists of three circumstantial clauses: “But the earth was without form and void”; “and darkness was on the face of the deep”; “and the Spirit of God was covering.” A circumstantial clause describes the circumstances surrounding the action of the main verb. This sentence is not an independent sentence, it is a dependent sentence. But the question then becomes, is it dependent on the first verse or on the third verse? In other words, is it describing the circumstances of God creating the heavens and the earth (in which case it would be, When God began to create the heavens and the earth the earth was without form and void) or, is it circumstantial to the third verse? And it is circumstantial to the third verse, you do not have the type of structure in the first verse necessary to have that as a temporal clause. The preposition be, “in” the beginning, should be taken as an independent statement, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” That is the original creation. The three circumstantial clauses in v. 2 describe the conditions existing on the earth when God first spoke on day one.
Isaiah 45:18, “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain [tohu, a waste place], he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.” So we have a specific statement here that God did not create the earth a waste place, without form. He creates it orderly. Something happened, then, that introduces the concept of tohu waw bohu, or judgment. We have already seen from Jeremiah 4:23-26 and Isaiah 34:11 that this terminology is always associated in the Old Testament with a judgment from God. So the first phrase, “without form and void,” is a phrase that indicates the action of divine judgment on the planet. Furthermore, it is not simply that one act of divine judgment but there is a second phrase, and that is “darkness.” Darkness is another concept that also indicates judgment, and everywhere else in the Scripture when you have the concept of darkness you have an indication of some sort of judgment. For example, there is darkness in Egypt in Exodus 10:21-23; Joel 2:2; John 3:19. Darkness always has this negative connotation of something associated with evil and with judgment. Then third phrase has to do with the word “deep.” This is the word tehom which is also associated with something judgmental. In fact, if you look at the Greek Septuagint it translates it with the Greek word ABUSSOS [a)bussoj] which is where we get our English word “abyss.” Everywhere you see abyss in the Scriptures this is the place where the angels are sent for punishment. All of this terminology works together to present an image of judgment on the earth.
Another thing that comes across in this passage is that there is a certain play on words that takes place here that would not be evident except in the English. For example, bohu is a cognate of the Assyrian word bahu. Bahu was the personification of chaos and disorder in the Assyrian pantheon. Bahu, this demonic personage in the Assyrian pantheon, is frequently associated in the literature with Tiamot, a name that is etymologically related to the Hebrew word tehom for deep. So Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is utilizing words that also carry other connotations that the Hebrews would be aware of, and it is this sort of sub-text that comes across showing that God is in control of everything that is going on here, and an indication that the God of the Hebrews is in control over these nature gods of the pagan people surrounding Israel. So that is just a little indication that there is more going on here than what we would pick up on by just reading the English.
I is clear from looking at the text that there is this clear time gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. What happened historically was, a couple of men came along in the 19th century who were influenced by historical geology and trying to add on an other 30 or 40 thousand years to the age of the earth. Thomas Chalmers, already mentioned, latched on to a view that had been around for some time. The idea that there was a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 goes back to at least the time of Christ and based on certain Talmudic renderings a fair case can be made that it goes back to the Mishna which predates Christ. Clement of Rome at the end of the first century AD, Origen in the late second century, and Tertullian, all translate Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 in this contrasted way, indicating a gap between 1:1 and 1:2. Furthermore, in various rabbinical commentaries, even though they are very mystical in the way they apply the text, they couldn’t get where they were going if they didn’t assume a gap between 1:1 and 1:2. So the idea of a gap goes back into at least the early rabbinic period, predating the time of Christ. But the fact that there was a gap there was simply to explain the fall of Satan and the introduction of evil. It is not an indication that there are vast time frames, like millions or billions of years as demanded by modern evolution. In fact, there is no indication of how long this time was. The dating methods of science can be, and are being, challenged.
One of the basic problems that is most telling is the theological problem, and that is related to an understanding of 1 Corinthians 15:21, 22. This crops up again and again and again. If you have any fossils before Genesis 1:2, to create a fossil something has to die. “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” This is a clear statement because the word “death” there is without the article, which means it is a qualitative use referring to death in principle. Death in principle comes by a man. That means that whatever else you can say about the rebellion of Satan they did not die spiritually. You can’t apply the word “death” to whatever happened to the demons when they rebelled against God. You can’t apply the concept of death to anything prior to Genesis chapter three when Adam eats from the tree of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, because it is by a man that death came. We have to take that verse and connect it to Romans 8 which tells us that Adam’s sin not only affected the human race, it affected the entirety of creation. Vv.18, 19, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us [Paul is building a theology of suffering]. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation [revealing] of the sons of God.” That refers to the fact that we as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ will be manifested in full glory as the bride of Christ at the second coming of Christ. It is at that time that the curse is rolled back. It is at that time that the lion will lie down with the lamb. It is not until then that there will be a world that will be without military conflict. It is not until then that the curse starts to be rolled back. So between Genesis 3 and the second coming of Christ in Revelation 19 there is going to be war and misery in the whole creation. Vv. 20, 21, “For the creature was made subject to vanity [futility], not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” The point in v. 21 is that the creation isn’t delivered, doesn’t experience the benefits of redemption, until the sons of God are made manifest at the second coming of Christ. This indicates that there are clear ramifications to nature, to creation, as a result of Adam’s sin, so that the curse that applies to creation and to nature, to the physical reality, is not reversed until the second coming of Christ. All of creation is impacted by Adam’s sin. Even though the penalty was spiritual death there were physical consequences, changes in biology, in botany, in zoology, in geology, in astronomy; all of the natural realm, all of the physical, material realm was changed.
Genesis 1:2, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Corrected translation: “But the earth” or “Now the earth.” Then we have the verb “was,” the Hebrew verb hayah, the basic verb to be which is called an equative verb, but in many places it has the connotation of “became.” In this passage it is in the qal perfect. Usually in English the perfect tense is translated as either a simple past—it was, or it became—but it also can have an English pluperfect nuance. Remember that any time there is that concept of perfect in a tense it indicates completed action in the past. This holds true for the perfect tense of hayah and it is translated that way in a couple of different passages. For example, in Genesis 20:4, “But Abimelech had not come near her.” This is a qal stem of the verb and it is translated “had not come,” indicating a perfect tense, the completed action. There are many other passages but that gives us an exegetical basis for translating “became” as “the earth had become,” indicating that a transformation had taken place. The best translation that we should have for Genesis 1:2 is, “But the earth had become a disordered waste, and empty; and there was darkness on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved on the waters.”
As already stated, there were several attempts to accommodate modern science to Genesis chapter one. The gap view, as it came to be called, was just of several accommodationist views. Another accommodationist attempt was called progressive creationism. Definition: The idea of a number of acts of divine creation but they are not in six consecutive days. In one form of progressive creationism you have one created day one, and then, say, a million years and then another act of creation, then another long period, then the third day, and so on. The six days of creation are separated by millions of years. In that view what is happens is that after each created act there is a period of time when diversification or evolution takes place. Then another view is the day-age view where each day is not a literal 24-hour day but each day may be two or three million years long.
This brings us to our next question: How long are the days? Some people who support the day-age view go to verses like Psalm 90:4, “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night,” and 2 Peter 3:8, “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” So what these people want to do is come along and say each day was equivalent to a thousand years. That still doesn’t work, they want to take this figuratively and say that each day is millions of years. But that completely misreads both Psalm 90 and 2 Peter 3. The point in both of these passages is that God is timeless. God is eternal. Eternal means that God is not subject to time at all. God doesn’t have days, He doesn’t have anything like a day. He has one eternal present. There are successions of His creatures but as far as God is concerned He is eternal and timeless. So this is not to be taken literally, it is a simple statement that God is timeless and we should not try to fit God’s timing into our frame of reference. God is not a temporal being.
When we come to the descriptions of the days in Genesis 1:3 through 2:3 we see that there are certain qualifications. For example, in v.5, “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” Two things bear on the interpretation of “day” there. First of all it is described as being evening and morning. Any reading of the text would suggest that that is the same frame of reference that you and I have, and after one evening and
one morning it is the next 24-hours period. Furthermore, the Hebrew word for day is the word yom. Whenever the word yom is used with an ordinal numeral, like one, it always refers to one 24-hour period in every one of its uses in the Old Testament—259 uses of yom in the OT, and every one of them refers to a literal 24-hour period. There is one problem passage in Hosea but it is used in an idiom that is based on an understanding of a 24-hour period. So the term “morning and evening” always qualifies it, when there is an ordinal numeral it always indicates a literal 24-hour period. Some suggest that the word “morning” which is the Hebrew boqer is not a literal term but that it can also mean a broad period of time. However, boqer is never used figuratively or metaphorically in the 205 times it is used in the Old Testament. So it is a literal morning. Furthermore, there is another contention made. In Genesis 2:4, “This is the history of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” There the word “day” does not refer to a 24-hour period, but it equals the entire week. No one who knows the original languages argues that the term “day” in Hebrew can’t refer to a long period of time. It is when it is qualified by an ordinal number or when it is qualified by phrases like “evening and morning” that it always means a 24-hour period. In this particular phrase there is the preposition be, which means “in.” When you have that preposition it is an idiom for that time period. It is just a broad term, in the day, in that time period.
There are a couple of other important problems. In the second verse we saw that the earth was chaotic, unformed, and in order to form it, to order it again, God does this in three days. In the first day He creates light, in day two He creates the atmosphere, and on day three He restricts the seas, creates vegetation, and there is geographic separation. Then in the second group of three days He orders the emptiness, the bohu. In day four He has light bearers. Notice: on day one He creates light but it is not localized in a body. On day four He creates the light bearers—the sun, moon and stars. But the point here is, when does God create vegetation? Day three. When does the sun appear? Day four. Problem” Plants need photosynthesis in order to survive. So if these are longer than 24-hour days, if we are talking about millions of years, then you can’t have vegetation before you have the sun. So that is just a basic problem that breaks down the whole concept of either progressive creationism or the problem of the day-age group. Then we have Exodus chapter 20 where we have the Sabbath law. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Principle: “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.” If those six days aren’t literal 24-hour days, then I can work for 6000 years and rest on the seven-thousandth year. I can work for six geologic ages and rest of the seventh geologic age. If the days of Genesis one are not literal 24-hour days then there is no meaning for the commandment related to the Sabbath obedience. Furthermore, this passage says that the Lord made the heavens, the earth, and all that is in them. That means that everything that is on the planet, including the fossils, were made in that six-day period. You can’t throw the fossils before Genesis 1:2 and say that these fossils were created by the judgment on Satan and you have some sort of pre-Genesis 1:2 event, because what this verse says is “everything.” Everything that is on the planet now was created/made, asah, in that six-day period. That is why the complete renovation that would have left nothing. Everything is completely overhauled and renovated in Genesis 1:2f
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010-Systematic Creation
What about creation through the process of evolution? There are five views that have been set forth as accommodationist positions to evolution. What happened in the 19th century was that science began to cut itself loose from the Bible. Up until the early 1700s every self-respecting scientist and geologist believed in a literal universal Noahic flood, and they built their science assuming the Bible to be true. Starting with the Enlightenment in the late 1600s, early 1700s, scientists began to reject the Bible, and as they ignored what the Bible said they were coming up with conclusions that were much different from earlier science at that time. As they came up with conclusions Christians decided that in some way they had to accommodate themselves to these conclusions.
The first view is the view that is called theistic evolution, the one that is most removed from taking the Bible literally. It is simply the idea that God works behind the process of evolution. The creative activity of God is indirect, He is just out there in the cosmos somewhere and He uses all the mechanisms of evolution, the mechanism of the survival of the fittest, in order to bring about and advance through the various times until eventually man evolves. So theistic evolution assumes the validity of everything that science teaches and then just kind of sticks God in there as a suave to their religious conscience.
The second view is called progressive creationism. This is where you have long periods of time which begin with a day. So there would be a 24-hour day followed by a long period of time when evolution takes place. After this long period of thousands or even millions of years there is the second 24-hour day, and so on. So the creation days are actually 24-hours but there are thousands or millions of years in between these creative days.
The third view is called threshold evolution. That is very similar to progressive creationism, and instead of having 24-hour days God just comes in an interferes at each stage breaking through these barriers between species.
The fourth view is the day-age view. It looks at each of these days as not 24-hour days but days of extended periods of time—millions of years. But that doesn’t fit the language of the text and there are also other internal problems.
The fifth view is one that many people thought solved the problem. It was a view put forth by Thomas Chalmers, a Scottish Presbyterian, and was later popularized by a man name Pember: the Chalmers-Pember gap view. They took a very ancient view that there is a time period between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. Up until the early 19th century when Chalmers hi-jacked the view this gap was understood to be the time period when the angels were created and fell, and the beginning of the angelic conflict and the beginning of spiritual warfare in the universe. And it was during that time that Satan was put on trial and sentenced to the lake of fire, but then he challenges God and challenges the veracity of God, the justice of God, the fairness of God, and claims He never really has given His creatures a chance to prove that they can be God and run things just as well as He can. So God establishes a test case right on Satan’s very own territory of planet earth to demonstrate through volitional creatures, man, exactly why a creature cannot function independently of his creator. So the Chalmers-Pember gap view tried to solve the problem by inserting all the geologic ages in between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 and make that the period of the catastrophe. According to their view, they would say that all the evidence that you see of fossils took place as a result of that judgment. The problem with that is manifold. 1) It doesn’t fit science very well; 2) It doesn’t fit the Scriptures at all theologically because 1 Corinthians 15 emphasizes that the principle of death began with Adam’s fall. (In evolution the mechanism for advance is through death) If you have a world-wide judgment, pre-Adamic races, pre-Adamic animals that lived on this earth before Genesis 1:2 and they are all packed in ice and are fossils, then basically you would have Adam not created in a perfect world, he would be created in a graveyard. It is not perfect anymore because there is death everywhereand evidence of death everywhere.
So you can’t solve the problem by compromising and accommodating. It must be realized that modern science is built on an epistemological [knowledge base] that is completely antagonistic to revelation. They do not believe that God can reveal Himself to man because it cannot be analyzed scientifically, it is not subject to rationalism and empiricism, and therefore they invalidate revelation as a valid means of knowledge at the very beginning. So it must be realized that divine viewpoint is set against human viewpoint, human viewpoint against divine viewpoint, and you can’t come in and try to compromise just so you feel a little more comfortable living around a bunch of unbelievers who reject the existence of God.
So prior to Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 there is just the existence of the angels, the trial and fall of Satan, and God judges the earth. Another reason why you can’t have fossilization and pre-Adamic race here, from a scientific framework, is this: There are two main events in Scripture that talk about a world-wide flood or watery mass around the earth. There is the condition in Genesis 1:2 and the condition of Genesis 6-9 with the world-wide flood. But what would you look for to prove that there was a universal flood at the time of Noah? What would you expect to find geologically? You would expect to find millions of dead things scattered all over the earth, buried in sedimentary rock, as evidence of a world-wide flood. If all of these dead things buried in sedimentary rock were laid down between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 then you would have a universal flood that lasted a year. It only rained for forty days and forty nights but the water continued to rise for another 180 days and stayed at that level for some further time. From the day Noah stepped on the ark until the day he stepped off the ark was a period of 360 days. So if you have that much water swirling around the earth, along with the other geologic cataclysms that would have taken place at that time—volcanic eruptions, earthquakes—all of it caused by this enormous water pressure you would have had all of that take place for a whole year and with no evidence of it. What you do by placing fossilization between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 is lay the foundation for rejecting the universality of Noah’s flood. The reality is that if you do that you basically don’t have any evidence whatsoever anywhere, other than the Bible, of the Noahic flood. And that doesn’t fit from a scientific framework in terms of the descriptions given in the Bible.
Now we begin with the six days of restoration. Just to review on the stages of creation: God creates an original universe. It is in light. Then there is the fall of Lucifer and there is darkness in the universe. The earth is packed in ice—tohu waw bohu. Then there is the new creation or restoration described in Genesis 1:3-2:3. These are the stages of creation and restoration.
How the tohu waw bohu was reversed. Tohu refers to that which is chaotic and unformed. Bohu refers to that which is empty or unfilled. So in the first three days God is going to form all the various spheres: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the biosphere, the geosphere, and then he is going to fill each one of those spheres in the second three days. There is a perfect pattern here of description. On day one we have the creation of light and the separation of the light from darkness. This indicates that time enters in at this point. There is a temporal mechanism established of light and darkness establishing the cycle with the rotation of the earth of a 24-hour day.
Vv. 3-5, “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” When this day begins the earth was a dark watery mass and it is the Spirit of God who is hovering—[or one way to translate the verb here is the idea of “fluttering”], the image of a mother bird fluttering its wings over a nest to keep it warm—over the earth. The Holy Spirit is now energizing the planet. Before there can be any creation there has to be the introduction of energy back into the system. The energy comes from God. God speaks, and we know from Colossians 1:16, 17 that it is Jesus Christ Himself who is the actual agent of creation, and He is the LOGOS of God, the Word of God. God uses His Word here; He speaks, and so this implies the presence of the second person of the Trinity in the formation of the items in the creation. God speaks and says, Let there be light. Darkness implies the absence of light and symbolically in Scripture it implies the absence of good. When God speaks here we see the word Elohim, the plural ending im indicates a plurality in the Godhead. Cf. 2 Corinthians 4:6, Paul is quoting Genesis 1:3 as if it literally took place. The analogy in 2 Corinthians 4 is that just as God illuminated our thinking to the truth of the gospel, that truth is built on or is taught through the principle of Genesis 1:3 that light shall shine out of darkness. Also 1 John 1:5; John 8:12. When God creates light in Genesis 1:4 the first thing He says about it when He observes it is that it is good. The light is good; the darkness is not. He doesn’t say the darkness is good. Then He separated the light from the darkness. Darkness is not removed completely as it will be in the new heavens and the new earth but it is separated, and together light and darkness are used as a means of telling time and of developing a clock in the universe. Then there is a discussion in v. 5, where God calls the light day and the darkness night. He begins to name things, to use a vocabulary. The reason He uses a vocabulary is that He is initializing the vocabulary of the human race. We know tentatively from studies related to the acquisition of language that people learn language from hearing it spoken. In a couple of cases where young children have never been exposed to a human voice it has been learned that after so many months they can’t learn language. At the time of birth you start speaking to a child, their brain cells begin to develop and to process that language and develop the ability to process language. And if they live to be two years of age without hearing a human voice then the brain no longer has that ability to process and categorize language. One of the great problems of evolution is how did a person ever learn to speak? So God is the one who originates language, and He is the one who begins to identify terms.
“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.” It is clear that this is the beginning of some sort of temporal succession, a succession of darkness and light. It is evident that the earth is now rotating on its axis, even though there is no light bearer. Remember that there is no sun yet and no stars, there is just light. This makes it clear in and of itself that these are 24-hour days. In fact, there is so much information given here—evening and morning, day one—so much information about chronology that it is questionable whether God could have done anything more to say these are 24-hour days. In terms of Hebrew vocabulary He has said that. It was necessary for Moses to make that point and for God to say that in light of the fact that in all of the pagan cosmogony around them—the Egyptian origin myths, the Babylonian origin myths—all had eons of time just we face today with modern Darwinism. So God makes it very clear from the beginning that the way the earth was actually created by Him is radically different from the way man has tried to explain it. Furthermore, this light is clearly physical and visible. This means that the presence of visible light waves would include the entire electro-magnetic spectrum. By setting these electro-magnetic forces into operation God in effect is completing the energizing of the universe. So there is a perfectly logical order here. The Holy Spirit begins it with this fluttering or hovering over the earth in v. 2, and then with the creation of light there is the conclusion of the energizing of the physical cosmos. All the types of force and energy which interact in the universe are now present.
The other interesting thing seen here is that the clock starts at dawn. It is evening and then morning, day one, so day two starts with dawn of the next day. This is contrary to the way the Jews later told time. The Jews later marked the time by dusk, so that it began when the sun went down. This is another indication that this is not just Jewish mythology because if it was they would have had the day starting at dusk and not with the dawn.
On day two we see the development of the atmosphere and the hydrosphere. The atmosphere is the creation of all of the gasses and chemicals that make up the atmosphere and that are necessary for the sustenance of biological life on the planet. There is no other planet known to science that has an atmosphere anything near approaching that of planet earth. Furthermore there is the separation of the waters on the earth now into two different spheres, the upper waters and the lower waters. And there is a spacial separation between them which in the KJV is called “the firmament,” indicating that it was something solid, something firm. But that is not the meaning of the Hebrew word. Genesis 1:6-8, “And God said, Let there be a firmament [let there be an expanse] in the midst of the waters, and let it divide [separate] the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament [expanse], and divided [separated] the waters which were under the firmament [below the expanse] from the waters which were above the firmament [expanse]: and it was so. And God called the firmament [expanse] Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.” What is the key word here? Expanse. It is mentioned five times in three verses. Whenever the Holy Spirit wants to capture attention He repeats things He repeats them, so when expanse is repeated five times we ought to pay attention. The Hebrew raqia means expanse, atmosphere, literally a thin stretched-out area. So God is establishing this thin stretched-out area which He places in the water, and it is as though it expands and pushes part of the water up and keeps another part down below. So we see movement taking place in creation, the dynamic of energy. Isaiah 40:12, 22 mentions this raqia. V. 12, “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out [marked off] heaven by the span, and comprehended [calculated] the dust of the earth by the measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?” V. 22, “It is he that sitteth upon the circle [above the vault] of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.” So He creates the raqia as a tent for us to dwell in. He has designed the atmosphere and the hydrosphere perfectly to support life. This raqia, then, separates the waters below from the waters above. So what there is, is planet earth and then the gaseous atmosphere, and then above that a layer of water. The is an outer layer of water, the earth is still covered in water, and in between are the gasses, primarily oxygen. So the question becomes, what happened to this water? Was it solid since it is out in space above the stratosphere? Is it ice? Or is it a water vapor? If there was the presence of an outer layer of water, then it would have certain implications for the earth. But we need to understand that the Bible describes three different heavens.
Jeremiah 4:24, “I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.” That refers to the atmospheric heaven around the earth. Then in Isaiah 13:10, “For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.” This is a second heaven, the heaven that comprises the stars and the universe and the solar system. In Hebrews 9:24, a third heaven, “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:” This is the heaven of heavens, the very throne room of God. The term raqia is used for each of these heavens. Genesis 1:17, is the second heaven; 1:20, the atmospheric heavens. Ezekiel 1:22, “And the likeness of the firmament [raqia] upon the heads of the living creature was as the color of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above.” This would refer to the third heaven. So raqia is a word that is ambiguous, it can have flexibility and refer to the first, second, or third heaven.
If there is a water vapor canopy over the earth there would be certain things that would follow from that.
1) First of all, since water vapor has the ability both to transmit incoming solar radiation—i.e., light and heat comes through the water—and to retain and disperse much of that radiation reflected from the earth’s surface—it holds it, it doesn’t reflect it back down to the earth—it would serve as a global greenhouse, maintaining an essentially uniform temperature around the earth. This would mean that there were no extremities of cold, not freezing weather, no excessively hot weather.
2) As a result of that, with nearly uniform temperatures there would be no wind. Wind comes because there is a colder area and a warmer area. The temperature difference causes the wind to move. So with uniform temperatures great air mass movement would be rare and wind storms would be unknown.
3) Without wind there are no hydrologic cycle—evaporation, then water vapor, condensation of water vapor on a dust particle, and then precipitation. Evaporation is from heat. Now there is a uniform temperature. There is wind and wind blows over the source of water and there is evaporation. So without the air circulation of wind there is no hydrologic cycle, and this fits the pattern of why nobody knew what Noah was talking about when he said it was going to rian for forty days and forty nights. It would be a meaningless term to them. Also, without any global air circulation there would be no turbulence or dust particles thrown up into the upper atmosphere for that water vapor to condense on and precipitate out from. So there would be nothing to cause that to rain.
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011-Restoration-Creation
On day #3 there is an initial statement: “And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.” Notice that on day one there was one statement of creation, on day two there was one statement of creation, but then on day three there are two statements of creation. Observe how carefully the text is constructed here: “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place,” and then in v. 11 is a second statement from God: “Let the earth sprout vegetation.” So there are two creative activities on the third day. There is the same pattern on days four, five and six. Day four is one act of creation. Day five is one act of creation. Then in day six there are two acts of creation. So there is a perfect balance here in the text. It isn’t something that is haphazardly thrown together, there is a very precise order in the original text, and we have to take that into consideration. Then in the second part of the third day is the creation of the plant biosphere. V. 11 is the command: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.” Then in v. 12 the execution of the command, “And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” Two orders of plant life are mentioned. It appears in the English that there are three orders—vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees. Actually it should be translated this way, “Let the earth bring forth vegetation [Heb. deshe, a basic word for vegetation which is then broken down into two components]: plants yielding seed [eseb, a general word for plants], and fruit trees [etz= trees bearing fruit].” Between the two they cover every category of vegetation. Notice that when God creates the vegetation He creates within each category of vegetation their own reproductive system. Inside that reproductive system you have two things, the basic physical components, chemicals that make up each individual category, and then on that cell structure is printed information. Cells do not generate information. Information has to be inputted from an external source. So God not only creates all the different categories of plants and trees but he creates a reproductive system unique to each, and then inputs the information necessary for each kind so that it reproduces itself.
There are a couple of implications here that should be understood. First, up to this point when God does something He is categorizing some things. He creates the light and separates it from the darkness, and then he called the light day and the darkness night. That is categorization. He is categorizing and classifying everything. As we have seen, categorization and classification are necessary for language to function. Not only that, it is also necessary for thought and knowledge to be transferred. This is one of the reasons why we break down doctrines into various categories. This is how we learn. So we see that from the very beginning God is creating according to a specific categories and classifications, and all of this continues, it is stable. The Bible continues to maintain the same system of classification and categorization in the permanence of these kinds and it is brought forth in the Scriptures later on. For example, 1 Corinthians 15:38, 39, “But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds.” So even the New Testament comes along and insists that there are definite unbreakable boundaries between the kinds. In the Old Testament this is stated again as a foundation for categorizations of clean and unclean animals. Cf. Leviticus 11:13ff, “And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the osprey, and the vulture, and the kite after his kind; every raven after his kind; and the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckoo, and the hawk after his kind.”
Conclusion of Genesis 1:12, “And God saw that it was good.” This is the Hebrew word tob. What we will find is that some people will come along and give an implication here of moral quality—good as opposed to evil. The word tob has as its primary meaning, that which is according to plan. It can mean good vs. evil. Some would say that everything was very good, there is no sin here, so therefore Satan couldn’t have fallen yet. Well the premise there is false. The false premise is that good in any of these verses has a moral quality to it. It doesn’t. It only has the idea that God has a blueprint and the result of His work of creation was according to the blueprint, according to plan. In chapter 2 God uses the word tob once again. If it has a moral quality here in chapter one it would have to have a moral quality in chapter two, because in chapter two the word is also related to creation. In chapter two, after God creates Adam, He says, “It is not good for man to be alone.” So here He uses the same word tob again, and he says it is not according to plan. If He is saying it is not moral for man to be alone, then He would be saying it is not moral to be single. Of course we know that is an absurd statement. So obviously the word does not have a moral quality in the context of creation. So you can’t go to the word “good” here and say that sin hasn’t occurred yet, the fall of Lucifer hasn’t occurred yet; that doesn’t hold water.
Then the fourth day where we start to fill those spheres that were created on days one through three. On day one God separated the light from the darkness, and now on day four, in parallel to that, He is going to create the light bearers—the sun, the moon, and the stars. Notice that this is a strong argument against these days being any longer than 24-hour days because God creates the vegetation on day three. For that vegetation to survive it means photosynthesis, and in order for there to be photosynthesis there has to be sun and available light in the near proximity.
Day four. Vv. 14, 15, the statement of the divine command: “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.” The Hebrew word “light” that we found back on the first day is or. Then in this verse we have the word maor, the Hebrew word for a light bearer. At this point light has just been there non-specifically in the universe, it hasn’t been localized in a specific body, but on the fourth day God localizes the light into specific light bodies or receptacles which in turn generate light. So in essence what God does is create the energy systems in the various stars. When this says “for signs” it is not talking about the zodiac, astrological signs. Many people try to say that. The grammatical construction here is that all of these aree related to each other, that the purpose for the heavens is to be able to tell the different times of the year for planting, for harvest, for winter, for summer, and for telling time. So they are set up in the heavens in order to have chronology. And they are there to give light on the earth.
V. 16, “And God made.” The Hebrew word here for “made” is asah, the generic term for creation, to make or to manufacture, or even to do. The moon doesn’t generate its own light, but the language that is used here is phenomenal-logical language, i.e. language that we use all the time. It is like when we ask, “What time did the sun come up this morning?” We all know the sun didn’t come up; neither does it go down. The earth rotates on its axis, but we talk phenomenal-logically, it looks like it rises and goes down. We use this language to describe what it appears to be from our vantage point.
This has raised several major questions about the universe based on the fact that the stars aren’t created until day four. One issue is the distance that light travels. So the problem is of light years and the transmission of light because what do you do with a sun that is 2000 light years away and it would take 2000 years of light travel before it came to the earth, and wouldn’t that be a problem? There are several possible answers. First of all, the easiest solution is that when God created the stars He made the light instantly appear on the earth as well. If God can create stars He can create their light travel so that it hits the earth instantly. But then others raise other questions, like what happens when we see a star nova, and that star is, say, 10,000 light years away? That means that star that we see nova today had actually occurred 10,000 light years ago. Various answers proposed. According to Henry Morris’s book, “The Genesis Record,” he makes the following statement: “The tremendous stellar distances commonly cited are obtained only on the basis of a number of very esoteric and questionable assumptions. Geometric methods for measuring such astronomical distances can reach only to about 330 light years. So any great distances beyond that are, to say the least, uncertain. Furthermore, there is no assurance of the uniformity of the speed of light at such tremendous distances. There is nothing to indicate that light travels that distances throughout the universe. Furthermore, there exist respectable models of relativity and space curvature, for example, which yield light motions such that light would reach the earth even from infinite distances in only a few years.” What he is saying there is that there is evidence that light may not travel in a straight line in space. It may travel in an arc. That is one possible solution and one hypothesis that is being studied. So there are various ways to resolve that particular problem. Furthermore, when God creates the stars is He just making the stars reappear, for example, did He just turn the lights off in Genesis 1:2 and now is turning the lights back on? That is possible but it doesn’t really fit the concept of asah here. Asah indicates creation in every other place—God is making something new. In that hypothesis He is not making anything new, He is just turning the lights on. My suggestion is that this is in this present universe—the existence of the sun, the moon and the stars—is unique to God’s plan and purposes for this particular universe. This is based on the way things are going to be at the end in the new heavens and the new earth—Revelation 21:23-26, where we have a glimpse of that future new heavens and earth. “And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it.” The implication is that there is no sun, no moon, no stars in the future new heavens and new earth, so we have to be careful. When we read that word “heavens” we want to import into that the starry skies, but the new heavens and new earth apparently aren’t going to have starry skies. So the model proposed for understanding Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 is that the original creation did not have sun, moon, or stars either. Whatever the special dynamics were in terms of the heavens we don’t know.
Day five, the creation of the birds of the sky and the creatures in the waters. “And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” In verse 20 we have the articulation of the command, God is commanding these creatures into existence. Then in verse 21 we have the application or fulfillment of that command. V. 21 adds a category that is not stated in v. 20, the great sea monsters. What are these great sea monsters? In v. 20 we are told, “Let the waters team with swarms of living creatures.” This is the Hebrew word sherets, and this is creeping things or living creatures and has to do with everything from microscopic to the large creatures—everything that is in the waters from plankton all the way up to animals. The word that is translated “sea monsters” is the Hebrew word tannin. It is a word that has been translated dragon, sea monster, and is a term that could very easily include large dinosaurs. There is a passage in Scripture that seems to fit the description of a dinosaur-type creature in Job 40:15, “Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.” First of all, he is a vegetarian. He is also a creature which has extremely powerful legs and muscles in his body. “He bends his tail like a cedar”—what animal has a tail like a cedar? That rules out an elephant or a hippopotamus. So this particular creature could easily be classified as some category of dinosaur. So the assumption that man could not live alongside a dinosaur assumes a number of things. It is assuming that they live in the same area.
Genesis 1:22, “And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply in the earth.” There are four verbs here that are all qal imperatives. So God expects these creatures to follow His orders. He has, as with the plants and the trees, given them a reproductive system so that they can multiply after their kind. This is a real command that goes into effect prior to the fall.
Then we come to the sixth day when God creates the land creatures, v. 24. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.” There are three classifications of land animals here. The first is cattle which is probably domestic animals, not just cows and beef cattle. Creeping things would include everything from lizards, to bugs and insects. Beasts of the earth would include the non-domestic animals, the wild animals. That is an important thing to notice here because later on in chapter two we will discover that God brings the beasts of the filed to Adam to name them. Some people would question how Adam could name all the animals in one day. But God doesn’t bring the beasts of the earth to Adam to name, He brings the beasts of the field to Adam which is a much smaller classification than beasts of the earth. This is the end of the first creative activity on day six.
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012-Creation of Humanity
Genesis 1:24, 25, “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”
Notice the repetition of one particular phrase. God commands that the earth bring forth creatures after their kind. Then in the fulfillment of that command three times the text emphasizes that each of these categories were created after their kind. Literally in the Hebrew it reads, according to its category or according to its kind. In the space of two verses there are five references to kind. This doesn’t happen by chance. You cannot just come along and somehow figure out some way where you have some sort of development from one species into another species when you have this kind of repetition in the text. When we look at this verse we see that there are three broad categories of animals: the beasts of the earth would refer to the wild animals [the living things of the earth], then the cattle, referring to domestic animals, and then everything that creeps on the ground, the Hebrew word remesh, which would include not just creepy-crawly things. The way that this is used in other passages such as Leviticus 11:29-31, is to include other things such as amphibians and small mammals. So it doesn’t just refer to insects, etc. God makes all of these simultaneously on the earth, according to plan—“and saw that it was good.” This is the first creative activity on the sixth day. All of these things indicate that no chance is involved in any of this, it is all according to plan and by design.
In verse 26 we come to the apex of God’s creative work, the creation of the human race. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” Notice the similarity between verse 26 and verse 28. “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Verse 27 is different: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
In verse 28 we see a mirror image of what is stated in verse 26, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” Verse 27 is sandwiched in between. Whenever you have that kind of a structure in the Scriptures it is what is called an inclusion, and this is a literary device that the author uses to emphasize what is in the middle. When there is a structure like that, where there is statement A and then A-prime, which is a repetition of A, and in between is statement B, what is being emphasized and highlighted is statement B. That is actually the subject of the passage. The real emphasis here is not so much on what is said in verses 26 and 28, although that is very important, but the emphasis and focal point is on Genesis 1:27, that God created man in His image. So this creation of man on the sixth day is simply summarized here in verses 26-28. It is picked up then as the theme of chapter two. Chapter two gives us the details of how the man and the woman were created on the sixth day. But in terms of the opening narrative all we are told is a summary of God’s creation of man, male and female, in His image. This is a typical stylistic device in Hebrew narrative called pearling, where you stream text together and you have a summary in one section, and then you come back pick up a specific incident and blow it up and expand it. It is a way of bringing emphasis. There is no conflict, then, between the action of Genesis 1:26-28 and the description of God’s creative activity in chapter two.
There is a second thing that needs to be pointed out here. Matthew 19:3-6, “The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” The reason this is important is that the liberal contention is that Genesis one is one creation account and Genesis two is another creation account. They say that they conflict you can’t make Genesis two fit one 24-hour day. Look at how Jesus handles the answer to this question. “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female.” This is a direct quote from Genesis 1:27, so in His answer the first part of His sentence (v.4 doesn’t end with a period) is taken from Genesis 1:27 and v.5, the second part of His sentence, “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh,” is a quote from Genesis 2:24. Sop Jesus in answering the Pharisees takes part of a verse in chapter one and part of a verse in chapter two and pulls them together. He sees no contradiction between those two accounts. In fact, He sees them as completely coordinate and completely compatible. So if people come along and try to make a distinction between Genesis one and Genesis two they are going to have real problems with Jesus. This is the whole point that needs to be emphasized: You can’t start manipulating the text in Genesis one and Genesis two to try to fit any kind of modern cosmogony without doing serious damage to the person of Christ, the work of Christ, and the foundation of what Paul teaches in the epistles. Everything that is in the New Testament has its foundation in Genesis chapters one through eleven. So Genesis 1:26, 27 sets forth the fundamental text explaining the creation of man, and v. 28 gives us a clear statement of the purpose for man in terms of being in the image of God.
“in our image” – This is a qal jussive, a first person plural cohortative. In Hebrew a cohortative is a first person command. In English we think of a command as “You do something.” We don’t have a first person command, but in Hebrew there is a first person command. It is called a cohortative and has the idea of “Let us do something.” So it is an imperatival statement addressed to a first person. What is the significance of the plural here? There are some who want to say that this is simply a plural of majesty, and this raises a number of problems for Jewish expositors. One attempt to explain this is that when Gold said, Let us, He is talking to the angels. But then you have a problem because it says in the conclusion of that clause, Let us make man in our image. Then there are those who want to be too rigid with the text and say, Don’t try to read the Trinity into this. But we have to at least read plurality in the Godhead into this because it is not only “Let us make man in our image,” and of course, that could be an editorial “we,” but it is more than that because of the use of the first person plural pronoun in relationship to image: “in our image, according to our likeness.” While it doesn’t teach the Trinity per se, you can’t rule out plurality here, it is clearly indicating a plurality in God. This type of exchange where you have God talking to Himself or discussing the plan within Himself, in the Godhead, is something that appears in a number of places in the Old Testament. E.g. Psalm 2:7 where two persons are involved in the dialogue. A second example of plurality in the Godhead is Isaiah 48:16-a divine individual is speaking and saying, Come here to me. This verse has all three members of the Trinity present. So even though you don’t have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity in the Old Testament there is the clear presentation of plurality in the Godhead and conversation within that Godhead. A third passage is Psalm 45:7. Then there is Psalm 110:1.
“in our image and according to our likeness” – there has been a tremendous amount of discussion about what these terms mean. The terminology is the Hebrew is be, which usually means “in” and tzalam has the idea of image, although it is somewhat uncertain as to exactly what the etymology of that word is. It is used only twelve times in the Hebrew Old Testament. In ten of those instances it refers to a physical representation. It is used of the images of Baal in 2 Kings 11:18; 2 Chronicles 23:17. It is used for other images of Canaanite deities in Numbers 33:52 and several passages in Ezekiel and in Amos 5:26. So here it has a very physical sense to it. But it also has an abstract use and in Psalm 39:7 it refers to the immaterial nature of human life. Psalm 73:20 refers to a dream image. Perhaps the best word to understand the core meaning of tzelem is the idea of representation. This idea of representation, then, clearly includes an abstract idea. When we look at the preposition be that is placed in front of tzelem it gives us more indication. That is described by Hebrew scholars as the beth of essence, i.e. describing the essence of something and it should be translated “as.” So man is created as the representation of God. This emphasizes the fact that man is to represent God. We are created as a representative of God.
The second word that is used is the word damut, and the preposition preceding it is the preposition k. The word damut here is a much more abstract concept than Tzelem. It generally indicates something that is not physical and is an image or representative of something else, and it is virtually a synonym to the other word. So the two words function together as a sort of poetic pair to describe the same thing. Even though you have the preposition be in front of the first one and k in front of the second one there is a shift. Genesis 5:3, “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image.” There we have a reversal. Instead of tzelem first and then damut, as in Genesis one, what happens in Genesis five is that these words are switched. “Likeness” is mentioned first and “image” is mentioned second. In Genesis 5:3 the prepositions are reversed: be is now with demut and k is now with tzelem. This just indicates, by comparing the two passages, the total interchangeability of the two ideas, and this indicates basically that the function of man is to represent God and that man’s basic form, i.e. his essence, is a reflection of God. This is what distinguishes man from all manner of living things. As pointed out earlier, when you have on the third day the creation of vegetation it is not life. The word in the Hebrew is nephesh—nephesh hayah, indicating a living thing, and it is this word nephesh which has the idea of life in many passages and in other passages it has the idea of soul. It is only to the animals and to mankind that you have this concept of nephesh, but what distinguishes man’s nephesh from the nephesh of the animal kingdom is that man is in the image and likeness of God. Man is to represent God and he is given certain faculties that enables him to do that, that reflect God and go beyond anything that might be apparent in animals. The only thing that can be said for certain is that the difference between the animals and mankind is that mankind is created in the image and likeness of God. That has two aspects. For so long we react to the fact that this is physical. But God doesn’t look like man. We can’t escape the fact that ten of the twelve uses of tzelem refer to a physical representation. Does that mean that mankind is a physical representation of God? No. Primarily the first aspect of this representation is immaterial, non-material, and it has to do with the make-up of man in terms of his soul and human spirit. That is, that God gave man self-consciousness so that when he looks in a mirror and sees himself, he knows himself. Animals don’t know that. Then there is mentality, the ability to think, to think God’s thoughts after Him, to reason according to what God has revealed. (These definitions are as they are before the flood) In self-consciousness you have man recognizing God, so it is relative to God consciousness. In his mentality he is thinking the thoughts of God. Then there is volition, self-determination. In the pre-fall condition he is following God’s will. Finally, man has a conscience which stores the norms and standards, and this is directed towards God and has divine absolutes stored in that original conscience. These four elements work together to make up the soul, and then they are bound together with the human spirit, which means that their self-consciousness is able to relate to God, their mentality is able to understand God’s thoughts, their volition responds to God, and their conscience responds to divine norms and standards. When that human spirit is lost and they are spiritually dead they are no longer going to be God-conscious in the same sense, i.e. a full understanding of who and what God is because they are the image-bearer of God. There was a complete rapport with God prior to the fall. But after the fall they can’t think God’s thoughts, they are bound up in human viewpoint, man becomes the ultimate reference point. In volition they are in negative volition, hostility toward God, and their conscience now has a second set of standards, a set of pseudo standards adopted from their own experience. So man is connected immaterially with a human soul and a human spirit, but this is housed in a physical body.
When God designed the human body, everything related to the five senses, everything related to the physical body was not by chance. God is omniscient and He never increases or diminishes in knowledge. That means that from eternity past God knew everything that was going to happen in human history, that if He created a race with volition they would sin, and that the only solution to the sin problem would be that He would have to incarnate Himself into that race. So God the Father in eternity past knew that He would have to become one of those creatures. So how was He to design a body? What was going to be the most perfect physical form that He could develop, which He, infinite God who has Spirit plus all of these various facets and dimensions to His character, what was going to be the very best physical form in which He could put Himself? God knew that He needed a body through which He revealed Himself in a finite body. The infinite God would become finite man and reveal Himself to man. So the physical body isn’t something that just happens, it is precisely what was needed, and the best form that could ever be developed through which God could reveal Himself. So there is a physical dimension. It is not that your body looks like God but that God is going to have to make Himself finite and reveal Himself to creatures and it couldn’t be done in a better physical form than the one in which he designed for mankind.
V. 27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” That indicates that both the male and the female are in the image of God, but there is a distinction from the very beginning between the male image and the female image. That implies that there is a difference in the soul make-up/orientation of the woman and the man. The man is designed to function in one sense and one way, and the woman is designed to function in another way, both working together as a team to fulfill the purpose and plan of God. But something happens. They fail in Genesis chapter three, they fall into sin and something happens to the image of God. There are some people who teach that the image of God is erased. The issue is whether it is simply erased or effaced. Is is marred or corrupted or is it destroyed? To answer that we need to go to Genesis chapter five.
5:1, “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him.” Here we have the word damut; v.2, “Male and female created he them,” so once again it is a reminder that male and female are in the image of God; “and called their name mankind, in the day when they were created.”
5:3, “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.” Notice, it doesn’t say he begets a son in God’s image. He begets a son in his image. The difference is that now, while there is an image of God there, it is marred. The image of God, as we will see later, has to do with its function of ruling and reigning, but it is marred now because of sin. It is now in the image of man or in the image of Adam, but does that mean that the image of God has gone. No. In Genesis chapter nine we have the foundation for the principle of capital punishment given, starting in verse 5. “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” This is the delegation for the most serious form of judicial action, i.e. capital punishment. This is the foundation for all forms of judicial action in human history, because if God delegates us the most form of legal action than that would mean that even lesser forms of legal action are also delegated to mankind. Why is it that God requires capital punishment in the case of murder? The second part of the verse: “for in the image of God made he man.” So man is still in the image of God, though it is marred, and because man is in the image of God this is so important because if someone kills another human being it is not only an act against another human being but it is viewed as an act against the creator. Because it is viewed as an act of rebellion against the creator God demands capital punishment.
This important to understand as believers because so often when believers argue against capital punishment they argue from false premises, such as it restrains crime. Well it might restrain crime but that is not what God says, it is not the reason that God gives it in Genesis 9. Other people say we need to have capital punishment to bring about vengeance, but it is not about vengeance. Even “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is not a statement about vengeance, it is a statement about accountability and there is a difference. It is about he fact that this individual has created an act of blasphemy. It is a theological act of such seriousness that this person who commits murder has sacrificed his right to life, and God demands that He be removed.
When we get to the New Testament the concept of image shifts. In the Old Testament we were created originally in the image of God, that image is marred and becomes the image of man and Adam, but it is still there though it is corrupted. In the New Testament the focus is on the image of Jesus Christ. It is the image of Christ that is emphasized. Romans 8:29, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.” So God has a predetermined goal for the believer: to become conformed to the image of His Son. In other words, what is God’s predetermined plan for your life? That we become in the image of Christ. Man was originally created in the image of God, that image was marred and defaced by sin, and only through regeneration and then sanctification is that image restored. This is also seem in 1 Corinthians 15:49, “And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” That is, as we start off as believers we start of in the image of Adam and as we advance in spiritual maturity we reflect God’s character more and more in the image of Christ, the image of the heavenly. 2 Corinthians 3:18 states, “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror … are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” This is the process of spiritual maturity as we are being changed to where we reflect the character, the person, of Jesus Christ. This is the idea of the fruit of the Spirit. This is again stated in Colossians 3:10, “And have put on the new self, which is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him that created him.” So we are being renewed to this original image. The purpose of all of this is ultimately to fulfill the original dominion mandate. This is done ultimate through Jesus Christ in His return at the second coming. He is the one who is said to be the image of God in 2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15.
The image is not simply there because we are to represent God, but how are we to represent God? That is the function of the next verse which is sometimes called the dominion mandate.
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013-Man and Dominion. Gen 1:16-2:3
What it means to be created in the image and likeness of God
What sets man apart from all other creatures is not simply his ability to reason, not his ability to communicate, but that he is in the image and the likeness of God.
1) Man is made in the image and according to the likeness of God. “In the image”; “according to the likeness”. These prepositional phrases start with two distinct prepositions, be [as] and k [according to], but they are used together to indicate a synonymous parallelism between the two concepts.
2) The image describes man’s function. Man is created “as the image,” the basic meaning being “representative.” We are created as God’s representatives. Man was originally created to represent God over all of the creatures. So image describes man’s function. We are to represent God. Man was originally created to represent God over all of the creatures. That is why we see in the mandate of verse 28 that man is to have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Literally, he is to rule the earth in God’s place. This is his function before the fall. So image describes man’s function according to the standard of God’s immaterial essence.
3) “Likeness” is what describes that immaterial essence of the soul make-up of man in terms of his self-consciousness, his intellect, volition and conscience.
4) These terms explain not merely that man is in the image of God but that he is the image of God.
5) Man was thus created to fill the role as God’s personal representative and ruler over creation, so that the rest of creation could look at mankind and in a sense they would see God. Man was to be God’s representative both to creation underneath him as well as to the angels. Remember the angels are witnesses to what is going on on the earth because God is demonstrating certain things in relationship to the angelic conflict and to Satan’s charges that God is not being fair to him.
6) The image applies equally to male and female. Man and woman together represent God on the earth.
7) The believer being conformed to the image of Christ is to represent Christ as ambassador on the earth. The image of God is defaced and narred through the fall; it starts to be recovered through regeneration; then we grow from grace to grace and from glory to glory as the image of Christ is made in us. That is a picture of the process of sanctification, as the character of Jesus Christ is made in the individual believer. Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 15:49; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Colossians 3:10.
The reality of what man is is directly related to his function which is given as to rule, the have dominion. This relates to two distinct words in the Hebrew of verse 26: radah and kabash. Radah means to rule, to dominate, and to exercise dominion; kabash means to subdue, to bring everything under control or to bring something into bondage. So these two words indicate that man is to exercise complete authority over all of the animals, over all of the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, all of the natural resources that God has given to man. This is a unique point which lays the groundwork for a Christian view of the environment. When we run up against the left-wing view of environmentalism their view is that man just wants to rape and pillage and destroy the environment, and they want man to live in peaceful harmony with the environment and not develop any natural resources. That is what we always see in paganism. In paganism we get this idealized utopian view of native man living in perfect harmony with nature—the American Indian, the Australian aborigines, African natives, etc. But they polluted nature! In most environmental rationale they are basically operating on a pantheistic and pagan view of nature, so man is just to live in harmony with nature because he is just another cog. The assumption is evolutionary. As demonstrated earlier most of the pagan religions have the same kind of approach to origins that evolution has. So their idea is that man just lives in harmony with nature, he doesn’t do anything to disturb what is around him. He doesn’t dig in the ground, he doesn’t utilize the natural resources, everything has to be kept in a perfect balance and man is just another piece in the overall machinery of nature. But in Christianity man is distinct from the rest of the creation. Man is to rule over the creation; man is to subdue the creation; man is to exercise his engineering skills, his mental capabilities, his inventiveness, in order to discover the natural resources that God put into the planet so that he can build a civilization that glorifies God. That is the pristine view prior to the fall of man. However, all of that gets warped because of sin. Nevertheless, God never rescinds the dominion mandate. It is restated. It is never going to be fulfilled, though, until Jesus Christ comes back and establishes a perfect government and perfect environment during the Millennium. But Genesis 1:26-28 lays the foundation for how man is to rule and dominate nature. All is to be governed and ruled by man—in a responsible manner, for sure; not in a manner that destroys the environment so that is can’t be used again.
We see the expansion of this meaning of dominion and rule in Genesis chapter two. In 2:15, “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it.” This is his responsibility. It was not an environment where Adam just laid around in the garden and enjoyed all of the wonders of Paradise and ate all of the fruit that he wanted to; he had responsibilities. We will see that those responsibilities were not laborious, not burdensome, not difficulties. He enjoyed it and was in perfect harmony with nature because there was no sin at that point.
Genesis chapter two describes the mechanics of God’s work on the sixth day and the creation of mankind in the garden. He had work to perform. He was to cultivate the garden. The word “cultivate” is the Hebrew abadh, which means to work. Secondly, he was to keep the garden—Heb. shamar, which has the idea of guarding, watching or keeping. Why would Adam have to guard and watch over the garden? Because in the background Lucifer is lurking. So man’s responsibility is to guard the garden from the introduction of evil. Then we know that he was to name the animals, and in the ancient world naming was a function of exercising dominion or control. So now we have this divine mandate that they are to exercise dominion over the earth.
V. 28, “And God blessed them.” And the blessing is given in the quotation. It is defined by the dominion mandate itself. This gives man a purpose and a function. “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” In some Bibles there is a semi-colon after “multiply.” That is not what the Hebrew says. It is not broken by a semi-colon. These are not three different commands here, it is one command with five elements. This is a compound verb. You have five verbs all linked together with the waw conjunctive prefix, which indicates that all five are viewed equally. You can’t remove one without removing the other four. These are linked together syntactically and grammatically so that it is s five-fold mandate. The first command is to be fruitful. This is the qal imperative of the Hebrew word which means to produce offspring. The second word is multiply. It is a qal imperative plus a waw consecutive of a word which means to grow, it is not simply having offspring but having many offspring. Then the ultimate purpose is to fill the earth, and again that is a qal imperative of a word which means they are not to stop until the whole earth is brought under dominion. Many people say that the world is being over-populated, but apparently a recent study indicated that you could take every human being living on the planet and give them a couple of acres of land and they wouldn’t fill the state of Texas. The earth is not over-populated. The dominion mandate has not been reversed. After the Genesis flood God restates this mandate to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. In God’s plan and purpose having children is a function of being an image-bearer. The Psalmist said, Blessed is the man whose quiver is filled with them. The metaphor the psalmist uses is that of a warrior who has a quiver filled with arrows, and he sends those arrows out into battle to gain victory over the enemy. So the picture that we have from the Old Testament is that people were to have children—they were viewed as a blessing from God—and they were, according to Malachi chapter three, to raise godly offspring. The purpose was to influence the world through missionary activity through the godly offspring. This concept is not reversed in the New Testament. The Christian family raises children, has children, in order to send them out as missionaries for divine viewpoint and Bible doctrine into the world, just as a warrior sends his arrows into the enemy in order to gain victory over them. This is a basic function of divine institution #3, the family. So children are always viewed in the Scripture as a blessing, and anyone who views children as less than a blessing is operating on human viewpoint, not on biblical thinking or on Bible doctrine. So the first three commands relate to the idea and filling and expanding influence over the planet. The next two commands relate to t heir function in ruling over everything. They are to subdue the planet, to bring it under control, to dominate it.
The question has arisen: Could the woman have conceived and born children in the garden? There are only three possibilities. The first option is that the woman was incapable of bearing children, and therefore this mandate was designed to be fulfilled only after the fall. In other words, God told them to do something but it wasn’t to go into effect until after the fall. The second option is that the woman was fully capable of bearing a child before the fall but she did not, because she didn’t have enough time, they sinned too soon. The third option was that she could get pregnant but God sovereignly overruled until their faith was tested.
The first problem with the first option is that this would mean that the command as it was initially given was empty and meaningless. God would be commanding them to do something which had no meaning and no possibility of fulfillment before the fall. This creates serious problems for interpretation of the Scriptures. There are several times where these commands are given. It is given one other time before the fall to the animals. If it had no meaning for the man then it would have no meaning for the animals. Second, you have the same command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth given to Noah after the flood, and a similar command is given to Abraham in terms of filling the land with his offspring. And of the other commands are to be understood as being effective immediately, then this command should be understood as being immediately effective. The second problem with the first view is that since all five imperatives are grammatically linked together, you can’t come in and say the last two—rule and exercise dominion—are before the fall and the first three are to be later on at some undesignated time and, of course, they don’t know they are going to sin. So since all five imperatives are grammatically linked they either all have to be effective from the instant they are given or none of them are applicable before the fall. And if they are not applicable before the fall then man has nothing to do before the fall. The whole concept of his purpose in Genesis 1:28 is to explain what he is to do as the creature in the image and likeness of God. After the fall God has to come in and modify this because man is now a sinner and he is going to be incapable of truly fulfilling the dominion mandate. The third problem this has is that it makes being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth a consequence of sin. The woman can’t get pregnant at all until after the fall because God really doesn’t make that part of her make-up until the curse, and that means that children are a consequence of sin. That goes counter to everything else in Scripture. In conclusion, either she didn’t have enough time or God just simply sovereignly overruled to prevent her from being pregnant. Some people have said she couldn’t get pregnant because that would mean that she would have a monthly cycle in Paradise, but that is not true. There are biological changes that reverberate throughout the entire animal kingdom because of the fall. They become carnivores, their gastro-intestinal system shifts. So there is a physical-biological change in the woman’s reproductive system because of the fall, but that does not mean that it did not exist in another way prior to the fall. In conclusion then, she was capable of being pregnant but God sovereignly overruled that capacity.
V. 29, He is addressing the man: “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.” Notice he is to eat vegetation, he is not to eat meat. He was not authorized to eat meat until after the flood.
V. 30, “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green plant for food: and it was so.” When He says “every green plant for food” it doesn’t mean every plant was edible. What He is saying is that every plant provides some kind of nutrition for some kind of creature, and that there is more than an abundance of food for mankind.
Observations:
1) This means that trees with fruit, grasses and shrubs that provided nourishment for animals, were mature plants. That doesn’t mean that every plant that God created was mature, but there were many that were mature and fully able from the day they were created to supply the complete nutrition necessary for the animals. From day one God created mature fruit trees. This means that five hours after Adam and the woman were created they could reach out and clutch a ripe pear from a tree, or a ripe banana, and some of the berries in the garden were already ripe.
2) Every animals and mankind were originally designed to be herbivores, they were not carnivores. That means they had a certain kind of digestive system, a certain kind of dental structure. All of those things were related to their eating. This condition, we are told, will be restored in the Millennial kingdom. E.g. Isaiah 8:6-11. In other words, there is not going to be this antagonism in the animal kingdom and the lion is going to eat straw. So there will be a change again in the biological structure in the animal kingdom.
3) These verses speak of God’s abounding and sufficient grace for His creatures. When God provides something to meet the requirement of man, whether physical or spiritual, it is sufficient. Sufficient means that it is as much as needed, not necessarily more than is necessary, but that God provides abundantly and generously so that man does not need to add to what God supplies. Sufficiency applies to man in the garden. He had all the food he needed to eat.
4) In the same way God provided adequate information for Adam and Isha, it was not necessary for them to know all they could know.
5) Every green plant is given for food, indicating that there were no plants that were inedible for some species.
V. 31, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” In the previous days God said “it was good.” Now He says “it was very good.” This indicates that the creation in its totality was complete. All of the details fit together in perfect harmony. The whole of the earth was exactly as God intended according to His blueprint.
Then we come to the seventh day in 2:1ff. “ Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.” The word for “host” is sabaoth, which in other places refers to the armies of the angels, but here it doesn’t have an angelic term, it often refers to the host of the heaven in the sense of the sun, the moon and the stars. So this is a summary statement in verse 1. Verse 2 & 3 tell us the purpose of the seventh day. “And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.” V. 2 makes it clear that God finished on the seventh day. But we read this and say that God finished on the sixth day, and that it was a six-day creation week, then He rested on one day. However, the seventh day is correct because of the way it is structured in the Hebrew. It is set up like poetry and there is a perfect balance and parallelism in the lines. This verse consists of three consecutive parallel lines in the Hebrew. Each line contains exactly seven words. It is divided into two parts and the last word in each line is seven. The seventh day, the day of rest, is part of the whole. That means that resting from labor is as much a part of life as fulfilling responsibilities. Man is designed to need rest and to recharge his batteries, and even though this isn’t a legalistic mandate there is a general principle here. People need to take time off for recreation and to relax and enjoy life a little bit and not work seven days a week. God sets aside the seventh day as a day, not of rest because God neither wearies or needs rest, He simply ceases from His work, and it sets up the pattern for the Sabbath that will be established under the Mosaic law for Israel.
In these two verses there is also the repetition of the phrase “his work,” and the emphasis is that God completed His work. It is His work, it is not by chance, it didn’t happen through time plus chance, through impersonal forces in nature. God is intimately involved in every aspect of the creation. So God ceased from His work during that last day.
With Genesis 2:3 we complete the study of the first section of Genesis.
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014-Creation and Evolution: Irresolvable Conflicts
Romans 12:2 says that we are not to be conformed to this world but are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, by the renovation of our thinking. The term there for world is the Greek word KOSMOS [kosmoj] which has to do with an orderly arrangement of something. In this context it has to do with the orderly arrangement of thought. Every culture, whether it is a primitive stone-age culture, and Asian culture, an inner urban culture, or whether we are talking in the broader sense of a western culture versus an Islamic culture versus a Jewish culture, whatever the culture is, every culture and every nation has certain characteristics. These characteristics more often than not are built on an assumption that God does not exist, they come out of the human viewpoint of that day and that era. So wherever you are in life, whatever you are doing in life as a believer you need to be aware of the fact that you have been in a sense brainwashed, inculcated with the cosmic thinking of your nation, your culture, your background, and need to be in the process of evaluating, examining all of this thinking that we have in our soul that we pick up from the culture around us in order to remove from our soul the thinking that is human viewpoint and replace it with divine viewpoint.
Psychology has its roots in autonomous human viewpoint thinking, not in biblical thinking, and there is a head to head confrontation between psychological concepts and Christianity. The New Age movement and postmodernism and it is important to recognize that many of these isms that came along, as well as Marxism and socialism which gained their real thrust in the middle of the nineteenth century, all started at roughly the same time. If we go back to the 1830s-1850s we will find that the same core group of thinkers were influential in the founding of all of these basic thought systems. They read each other and they cross-pollinated ideas. Yet the history of the 20th century is really the history of the impact of those mid-nineteenth century ideas on western civilization as western civilization drifted further and further away from the Reformation roots that were laid down in the 16th century.
One of these areas that we haven’t taken time to take out and specifically expose is the area of creation and evolution. Evolutionary thought undergirds so much of what it dominates in our society. Most psychological thinking and concepts of who and what man is is influenced by evolutionary thought. In fact, you can even go out and find a lot of so-called Christian psychologists who have tried to merge psychology with Christianity. They have tried to go over into the realm of psychology and pick up certain elements that are neutral, they sound good. Most of these people have never been trained in the history of ideas and the history of philosophy and don’t realize that these ideas they are picking up are like the fruit at the end of various branches on a tree, and they never take the time to see that there is an integral relationship between the fruit at the end of the branch and the roots which are deep in the soil of atheism and evolutionism and Darwinism. So we have to look at this. If we want to break it down again, psychology, sociology, Marxism, socialism and evolution all have their roots in that same framework of thought that occurs in the 19th century.
What is evolution? Evolution is the idea that it took billions of years for the present universe to develop the way it is, and that it took millions of years for organic molecules to develop, and then millions more years for those simple organic molecules to transform slowly and gradually from simple amoebas and protozoa to the complexity of the modern human being. Two things we will look at. One relates to the development of the universe which took billions of years. Today in the literature it is anything from about 3.7 to 4.7-billion years. We can’t even comprehend a billion, it is such a big number. But it is anywhere from 4-billion to 20-billion years, depending on who you read and how much time they think they need. Then when it comes to the earth, the earth just happened by pure random processes, and in those random processes there was this mix of chemicals—a sort of primordial chemical stew cooking on the stove—and something happened, an electrical discharge, they have no idea what, it is all guesswork.
In scientists’ literature they will admit that they do not have a clue how things happened, and there is one particular event that happened from non-living matter/chemicals and suddenly there was produced a living cell, just by pure random chance. And that has to be their view, they have to hold on to that with all of their might to protect their whole theory. But as we will see, that is impossible.
Any Christian who has ever tried to talk to anybody about evolution will have heard people say: “Well you believe in evolution, don’t you? Evolution just means change. Everybody believes in change.” But that is really a debater’s technique to try to avoid the whole issue. There are two types of evolution. There is what is called micro-evolution and macro-evolution. Micro-evolution is what we would call change which are small DNA or genetic changes within a species or kind. E.g. you can take two different kinds of dogs and breed them together so that you have a new breed of dog, but it is still a dog. It hasn’t become a cat, a rat, a bird; it is still a dog. Macro-evolution is the idea that there is slow change and transformation from one species to another. This is the whole idea of amoeba demand. What we are talking about is macro-evolution, the idea that there is change and development across the boundaries—where fish eventually crawl out of the water and become amphibious, they develop lungs instead of gills, and eventually they become reptiles, then eventually those reptiles become mammals, and eventually the mammals develop into the highest order of animal, which is man. That shows that there is one chain of being, and this is a critical idea in the whole history of evolution, that all life forms are all part of the same connected chain of life which goes back to the distant mists of history. That is part and parcel of almost every ancient pagan belief, this idea of a chain of being. That undergirds so much of psychology today and some of these other ideas that come along.
One of the classic illustrations that is given in most text books is the idea of peppered moths in England, a white moth with black peppering on them. They would be camouflaged on a Beech tree. Then in the middle 19th century as there was the development of industry and the use of coal fuels and the heavy pollution that came about, what would happen is that the soot would get on the trees and all of a sudden these white moths would become exposed. Now the birds which would eat the peppered moths would see them, they wouldn’t be camouflaged against that background. As time went on the number of white moths that originally outnumbered the number of black moths became less and less. There were always black moths with white peppering but they were in the minority. As a result of the pollution and the soot from the smokestacks the white moths became visible and were eaten. As years went on there was a shift in the moth population and now 95% of the moths were black with white spots, and the white moths were disappearing. This is given as an example in the text book of evolution—survival of the fittest. The point is, however, it is still a moth!
So the basic theory of evolution can be boiled down to the idea that in the beginning there was nothing and there was no one, and as a result of nothing plus no one everything else came into existence. That is the basic mathematical formula and if you boil it down like that it really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Nothing plus no one equals everything, or time plus chance—if you give something enough time plus chance—there is going to develop order, intelligence and complexity. This is the root of all evolutionary thought: time plus the element of chance; given enough time anything can happen. But that is not true. Given enough time I will never win the lottery. Put a typewriter in a cage with a monkey and he will eventually type out, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But that will never happen. The odds are impossible.
There is a direct conflict between the theory of evolution and what the Bible teaches. The first conflict is the conflict of presuppositions and biases. We have to realize that everyone has some sort of presupposed starting point. Everyone has a bias. Scientists want people to think that they start from a position of pure objectivity, they are not going to be influenced by some religious text. But if the religious text happens to be what it claims to be, that is, the direct revelation of God who created everything, and He is an omniscient God who knows everything, and the scientist is not omniscient, then what is going to have more accuracy? If the text of Scripture is what is claims to be it is the revelation of God, is 100 per cent accurate, and it is discarded as part of the evidence by a scientist, then that scientists is not free from bias, he has a presupposition or a bias at the very beginning that has excluded a large piece of the evidence. So he predetermines his conclusion because he limits the evidence he is willing to examine at the very beginning. When you admit that your starting point is an anti-supernatural empiricism or rationalism then you have already determined from the very beginning before you started talking about any evidence that God does not exist and that God cannot communicate, and that any communication that claims to be from God is just something that is made up by man. That is the scientists’ starting point, they have already predetermined the situation by their assumption.
One question we need to ask somebody who says they are not biased, not prejudiced, they are really objective, and that if you want to just prove God to me, I’m willing to listen to the evidence, what would constitute evidence for a person like that? Ask an evolutionist: What do you take as proof that God exists? The Bible claims in Romans 1:19-20 that there is more than sufficient evidence that God exists: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God [the potential of all that could be known about God] is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” If somebody goes out and says, I don’t see God, then His evidence is clear; they are distorting the evidence—“suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.” There is clear evidence every time you look at a molecule, every time you look at a flower, every time you look at some remarkable creatures that are in the world today, it is evidence that there is a designer, there is an intelligence behind that design. But man, because of sin and rejection of God at God-consciousness, suppresses that truth in unrighteousness, and in looking at all of this evidence that God exists just denies it. So you would ask a scientist what would really constitute proof, and he would say he doesn’t know. That is because he has more proof than he needs but he has rejected that. He really doesn’t know what would constitute proof, and if he doesn’t know what constitutes proof he wouldn’t know if it was proved or not. So what would a rationalist or empiricist accept as constituting proof? If you don’t know what would prove the conclusion then you wouldn’t know it if you saw it if the proof was right in front of you, because you have already predetermined the conclusion. So the first conflict that we have is a conflict of presuppositions and biases. In evolution the presupposition is anti-supernatural—there is no God who is involved in the creation.
The next conflict between the creationist and the evolutionist, and that is that evolution is a religion. The claim of the evolutionist is that they are scientists and they are not going to take into account religion, creation is just a religious belief. The problem is that evolution is also a religion. In fact, evolution is as much a religion as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, or any other religious system. It is a system of faith. For example, how do we know how old the rocks are? One way they date the rocks is by the fossils. How old are the fossils. The fossils are dated by the kind of rock they are found in, so it is a circular argument. The fact of evolution is the backbone of modern biology. Modern biologists believe that evolution is not merely a theory, it is a fact. This puts biology in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory. Evolution is not proved at all. Therefore we must ask the question: Is this a science or a faith? If it is not proved, is it science or is it faith?
Quote from Dr. Harrison Matthews, an evolutionist and the writer of the introduction to Darwin’s book, The Origin of the Species. The full title of The Origin of the Species as it was originally published is, Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. Almost all of the founding fathers of evolution—Darwin, Huxley, and others—all believed that the white races are superior to all of the other races and all of the colored races are actually degenerations in the development of the human race, and that they would eventually die off and the white races would be supreme. That has pretty much been expunged from modern evolution because they find it embarrassing. It was that idea that gave root to what was called “social Darwinism” which was the foundation of the whole Nazi theory. Hitler was an evolutionist and he believed that in the process of evolution the Arian races were the superior races. Nazi beliefs were all founded on social Darwinism. They find that embarrassing, so you won’t find that talked about much anymore. Matthews’ quote:
“The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is in the peculiar position of being a science founded on unproven theory. Is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation. Both are concepts which believers know to be true, but neither up to the present has been capable of proof.”
Furthermore, Dr. T. N. Tamezian, who served on the Atomic Energy Commission, stated in an interview in 1959 that scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con-men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact.”
If evolution is not science and a religion what is the evolutionary faith based on? It is impossible for science to test or validate any of the assumptions on which evolution is based. Experiments can’t test it, they can’t be produced in the laboratory, and the basis of scientific methodology is that you are able to reproduce the experiments in the laboratory in order to demonstrate the truth of the theory, and that can’t take place. Evolution is based on seven assumptions, according to evolutionist G. A. Kirkut, that are the foundation of everything in evolution. He outlines the following seven assumptions:
a) Non-living things gave rise to living material—also known as spontaneous generation.
b) Spontaneous generation occurred only once. (Earlier evolutionists would say it occurred several times) From that one single event, that one molecule developing by chance, happened at the right time and was preserved long enough to replicate itself. (Inside that cell there had to be the capacity for reproduction. That involves an incredible amount of information inside of a cell for that cell to be able to replicate itself, so we are not talking about something that is simple. In Darwin’s day he thought a cell was something very simple. Today we know that a cell is incredibly complex and that it takes a tremendous amount of information for that cell to even be in existence)
c) Viruses, bacteria, plants and animals are all related.
d) Protozoa (single-celled life forms) gave rise to metazoa (multiple-celled life forms).
e) Various invertebrate are interrelated—one developed into the other.
f) The invertebrates gave rise to the vertebrates.
g) Within the vertebrates the fish gave rise to amphibian, the amphibian to reptiles, the reptiles to birds and mammals.
These assumptions listed virtually define everything in evolutionary teaching. Then Kirkuk states that all of them are assumptions and that not one of them is based on any factual, demonstrable, experimental, testable or reproducible evidence. Their theory is nothing more than an assumption.
Over the years a number of mathematicians have tried to determine the mathematical probability of evolution and of spontaneous generation. Particularly they have looked at the mathematical probability that all of the necessary factors could come together in just the right way and at the right time that non-living chemicals would in one purely random act generate a living cell, and that this cell then survived in a hostile environment long enough to reproduce itself. Where do all of this come from and how could this take place? If all of the universe was crammed with electron particles, and the universe is not currently filled with electronic particles, then the maximum number of particles that could fill the universe would be ten to the one hundred and thirtieth power. (That is ten followed by 130 zeros) If each particle in that universe could perform one hundred billion, billion events (i.e. 10 to the 120th power) each second, and then allow ten to the 20th seconds of cosmic history, i.e. 3000-billion years. (Remember, time plus chance equals organization) then what you have is 10 to the 270th power events possible, i.e. 10 followed by 270 zeros. To get a series of as few as 1500 events to take place in the right sequence (an extremely conservative guess, in a cell you have thousands of events) and under the right circumstances the mathematical probability that you would produce a living cell is 10 to the 450th power. That is one chance in ten followed by 450 zeros. That is just for spontaneous generation of that one single cell necessary to start organic life. We are not talking about what would be involved in producing an eye. An eye is one of the greatest problems that evolutionists have because in the development of any part of the eye until it was a fully functional eye it would be some sort of negative development—what good is this single thing if it doesn’t work? It would be a hindrance to the creature. Until you had the fully developed eye no part of it would be considered valuable or functional in the development of the creature.
The basic idea in Darwinism is the idea of survival of the fittest and adaptations and mutations that graduated over time. The problem with Darwinism as it emphasizes the survival of the fittest is that it never explains the arrival of the fittest. How did it get there in the first place? As one evolutionist pointed out, one of the major problems in Darwin’s book, Origin of the Species, is he never explains the origin of the species. Survival of the fittest only shows why some species survive and some don’t, it doesn’t explain how they got there in the first place.
Most mathematicians who have worked on these probability figures over the years have come up with even a greater improbability.
So that leads us to the theories of the ultimate origins of the universe. There are two basic theories: the big bang theory, which is the predominant theory, and the steady state theory. The big bang view is that the universe and all it contains is the result of matter so dense that matter itself was invisible, suddenly exploding in a super explosion that eventually resulted in the present orderly composition of the universe. Just the very notion seems to be absurd. In a book called The New Story of Science, Robert Agross and George Stanshew, write that the universe began as a particle that was infinitely dense (how can it be infinitely dense?) and occupied no space (how could it occupy no space and even be in existence?). This event is said to have taken place between five and twenty-billion years ago. So, first of all, the big bang theory assumes that matter and energy are eternal. Matter had to be eternally present before the big bang or there would have been nothing to explode. Therefore, what we learn from this is that everyone believes in something eternal. Either they believe in something that is eternal in the form of impersonal matter or energy, or they believe in an impersonal force. This is a faith statement. It is faith, not science. Second, the big bang theory attempts to explain only the ordering and the organization of matter and energy, it doesn’t seek to explain the origin of matter and energy. The basic problem is, if matter and energy are eternal (which the theory demands) then matter and energy would, by the time of the big bang, have reached a state of equilibrium, i.e. it would no longer be in some sort of volatile situation that could explode. This is based on two laws of physics that are violated by the theory of evolution. These two laws are referred to as the two laws of thermodynamics. In the first law of thermodynamics we have the law that matter and energy are not created or destroyed. This means that if there is no matter that is created or destroyed then you have a finite amount of matter. It is not being added to, it is not decreasing. You start off with an X amount of matter. Remember that according to their theory matter is eternal. The second law of thermodynamics says that all matter or energy is moving to a state of entropy (a non-usable state). It is therefore in a state of decline, moving from order to disorder. If matter and energy are eternal and you start off with a finite amount of matter and energy, and all matter and energy is moving from a state of order to disorder, than an eternity ago we ran out of usable energy and usable matter—because you don’t start with an infinite amount of matter, you start off with a finite amount. And it is always moving from a state of order to disorder so that an eternity ago it reached the state of pure entropy where there is no more usable energy or matter. So that is an internal conflict between the theory of evolution and the basic laws of thermodynamics. But in terms of the big bang it also indicates that by the time of the big bang event you would have reached the state of pure equilibrium and there would have been nothing to go bang and nothing to cause it to go bang. So that necessitates that there would have to be some sort of external principle or force on that matter in order to cause it to go bang. That, of course, is unacceptable because it brings us face to face with the idea of God!
The Bible teaches that matter and energy are finite and created, as does the first law of thermodynamics, and the biblical data fits scientific laws more consistently than the theory of evolution.
Furthermore there is another conflict between evolution and creation, and that is that in evolution they can’t explain what holds the solar system together, what holds the universe together, because gravity is a function of mass and there is not enough mass in the solar system, not enough mass in the galaxies, not enough mass in the universe, to hold it together. There is a missing mass problem. Of course, Colossians 1:16,17 tells us that everything is held together by the Lord Jesus Christ. That solves the missing mass problem.
Another conflict that we have is that according to the Bible Jesus Christ created mankind in the image and likeness of God, but according to evolution man developed over millions of years, through billions of evolutionary mistakes, and the death of billions of creatures. So on the one hand you have God creating man instantly, and on the other hand you have millions of years of evolutionary mistakes and side-tracks, and the death of billions of creatures. According to evolution man is fundamentally no different from any other animal, micro-bacteria or plant, he is all a part of that same chain of being. That is why when in terms of the modern ecological movement it is such a terrible evil to go out and chop down a tree in the rain forest—because we are all part of that same chain of being. Man is part of that chain of being, he can’t go in and be over nature as the Bible says. Furthermore, if you try to make any form of compromise with evolution, and form of accomodationist view such as theistic evolution, the day-age theory, or progressive evolution, then you have a god who must be incredibly violent, as well as inept, who required millions of years of ferocious animals and death—the whole idea of the survival of the fittest is built on death, something has to survive meaning something doesn’t survive. The basic mechanism of evolution is death, destruction, violence.
If humans evolved from apes and other creatures then Jesus Christ who was born of the virgin Mary would be genetically linked not just to mankind but to all animals. Again, this is against the statement of Mark 10:6, which specifically says that God created Adam and the woman. Man was created fully mature with the appearance of age. They would reach out and eat of a tree thee fruit which had the appearance of age. So everything was created and had an appearance of age, and that is not a deception, it is not a subterfuge. For example, in John chapter two we know that Jesus transformed the water into wine. What does it take to make good wine? One element is age, yet Jesus created the best wine that has e3ver been drunk in human history in a second. It had the appearance of age even though it wasn’t old. In creation there is the appearance of age, and so that is going to affect any kind of dating mechanism. This Bible is in complete and 100% conflict with what is taught in evolution. There are numerous attempts over the years to try to harmonize the Bible’s account of creation with the myth of evolution. But either the Bible is true or evolution is true, you can’t force any kind of synthesis between the two, there are so many radical differences.
The contrasts:
1) The Bible claims that God is the creator of all things in Genesis one. Evolution claims that random events and chance processes, plus no information or person accounts for the existence of all things.
2) The Bible claims that the present world was recreated in six literal 24-hour days. Evolution says that the world evolved over eons of time.
3) The Bible claims that creation is completed. Whatever laws were in effect, whatever processes were in effect between day one and day six, ceased at the end of the sixth day. Evolution claims that those processes and laws, physical and biological, are still continuing the same today as forever.
4) The Bible says the ocean was created before the land. Evolution says that land came before the oceans.
5) The Bible says that there is an atmosphere between the two hydrospheres. Evolution says that there was one continuous atmosphere and hydrosphere in the early earth.
6) The Bible claims the first life was on land. Evolution claims that life began in the oceans.
7) The Bible claims that the first life was land plants. Evolution claims that the first life were marine organisms.
8) The Bible says that the earth was created before the sun and the stars. Evolution says that the sun and the starts came into being before the earth.
9) The Bible says that fruit trees were created before the fish. Evolution says fish came into being before fruit trees.
10) The Bible says that all stars were made on the fourth day. Evolution says that stars evolved at various times down through the ages.
11) The Bible says that birds and fish were created on day five. Evolution says that fish evolved hundreds of millions of years before birds appeared.
12) The Bible says that birds were created before the crawling things, including insects. Evolution says that insects came before birds.
13) The Bible says that whales were created before the reptiles. Evolution says that reptiles were created before whales.
14) The Bible says that birds were created before reptiles. Evolution says that reptiles were created before birds.
15) The Bible says that man was created before there was rain. Evolution says there was rain before man came into being.
16) The Bible says that man came before woman. Evolution says that woman came before man.
17) The Bible says that light was in existence before the stars and the sun were created. Evolution says that the stars and the sun existed before there was any light.
18) The Bible says that plants were created before the sun. Evolution says that the sun was in existence before there were any plants.
19) The Bible says there was an abundance and variety of marine life all at once. Evolution says that marine life gradually developed from a primitive organic blob.
20) The Bible says that man’s body was created from the chemicals of the soil. Evolution claims that man evolved from ape-like ancestors.
21) The Bible claims that man exercised dominion over all organisms. Evolution says that most organisms were extinct before man ever existed.
22) In the Bible man was originally a vegetarian. In evolution man was originally a meat eater, therefore vegetarianism is considered to be a higher thing.
23) In the Bible there are fixed and distinct kinds. In evolution life forms are in a continuous state of flux.
24) In the Bible man’s sin is the cause of physical death in the universe. In evolution, struggle and death were existent long before the evolution of man.
25) In the Bible suffering, death and pain are viewed as abnormal and the result of sin, and were not God’s original creative intent. But according to evolution suffering, death and pain, and therefore evil, are normal.
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015b-Creation and Evolution: Monkeys
We now focus on monkeys, men, and mutations. We’ve all opened up publications and seen the whole list of man-like and ape-like creatures that are allegedly the predecessors, the missing links in the development of the human race. We always see pictures where these are very hairy and thick-lipped and all the various kinds of primordial features are present in the early versions. But the thing is, that whenever they discover the remains of the allegedly early creatures those remains are just a skull fragment or a jawbone, they have no idea of what the fleshy parts of the man would look like. And so ninety-eight per cent of what you see in those artistic diagrams are nothing more than the artist’s imagination. It has nothing to do with scientific fact. No one ever has a picture of what these looked like, they just have a few skull fragments. Everything else is just pure guesswork.
We have to realize that with the development of the theory of evolution back in the nineteenth century must was made of finding the missing link. Where is the missing link? We don’t know because it isn’t missing. There is no evidence of any linkage whatsoever. In the development of evolution in the 19th century it was seen that this whole extrapolation of this series of early men and the idea of stone-age men and having them as predecessors to full homo sapien human beings put a lot of pressure on Christians. So there were various accommodationist theories that were set forth, such as progressive creationism, the day-age view, and the classic gap view that came from Thomas Chalmers and made popular by Pember. It was that view that hi-jacked an older view that there was a time lapse between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 and then they tried to fit 45,000 years into that gap. At least that is what it was when Chalmers wrote, By the end of the 19th century it was a few million years, but they had already committed themselves and made a mistake. They felt like they were taking scientific conclusions as fact, and they were nothing more than guesswork. So they looked at all of these creatures that were allegedly human beings and seemed like some kind of missing link and they tried to work out where to put them, so they came up with the idea that there must have been some pre-Adamic race that existed before Genesis 1:2. The problem with that is that it lends itself to the view that God was kind of experimenting and it is not until Genesis 1:26-28 that after the death of hundreds of thousands or millions of these creatures comes up with the final plan. So that has negative implications for one’s view of God. Few people are willing to admit that. Usually what we find in this is that you have to be extremely humble when you come to the Scriptures and let arrogance dominate. But we know that arrogance is tenacious, and that is really the theme here: the tenacity of arrogance in evolution. This is because there is no evidence of any missing link, no evidence of any kind of human pre-trail whatsoever, even though there is a tremendous amount of propaganda out there in biology text books, in Time-Life books, and in all kinds of national parks are seen the features of the different kinds of people.
So we will go through a list of some of these alleged predecessors and get the true story on these so-called early men.
1) Java man. The Time-Life editors in their book The First Men called these “definitely human and definitely old.” Java man was discovered in September, 1891, by Eugene du Bios when he found a single ape-like tooth. In October in the same general location, about three feet from the first find he discovered another tooth. In November another three feet from the second tooth he discovered a skull impression in a rock mass—not the skull but the impression of the skull. Then that winter the river flooded the site and digging stopped. It was not until the next year in August of 1892 that they returned to the site, and some fifty feet away they discovered a femur. He confidently announced that he had discovered the missing link—Java man, the link between apes and man. But in the same area were discovered bones from deer, elephants, tigers, hyenas, crocodiles and rhinoceros. So it was a graveyard of all kinds of bones, and how would one be able to discern that these ape-like teeth (two of them) and the skull impression were the same individual. In a separate find a German anthropologist found five skull fragments which were later identified with that same group. But now they are declared by Time-Life to be “definitely human and definitely old.”
2) Peking man. Called part of homo erectus. Homo erectus is really a loose designation for something that is pretty much homo sapien, but we are going to knock him down a little bit because they hold the possibility there was some sort of connection, but for all practical purposes they are part of the homo genus. Peking man was discovered in Peking by W.D. Pay who was aided by Teilhard de Chardin. One of the things that we have to be careful of here is who this second person is. He is one of the spookiest guys in the history of Christianity and the history of the 20th century. He was a Jesuit priest, but many New Agers go back to him, read his writings. He is foundational in many of the avante guard postmodernist background type of thinking, and he was also implicated in the hoax of the Piltdown man. The fact that Teilhard de Chardin was involved with the Peking man at all casts doubts on Peking man. These two men found a total of forty men, women, and children’s parts. This was the allegation because there is a lot of differences in the records, because one anthropologist name Janus writes: “They labeled, described, photographed and categorized the casts of the 175 fossil fragments that had been collected”— the reason we go back to the photographs is because in World War II when the Japanese invaded China all evidence of Peking man was destroyed – So Janus writes, “in relationship to Peking man . . . Those fossil fragments were composed of five skulls, 150 jaw fragments and teeth, 9 thigh bones and fragments, two upper arm bones, a collar bone and a wrist bone.” Another anthropologist, Johannsen, agrees that there were five skulls but instead of 150 jaw fragments there were 15 smaller pieces of the skull or face, 14 lower jaws, and 152 teeth. So no one can even agree what the evidence consisted of for Peking man. The evidence, though, from the pictures was that the skulls were crushed from behind and the brains were probably removed for food. There is agreement now from anthropologists—evolutionists—that Peking man was probably not human but was killed and eaten by humans. This has become more of the accepted view in recent years.
3) Heidelberg man. This was discovered in Germany and consisted of a single fragment, a jawbone of large proportions and human teeth. Today he is considered an example of homo erectus, so he is in the homo genus, according to Time-Life books. However, Johannsen and Eady, in their book “The Beginning of Human Kind” state that “his finder recognized that he was a man and thus belonged in the genus homo but decided to put him in a species of his own.” So it was just pure guesswork, the original discoverer of this one jawbone fragment wanted to be known for discovering a new species. So Heidelberg man doesn’t fit in the chain.
4) Piltdown man. This is a fascinating story of how the gullible are easily duped. This was allegedly discovered by a man named Charles Dawson in 1912. But in 1954 it was discovered to have been a hoax. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was associated with Dawson the next year and going back to the same site they discovered a tooth that was buried in that site, and so he is also implicated in putting forth this hoax. The jaw was the jaw of an orangutan that they treated with acid, they stained the skull, and the teeth were filed down, then the jaw of this orangutan was attached to a human cranium. In 1954 it was admitted that this was a hoax. As late as 1969 Harvard Press was still publishing books (15 years after admission of the hoax) affirming the legitimacy of Piltdown man in the human background.
Arrogance is tenacious. Evolutionists continue to hold on to these strands of alleged evidence. In some case they continue to purport that which is known to be false. The Harvard Press account of the Piltdown man was built on nothing but a myth, but a hoax. It shows how they can take something that is fraudulent, warp it around a tremendous amount of scientific language and continue to voice that on the public, even though it has already been proven to be false.
5) Another group of finds that were popular back in the 70s to say were part of the background for the human race were the ramipithicenes. This was based on a jaw fragment that was discovered in 1937 in India. It was originally given the name, because it was in India, of ramapithicus. But then a couple of years later an anthropologist discovered a skull fragment in southern Africa which he combined with that jaw fragment and the species ramapithicus was then born. Notice they take a jaw fragment from India and a skull fragment in Africa and link them together. In 1973 two evolutionists, Alan Walker and Peter Andrews, wrote an article in Nature Magazine that the jaw of ramapithicus was that of a true ape. By the mid-1970s ramapithicus was considered as an ancestor to the orangutan or ape but was definitely not in the line of man. Yet, you will still find books today who have ramapithicus in the lineage of man. Even after the mid-70s when ramapithicus is no longer in the human line, in 1982 Richard Leaky, the son of a famous anthropologist and evolutionist, declared in a book called Human Origins that ramipithicenes are thought to be the group from which our ancestors evolved. They continue to hold on to these things and promote them as absolute evidence when it is not evidence of anything at all except their powerful imaginations. Then there are the Ostralapithicenes [also known as Nutcracker Man], the ones which have gained probably the most fame. Mary Leaky, the daughter of the famous anthropologist, was walking along the slop of a dig on a July morning in 1959 and noticed some brownish-black premolar teeth, the size of a monkey’s or an ape’s, sticking out of the rocks. It took nineteen days to free the teeth and the other parts of a fossil palate out of the rock. The site where they were working contained more than 400 bone fragments in a 25 square-foot area. T. H. Cann notes in his book, An Introduction to Homonology, that Ostralapithigus is a genus now generally agreed to be homonoid, but it is not human. The most famous of these was a three-and-a-half-foot creature called Lucy. Allegedly Lucy is the first creature to walk on two feet, allegedly the oldest ancestor to man, and Lucy theoretically, according to their view, resembles homo sapiens in three ways: her knee, her arm-to-leg length ratio, and her left pelvic bone. But there are problems. The knee joint was found 60 to 80 metres deeper in the rock strata and almost a mile away from the rest of her! Secondly, her published arm-leg-link ratio (a human being has an arm that is about 75% the length of the leg. An ape has one that is longer than the leg) was 83.9%, which meant that her arm was much longer than a normal human. However, the leg bone was crushed in various places and the pieces don’t all fit together. So you can’t get an accurate arm-leg ration at all, it is just another guess. Then the third piece of evidence is the pelvic bone. This pelvic bone is distorted as we have it and it shows that Lucy probably walked on all fours and that she was a knuckle walker, and other quotes indicate that she was probably a climber. In the article published in Science News, vol. 100, November 27, 1971, we read: “Ostralapithicus limb-bones fossils have been rare finds. But Leaky now has a large sample. They portray Ostralapithicus as long-armed and short-legged (notice how that differs from the earlier analysis). He was probably a knuckle walker, not an erect walker as many archaeologists presently believe. Furthermore, if Ostralapithicus lived in the same region occupied 2-million years before the more highly evolved genus homo than Johannsen and his colleagues suggest, it seems likely that the true man and the near man lived in the same area at the same time. All previous theories of the origin and the lineage of the modern man must now be totally revised. We must throw out many existing theories and consider the possibility that man’s origins go back to well over 4-million years.” (And they don’t know what those origins are)
6) Neanderthal man. Isaac Asomoth stated very clearly, “Give a Neanderthal man a shave and a haircut, dress him in well-fitted clothes, and he could probably walk down New York’s Fifth Avenue without getting much notice. In other words, Neanderthal man is now believed to be normal European homo sapiens, with the possibility that he just suffered from rickets and arthritis.
7) Nebraska man was another hopeful missing link. That evidence came from the state of Nebraska. That evidence was built on one tooth which was discovered in 1922. Then two years later a skull was found in the same location and the tooth fitted perfectly. But it was the skull of an extinct pig!
So there we have eight different contestants all trying to be ancestors to man, and none of which fit. Yet that is what most of us have been told, we see it illustrated in all the magazines. There is no evidence whatsoever that any of these are ancestors to man. There are various differences between man and apes. While an ape may superficially resemble a man because he has two legs and certain appearances it would appear that they are closely related. However that is only superficial. For example, man has a permanent bipedal locomotion. That affects everything related to his spinal cord, the relationship of his muscles, all of which are going to be quite different, whereas apes walk on all fours. Second, man has a big toe in line with his other toes. An apes large toe is located back toward the rear toward the heel, and it is opposable just like the thumb on your hand – so that he can grab branches and trees. That is really what determines the difference between an ape and a man, not thee skull. And yet, what are they looking for? In fossil finds they always come up with skull fragments and jaw fragments, but don’t come up with the feet which tells us whether it is an ape or a man. Man generally has a larger brain. In man the head is balanced on the top of the spine; in apes the head is hinged in front of the spine. Man is less mature at birth; apes are more mature. Why do we still have so many species of apes and monkeys? There are also more vertebrae in the back of a man than an ape. Men have shorter arms and longer legs than apes. Men as human beings have 46 chromosomes whereas apes have 48 chromosomes. All of this means that it would be virtually impossible for there to be changes.
So the question arises: Where did these prehistoric men come from? Who are they? Most creationists agree that these were groups of fully human beings that for some reason left the mainstream of civilization. Over time they degenerated socially from the mainline of human development. Under evolution what you have socially is that man started off in this primitive stone age state, and then they gradually discovered things, gradually moved forward. The picture we have in Scripture is that Adam was probably the most attractive, the most physically capable, and the most mentally agile human being that has ever existed. Because of sin everything has gone down hill.
Job makes reference to this in Job 30:1-8, “But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished? For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat. They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;) To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks. Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together. They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.”
There is one other thing that needs to be covered, and that it mutation. The mechanism for advance in evolution from species to species and the development of new species and more advanced species is the idea of mutations, that through radiation, through the introduction of various radioactivity or whatever it might be, would produce mutations, and this would be something positive. But the question is, if that is something positive and mutations are considered something positive, why did everybody run from Three Mile Island when there was a small radioactive leak there. This theory of mutations comes out of science and is based on a lot of genetic theories that are not found in actual fact. Many people assume and many teach that these are actual facts, and that genetics demonstrates the progress of evolution. For example, Ernst Mayor who is a professor at Harvard, says ultimately all variation is due to mutation. But we have to ask then question, is DNA really all that flexible. Remember DNA is a nucleic acid that carries the genetic information in the cell and is capable of self-replication. That involves thousands of pieces of information. Two long chains of nucleotides twisted into a double helix and joined by hydrogen bonds between complementary bases. The sequence of nucleotides determines individual hereditary characteristics. DNA is the language of the cell. It is the computer program, so to speak, that makes he cell function. The idea of mutation is that somehow by introducing something like radio activity you can change Microsoft Word into Word Perfect. That is not going to happen, you have to have somebody who can properly order and organize the information correctly and restructure the information code. DNA provides the blueprint that reproduces the cells and all the information again so that that cell can in turn reproduce. That means that it is going to be producing at least 20 or more different proteins. The question that comes up logically is, what comes first? The chicken or the egg thing. If DNA is essential in the manufacturing process of proteins and the manufacturing process produces proteins that are essential to DNA, then you can’t have DNA without proteins and you can’t have proteins without DNA. Which comes first? They are dependent on each other. The only way that it could work is if DNA and proteins both came into existence fully functional and interdependent at the exact same point in time. Further, since DNA is a language it communicates information. It communicates thousands of pieces of data. Where did that information come from? Is all that information just a product of random chance? But random chance cannot produce anything other than chaos. In normal healthy organisms, for example, when you get into dealing with mutation, the DNA cannot be improved. It is what it is supposed to be, a normal healthy organism. But natural selection, i.e. the idea of the survival of the fittest, only explains why the normal healthy organism survives. It is because it is a little more fit and a little healthier than other organisms. Natural selection doesn’t explain how it got there in the first place, only why it survives. It doesn’t explain the arrival of the fittest, only the survival of the fittest. The question is, can a mutation produce new, healthier information?
The problem with mutations is that when mutations do occur geneticists say that 99.9% of all mutations are harmful. One of the most prominent evolutionists at the forefront of stuffy of mutations writes: “The process of mutation is the only source of the raw materials of genetic variability and, hence, of evolution. The mutants which arise are with rare exceptions deleterious to their carriers. That means it is harmful. They can’t survive, at least in the environment which the species normally encounters.” In other words, it is going to be almost impossible to get anything positive that you would want to carry on to the next generation.
Dr. James Crowe who is professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin writes: “Mutants would usually be detrimental, for a mutation is a random change of a highly organized, reasonably smoothly functioning living body. A random change in the highly integrated system of chemical processes which constitute life is almost certain to impair it, just as a random change of connections in a television set is not likely to improve the picture. The point is, if survival of the fittest explained the arrival of the fittest then mutations should not cause extinctions but improved species. But the fact is that there are more extinctions going on today and there is no evidence of improved species anywhere.”
Lorin Isley, the famous evolutionist from the University of Pennsylvania writes: “With the failure of these many efforts to prove evolution to be true science is left in a somewhat embarrassing position of having to postulate theories of living origins which it could not demonstrate. After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth an miracle science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own. Namely, the assumption of what after long effort could not be proved to take place today had in truth taken place in the primeval past.” In other words, he admits it is all mythology, there is no fact to support it.
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016b-Creation and Evolution: Time; Dating; Age of Things
The core issue in the entire battle has to do with time, dating, the age of things. Evolution follows the principle of time plus chance equals everything. The view of the evolutionist is that if you just give us enough time anything can happen; eventually order will come from chaos. We have seen that this is a fallacious argument. The mantra of the evolutionist is that there are billions and billions of years, and this phrase is repeated again and again by the propagandizers of Darwinism until we are completely desensitized to this and come to realize this must be true, because if this many people who have this many PhDs believe this then there must be some solid evidence behind it and the universe must be billions of years old. It is this issue of time which almost single-handedly challenged and brought down the reign of biblical orthodoxy over science at the end of the Enlightenment period. Up until the end of the Enlightenment, somewhere in the late 1700s, most of the scientists believed the Bible to be true. They believed there was a literal world-wide flood during Noah’s time, they believed that the earth was a young earth and that it was not any more than 8-10,000 years old. But once due to the Enlightenment the scientists cut themselves loose from biblical infallibility then they began to analyze the data of nature from a completely autonomous framework, and once they came up the with the ideas and alleged evidence that the earth was 35-40,000 years old it immediately challenged what the Bible said and they used that to try to prove that the Bible was wrong. It is the issue of time, the fact that they needed to come up with 35 or 40,000 years, at least in the early 1800s, which fueled the accommodationist position.
Dating of anything is based upon four different principles. First of all, you can observe the present condition of a rock or of fossils. That’s science. The second principle of dating is that we can measure the current rates of any processes that are operating in that rock or in that system. That is also science; you are measuring the present race, what is happening right now. It doesn’t tell you anything else, like what the breakdown rate was 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, or 5000 years ago. Third, we can make certain assumptions (this is where we have to be careful) about the past history of that rock or system based on current realities, and this is called building a model. But this is where you have to recognize they are assumptions and say well if these processes remained the same then this conclusion would follow. But you don’t know that that process has always been the same. Then the fourth point, which is where the system falls apart, is that we can calculate based on present processes the length of time a system was in operation. This is the very issue because the third principle will bring in for the evolutionist a uniformitarian principle, i.e. that this process has been the same for all time. Now uniformitarian geology is falling on hard times and there are more and more geologists who are beginning to accept the principles of catastrophism, and in the past have gone through various types of clocks, that is, you can measure certain rates such as the mouth of a river lays down silt at certain rates and you can extrapolate from that how long the river has been there. You can also look at the moon and it licks up a certain amount of cosmic dust per year, so you can extrapolate back. We have gone through numerous clocks and have shown that they don’t give consistent data. They vary the age of the earth from anything from 3000 years to 10-billion years. No two of these measuring devices seem to indicate the same thing. But that is one type of measurement and that is different from what is called radio-metric dating, which has to do with dating the radioactive elements within something.
So what we realize here is that when we date something it is based on certain assumptions. Those assumptions are three: first of all, that the rate has always been the same, never slowing down and never increasing. That is true for any kind of dating; second, that nothing has been added or taken away from that specimen; third, the assumption that there was none of a certain element there to begin with. So you have to ask certain questions. Has the rate always been the same? Has anything been taken away or added to the specimen? Was there any of this element there to begin with? If you don’t know if an element was there to begin with how can you know today how much has been added to it? The point is, all we know with certainty is what we observe in the present. That is the principle.
A practical example is Niagra Falls. Niagra Falls is a location where Lake Erie dumps into Lake Ontario. The Falls erodes the rock underneath at a rate of four to five feet per year. That means that each year it moves closer and closer to Lake Erie at the rate of four to five feet per year. Niagra Falls is now seven miles or 37,000 feet from Lake Ontario. It is a simple matter of mathematics to figure this out. Four will go into about 37,000 about 9 times. So that is about 9000 years. So you can say that if the rate of erosion has been the same for the last 9000 years that 9000 years ago the falls was dumping directly into Lake Ontario. But is that correct? How do we know that? We can only measure the process today. Has anything occurred in the last 9000 years that might speed up that process? For example, was there a downward tilt of land at the very beginning where the two came together which would indicate that the rate of erosion would have been much faster? Furthermore, what if there was more water running off at the beginning? Remember, if you are a believer in the Scriptures and you believe there was a universal world-wide flood , then you would have to assume that, yes, at the beginning there was much more water. Not only that but the sediment that had been laid down by the flood was much more recent, much looser, and therefore it would erode more easily and more quickly. Therefore the rate of erosion right after the flood would be much faster than it is now. And so all of these figures would enter in and affect your understanding of the timing.
What we will focus on is an analysis of radioisotope or radiometric dating. This is where all of the dating takes place, people are more familiar with carbon 14 dating, but you also have potassium-argon dating and various other kinds of dating used, measuring the rate of the breakdown of the half-life of radioactive elements inside of a rock.
First of all, we have to recognize that the only rocks that can be dated by this method are igneous rocks and metamorphic rocks. These are rocks that were once extremely hot or they were heated up to perhaps the melting point as in a volcano and have since cooled to solid rock. At this time there is no method that has any reliability on dating sedimentary rock which is laid down on most of the planet, or limestone or sandstone; they do not contain the right elements. The assumption in radiometric dating is that when you heat up these elements to the level where the rock melts it resets the time clock, so that the age clock that they are measuring the breakdown of those elements is reset to zero, and the date reflects the time from the cooling of the rock to the present. That is the assumption. This appears to be a testable assumption. We have volcanoes that erupt all the time and there are areas on the planet’s surface where we have in human history the records of certain volcanic action where we know approximately when these volcanic eruptions took place. So we can go there, take the rocks, and perform tests on them to see how old those rocks are, and see if the system works. The principle is that if you know the date of the rocks and can test the dating system against that, if it doesn’t come up with an accurate date there, then you know you can’t trust it when they’re extrapolating to hundreds of millions of years or billions of years.
So let’s try to understand, if we can, the basic methodology that is used here. Rocks are analyzed by looking for certain elements or compounds in the rocks which break down over time into other elements or rocks. What they are looking for is a radioactive element such as U238 atom to an lead L206 atom. As the uranium atom breaks down over time it eventually decays into a stable isotope of lead. The U238 is called the mother element and the lead L206 element is the daughter element. The length of time that it breaks down is called the half-life, and it goes through various other elements in the process until it reaches a stable of L206. Dating this and determining the time entails certain assumptions. There is some uranium in that rock and some lead, and you can measure the amount of lead in the rock, and you think you know how fast or how slow the uranium decays in the lead. Then you can determine from the amount of lead that is in the rock how old that rock is. That is the idea. You have some uranium and some lead. You can measure the amount of the lead. You know what the rate of decay is, so therefore you can extrapolate back and work out how long it took for the uranium to break down and produce that much lead in the rock.
But there are a number of hidden assumptions here that have to be addressed. The first assumption is that the rate of decay must have always been the same. Among creation scientists there is a debate, a difference of opinion. One view is that there really hasn’t been anything to date to demonstrate that outside forces can change this decay rate. The other view is that these decay rates can be altered through certain studies. When exposed to various types of radiation and X-rays this use suggests that this will change the breakdown rate. For example, if a massive amount of radiation were to bombard the primordial soup and the early earth, as postulated by evolution, causing the U238 to speed up, it half-life would be shortened due to radiation. So it would speed up the process of decay. But how would a scientist of today know that something happened, say, 800-million years ago to speed up that rate, how long was that rate quickened, and when did it stop? Then what if the radiation that caused that decay rate to speed up, but before that the decay rate was twice or three times as slow as it was after that radiation event? And then if you come to the theory that Stephen J. Gould proposed, that there is no real evidence of gradual evolution—what he proposed was punctuated evolution where some events sort of blasts the earth and all of a sudden there is a leap from one set of species to another and that this happens very quickly. Under his theory there would be continuous irregular massive bombardments of X-rays that would change the set-up all along. That would mean that evolution would have a problem, it can’t have its cake and eat it too. If massive radiation bombardment is needed to begin life then that would invalidate the dating system. Let’s assume, just for the sake of argument, that this assumption is valid with certain reservations—that the rate of decay will stay the same. There are still other assumptions that have to be addressed.
The second assumption is that the rock initially contained none of the daughter elements (but they don’t know that). For example, if it take 10-million years to produce one milligram of lead from the decay of uranium and you find a rock that has 1mg of lead in it, you would conclude that rock to be 10-million years old. But the problem is, what if God created that rock yesterday with 1mg of lead in it? What if sometime in the past He created one with only half a milligram of lead in it? We don’t know how much lead was in the rock to begin with, so that means that by assuming that there was nothing there to begin with we are going to drastically affect our conclusion. Furthermore, what of some cataclysmic process or reaction that took place in history that caused some lead to leak into the rock or in the formation of the rock? Remember this is rock that has been heated up. If it comes out of a volcano then what if something happened to cause lead to get into it, or on the other hand to leach out? Furthermore, how can a modern scientists today differentiate between the lead that God created in that rock to begin with and that which developed over time as a result of the breakdown of the uranium? So every dating technique assumes that there was no pre-existing daughter element, and that means that the whole dating scheme is nothing more than pure guess.
Assumption #3 gets a little more interesting. It is that the rock specimen has never ever been contaminated. That means that you have a pure specimen of the rocks, that there were no processes at any time that caused the loss of any element in that rock or that any other element leached into the rock. To be fair to scientists a lot of effort is made to use as clean a specimen as possible. They know there are problems, are very much aware of the fact that there are problems. So they try to use as uncontaminated a specimen as possible. But that is not consistent with other known scientific realities and what they run across is vast numbers of inconsistencies. In fact, there was an article published by Douglas Woodmerapy back in 1980 in the Creation Research Society Quarterly where he listed over 300 examples of dating where the specimens produced widely divergent and contradictory ages. The problem is that if it doesn’t fit their view of what kind of rock it should be and how old it is then it’s assumed that it is contaminated. Why? Because it doesn’t fit their old earth model. They have an agenda: the earth is 17 to 18-billion years old so if we test this rock and it doesn’t fit our pattern we have a contaminated specimen! They assume, then, that nothing could have got into the rock to alter the decay rock and thus give them an erroneous date. If anything speeds up or slows down the process then their dating is completely off.
In critiquing this we have to realize that, first of all, there is no such thing in nature as a perfectly closed system. It is a nice concept in the laboratory but that doesn’t work out in nature. There are all kinds of things bombarding the rocks, especially if it is assumed that the earth is up to 18-billion years old. That would mean every molecule in the universe has been in at least four different substances since the big bang. That is the conclusion of evolution. That would pick up a lot of contamination over time, so you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have molecules in flux and shifting through four different substances over the period of billions of years and also have closed system; you have to pick one or the other. Rocks do get contaminated, things seep into them, they are exposed to radiation. Rocks change when they are exposed to wind and water. Some things are leached out and other things seep in. When analysis is done on some rock samples that are considered to be uncontaminated, and the dates either don’t agree with each other, or with estimated dates—you are assuming that on an evolutionary time scale that that rock is 1.2-billion years old because of the kinds of fossils or because of the strata that it is in—then the results are thrown out as contaminated. An example: Dr Andrew Snelling, who is a professor of geology at the Institute for Creation Research, studied the published the published dates and isotope ratios from a uranium deposit in Australia. He writes in his conclusion: “The above evidence conclusively demonstrates that the uranium-lead system, including its intermediate daughter products—especially radium and radon—has been so open with repeated large-scale migrations of the elements that it is impossible to be sure of the precise status or history of any piece of pitch blend selected for dating.” In other words, there are inconsistencies throughout in every sample. So the question we should ask is: if leaching and contamination can occur which cannot be visibly detected, then how do we know that they haven’t occurred in other apparently clean-looking samples which come back with problems. We have to assume that there is no such thing as an uncontaminated sample, and if it is contaminated there are going to be problems. The point is, if there is any conflict or problem in the results the dating that doesn’t fit the geologic scheme is thrown out. Evolutionist S.S Goldich, in an article in the Geological Society of American Abstracts, wrote (about 1981): “Fifteen years ago radiometric age determinations on minerals and rocks were so startling that absolute age became a password. Intensive research with successive improvements in the potassium argon or rubidium strontium and uranium lead methods, however, revealed that geologic processes influence isotopic systems and that the age measurements are analytical values that commonly require geologic interpretation.” In other words, what finally determines the age produced by radiometric dating is the geologic timetable. The geologic timetable and the geologic column was developed in the early 19th century before we knew anything about radioactivity. And so the rock has to fit that timetable, and if they date it and it doesn’t fit then the conclusion is it was a contaminated specimen, and they aren’t going to use it. This is what he admits when he says that dates require geological interpretation.
Examples which demonstrate that there are great fallacies in the dating system:
a) Sunset crater in northern Arizona. This is known to be a recent volcano. In the lava bed there are Indian artifacts and remains which indicate that there were native Americans or Indians living in that area. It doesn’t seem that they were killed by the eruption but their villages and agricultural sites were buried during that eruption. From what is left there we can date the time of this activity at this crater to some 900 years ago. Furthermore, tree ring dating in the area accurately dates the eruption to about 1065 AD. The two lava flows that are there (remember, we know when this volcano occurred) have been dated by the potassium argon method. Remember: the eruption was in 1065 AD. But according to the potassium argon method the lava flow gave ages of 210,000 and 230,000 years ago. How do they explain that? The explanation is that there was excess argon in the lava. It is true that there were higher levels of argon than were expected but that is really not much of an explanation. If you are going to have a consistent system it has to work.
b) Mount Rangitoto in New Zealand. That was dated by radio carbon studies of the trees and that the eruption there occurred about 300 years ago—about 1700 A.D. But the potassium argon dating on those rocks yielded a date of 485,000 years ago. So it doesn’t seem to be that reliable.
c) The Grand Canyon in North America. Numerous volcanic eruptions have occurred on the Grand Canyon north rim since it was first eroded, so according to the evolutionary timetable that would be within the last 1-million years at most. But in every case of testing the lava seems to be much, much older than that. For example, at one formation called Vulcan’s Throne the potassium argon date there yields the youngest date in all of Arizona, a date of about 10,000 B.C. This seems to be fairly accurate since this particular eruption at Vulcan’s Throne is the most recent and post-dates all of the other rocks in the canyon. Indian legends also tell of the eruptions of various volcanoes in that vicinity but Indians have only been there a few thousand years, so if this was witnessed then that puts that date into question itself because there seems to be a living legend that this was much moiré recent. Furthermore, there is a mineral, olivine, that was found at Vulcan’s Throne and an additional age test on the olivine indicated that it had a low potassium concentration. Nevertheless, when the test was run it had a high argon concentration and came up with a date of 117-million years, plus or minus 3-million years. That is quite a difference between 10,000 years. There is a problem here. The explanation for why there is such a discrepancy is that there was some sort of mineral pod in that area which led to an excess of argon and therefore tainted the evidence. But the problem with that is that their assumption is, and remember that it takes molten rock to date this, they are assuming that the rock resets the date. Well if there is some kind of a pod there that introduces argon into the system then it didn’t get the date set back to zero. Once again, that would invalidate the whole theory.
d) Hawaii. The Capalehu flow at the Hualailai volcano which erupted in 1801, about 200 years ago. That is a little too recent to have produced much argon of helium but one particular study came up with twelve dates for that eruption, ranging from 140-million years to 2.96-billion years. The average date from these twelve samples was 1.41-billion. This occurred 200 years ago! They’ve tried to jump through hoops to try to explain the discrepancies here.
e) Salt Lake crater on Oahu is thought to be less than a million years old, according to the evolutionary scheme. One of the methods produced an age of 400,000 years, which they called the real age, but sixteen other tests came up with an age of between 2.6-million and 3.3-billion—quite a spread, the average being 845-million. It is thought from other geological evidence to be less than one million years old. So once again the system produces great inequities.
f) Another event that is thought to produce some consistent dating is the volcanic events in the oceans. The question there is, does water pressure really make a difference? In one study in Hawaii the lavas erupted probably less than 200 years ago. But repeated samples taken from a depth of about 4,600 metres gave a potassium argon age of 21-million years, and samples taken a depth of 3400 metres brought the age to 12-,million years. Those taken from 1400 metre depth produced an age of zero years. So obviously water pressure would have something to do with contaminating the evidence. If we believe in a world-wide flood that would certainly put enough pressure on rocks to taint all of the evidence.
Remember that the in the third assumption the theory is that if we have rocks of known age, and if radio isotope date doesn’t work on rocks on known age, then of we have rocks of an unknown age we can assume that radio isotope dating doesn’t work on those rocks either. When we look at these assumptions we realize that the assumption of uniformity is not reliable in normal geologic processes but seems to be affected by a number of different factors. The underlying assumption here is really assumption for, and assumption for is that the earth is at least old enough for the present amount of radiogenic lead in a specimen to be produced by the present rates of uranium decay. Breaking this down: The assumption is that the earth has to be old enough for the present amount of lead out there to have been produced by the present rates of uranium decay. The assumption is that the earth has to be old. They are assuming the conclusion and it is hidden in their other assumptions. They assume it has to be old and then on the basis of this precondition they have problems. So this assumption is the backdrop for the entire method. Basically what they are saying is that since the earth is old radio isotope dating can help us determine exactly how old it is. But we have to remember that the whole methodology is grounded in a fallacious assumption about the age of the earth, so it is useless to use any of these dating methods in testing between an old earth view and a young view.
As we look at the conflict with science at the middle of the seventeenth century and science started coming up with data that allegedly proved that the earth was first 45,000, then 100,000, then hundreds of thousands, and now billions of years old, as that number grew it put pressure on Christians who assumed that these conclusions of age were valid and correct. So then they said they had to find some way to fit the Bible in with these long ages. What is being demonstrated is that the theories of dating are all based on false assumptions. As we see in the fourth assumption it is based on an assumption that predetermines the conclusion. They are not neutral. The methodologies themselves are predicated on a false assumption that is inconsistent with the Scriptures. So if you are a believer and you believe the Bible, you can’t say, well what about all this evidence out there. Well the “evidence” is preconditioned by assumptions that the earth is already old. We have to stick with what the text says, what the Scripture says, and not on the basis of what atheistic science suggests.
An interesting study has to do also with the Grand Canyon, and it has to do with two different groups of basalt rock that is found there. At the base of the Grand Canyon they tested rock, doing five tests using the potassium argon method, yielding dates between 791-million years and 853-million years. That is called a model age because of the way that they came up with that technique. Later studies using a rubidium strontium method came up with an age of 980 to 1100-million years. So it can be seen that there is quite a discrepancy between those two models. Then as they developed a system to handle discrepancies they came up with another method called the isacron method which used multiple analyses and then chartered a mean in those various specimens. It seemed like the theory was valid but it has problems with its dating. The result of the potassium argon isacron age was that it yielded a date of 715-million years, but the rubidium strontium age was a little over a billion years. So it can be seen that there is a vast discrepancy in those ages. This is the rock that is at the bottom of the Canyon so this would be the oldest rock. The rock at the top would be from a much more recent volcanic activity. Notice the oldest date at the bottom is 1.2-billion, yet the date on top they did a test of five different rubidium strontium samples to come up with a model age and that yielded an age of goes from 1.2-billion to 1.3-billion. Remember this is recent rock on the top. When looking at the isacron test the rubidium strontium it yielded an age of 1.3-billion and the lead- lead isacron yielded a date of 2.6-billion. The tremendous inconsistencies in that dating system can be seen.
Carbon 14, the most popular system that most people have heard about is the one that has the most problems. It has all the same assumptions as other forms of radiometric dating but its dating is not accepted, especially if it goes back very far. One quote from Robert E. Lee in an article entitled Radio Carbon: Ages and Error, published in the Anthropological Journal of Canada in 1981, states: “The troubles of the radio-carbon dating method are undeniably deep and serious. Despite 35 years of technological refinement and better understanding the underlying assumptions have been strongly challenged, and warnings are out that radio-carbon may soon find itself in a crisis situation. Continuing use of the method depends on a fix-it-as-we-go approach, allowing contamination here, fractionation there, and calibration whenever possible. It should be no surprise, then, that fully half of the dates are rejected. The wonder is, surely, that the remaining half come to be accepted. No matter how useful it is though the radio-carbon method is still not capable of yielding accurate and reliable results. There are gross discrepancies, the chronologies uneven and relative, and the accepted dates are actually selected dates. In other words, lets pick the ones that validate the theory and ignore the others.”
That gives some idea of the problems that exist with all of these technical dating methods but they are not the only ways evolution is used to measure time. One way they use to measure time is to measure certain processes that go on today and then extrapolate it back in time. The gravitational fields of the sun and the stars pull in like a vacuum cleaner cosmic dust. This is called the Pointing-Robertson effect. The sun sucks in about 100,000 tons of cosmic dust every day. But if the sun is millions and millions of years old then the solar system should be sucked clean! There shouldn’t be any cosmic dust out there. In fact, based on the Pointing-Robertson effect, the sun and the solar system must be less than 10,000 years old.
Another issue in dating is that no one has ever seen the birth of a star. Evolutionists postulate that every year two or three new stars are born. That is just pure guesswork. We witness the death of stars every now and then in a nova but we never have witnessed the birth of a star. Why? God is no longer creating.
Another has to do with starlight and time. The problem is that light travels at a rate of 186,000 miles per second in a vacuum. That doesn’t tell us anything about how fast it travels under other conditions. The problem is this: if light travels that fast, wouldn’t it take millions of years for light to travel from the most distant stars and galaxies, which are supposed to be two or three hundred billion light years away, to the earth? And what about a star that is so far away that if we see the nova today, doesn’t that mean that start died 100-million years ago? If light travels at 186,000 miles per second it will travel about 6-trillion miles in one year. That is the distance of a light year. There are galaxies that are alleged to be billions of light years out from us in space, and that means that light which left that galaxy 5-billion years ago should just now be reaching us. That would indicate that the universe and creation would be at least 5-bollion years of age. If, according to the Bible, stars are only 6-10,000 years old then light from those galaxies are supposed to be five-billion years away would not even be reaching us yet.
There are four possible solutions. The first is that God created the light beam with the appearance of age. In other words, he created the light all along the path so that it instantly appeared on the earth. The second solution is that the distance to these remote stars has not been calculated correctly. This is possible. Distances are based on measurements using basic assumptions of trigonometry, that if you have a triangle and you know the length of the base and the two angles off the base, then you can measure the height of the triangle. That is a method known as triangulation. And since the angles are so minute when you are dealing with a star that is a billion or 5-billin light years away, that what they do is they’ll make a measurement when the earth is at one side of the sun and when it reaches the other extreme of the orbit they’ll take another measurement, but even then they are dealing with angles that have an extremely low difference. So if there is just a minute error in the calculation it can throw it off by millions of light years. Another problem is the nature of outer space itself. The major question here is, is outer space straight or curved? If you think of outer space as straight then it works according to the principles of Euclidian geometry. All calculations are then straight line calculations and the light that travels from a distant galaxy to earth travels in a straight line. However, Euclidian geometry is not the only type of geometry. There are many non-Euclidian types of geometry and these are based on the assumption that space is not straight, it is curved. One type of math that is used to measure distance in outer space is called Remonian math, and according to these principles the distance to the farthest star is much, much smaller than what we would get from a Euclidian formula. Dr Wayne Zage, in an article entitled The Geometry of Binocular Visual Space, published in Mathematics Magazine in November of 1980 observed 27 binary star systems and concluded that it appeared that light traveled in curved paths in deep space. If Euclidian straight-line math is converted into Remonian curved math light could travel from the farthest stars to earth in 15.71 years—not in 5-billion years but in 15 or 16 years! So this is very much a part of the debate and there is no way to truly solve in sitting inside the system. But more and more evidence supports the Remonian method of measuring the speed of light.
Another view (and the evidence for this may be suspect): Scientists have been measuring the speed of light for over 300 years now and it appears to be slowing down. So based on extrapolations of the declining speed of light you can measure the decline over the years, then extrapolate back to 5000 years ago or 6000 years ago when God creates then heavens and the earth, and if that is true then the light from the stars 5-billion light years away would arrive on earth in just three days. That would make sense in a creationist model because the laws of physics that are operating during that week of restoration are not the laws of physics that are operating today.
One final comment on dating. A lot of geologists think that you just have to have millions and millions of years for petroleum to form. On August 18, 1986, US News and World Report stated that “last year (1985) in the Gulf of California MIT’s Edmond found that the action of hot vents in the ocean was turning dead plankton in the sediment into petroleum, a process that normally takes at least 10-million years squeezed into an instant.” That fits a creationist model that these events don’t take million so years. In various cataclysmic situations they can be produced in days or weeks, if not seconds. In conclusion there is no solid evidence to link the ages of the earth. It is all based on assumption and guesswork because at the very core is a rejection of a sovereign God who rules in human history, who is calling sinful and rebellious creatures to account for their sin. Romans 1:18ff.
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017b-Creation of Man
We come to the next section or toledot. Toledot is a Hebrew word that is sometimes translated “history,” sometimes “generations.” It probably signifies various scrolls, various written records, that had been passed down from generation to generation. They were records that had been kept throughout the centuries prior to the time that Moses actually wrote the Pentateuch, so that when Moses sat down to pen Genesis he had before him various records that had been handed down from Adam himself, down through Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and he referred to those. He used this toledot section to indicate the major divisions in the book. The NASB uses the phrase, “This is the account of the heavens and the earth.” Actually, it is “This is the account of the history of the heavens and the earth.” These toledot sections stand as a topical sentence within a division that stand at the beginning of the division. To answer the question to the first toledot is, What happened to this perfect environment that God created in Genesis one? Remember, to understand Genesis and fully get the impact of Genesis we have to put ourselves in the place of a Jew on the plains of Moab in about 1405-1406 BC. You are the generation that is going to go into the land and conquer it. It was your parents who were the disobedient generation, who rebelled against Moses and constantly threw temper tantrums out in the desert as they got bored with the manna, with the food that God provided, and God disciplined that generation because they failed to trust Him when they had the opportunity. The new generation are asking the question: Who are we, and why should God give us this land? Genesis answers that question. Genesis is designed to give identity to the nation Israel in terms of their historical roots. It is only the first eleven chapters of Genesis that deal with civilization as a whole. It is from chapters 12 through 50 that deal with the beginnings of the nation Israel, with their foundation in Abraham and through his son, Isaac, and Jacob, and then down through Joseph and his brothers who made up the twelve tribes of Israel. So we have to put ourselves in that place: Why are we here and why is this God that you are telling us about so important?
Moses begins to answer that question in chapter one where he uniquely uses the word Elohim to refer to God, he doesn’t use the word Yahweh that is the name of God associated with His covenant with Israel. Genesis one sets the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob apart from all the other gods that are worshipped by the Canaanites, the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Samarians, all of these various civilizations. They worship the personification of the forces of nature—moon god, sun god, storm, wind and rain—but it is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who creates nature. Creation is all the result of the power of Israel’s God who is radically different from all of the other gods. Israel’s God created everything ex nihilo, out of nothing.
Now there is a shift that begins in 2:4. “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth…” Literally this should read, “This is the history of the heavens and the earth…” What Moses is saying is, Now I’m going to tell you what happened to the heavens and the earth which God created?” Now he is going to answer, Well if God created everything and it was all created perfect and everything was good, how in the world did we get in this mess? A major theme in Genesis is blessing and cursing, that God made everything perfect and He blessed His creation, and yet because of human volition and the wrong use of volition in Genesis chapter two the human race and all of creation became cursed.
Genesis 5:1, “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” This is the toledot in the day when God created man where we are going to get the history of what happened to Adam’s descendants, but in 2:4 we begin to get the history of what happened to, as it were, the descendants of this perfect heavens and the earth. So the section runs from Genesis 2:4 to 4:26 which we will now summarize.
The theme of cursing in them primary theme of Genesis 2-4 and it is the result of the volition that God gives man—the capacity and responsibility to serve Him. Man fails to use that volition by eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In chapter one we see that it is the Word of God that creates. All things come into existence by the Word of God: we read time and time again, “And God said.” So the Word of God brings things into existence in chapter one; in chapter two the Word commands and gives moral mandates to mankind. Then in chapters three and four it is the voice of God that curses man. Chapters 2-4 all fit together but chapters two and three form a stylistic whole; they fit together in a chiasm—a literary device that was used to order topics. It is the center of the discussion and everything else either builds to that point or leads from that point, but it is that center position that is the focal point of the narrative.
The first section in Genesis two is verses 4-17, the creation of man. In this section God blesses man and places him in perfect environment in the garden of Eden, and supplies his ever need. The next section, vv. 18-25, is the creation of the woman. God creates the woman to assist the man in his God-given responsibilities as the ruler under God over the planet. The third section introduces the serpent who tempts the woman in 3:1-5. Then we have the center in vv. 6-13 where the man and the woman sin. After the man and the woman sin there is punishment of the serpent, and God announces perpetual warfare between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed in 3:14, 15. Next is the punishment of the woman, she will be at enmity with the man. She was to be his help mate, his assistant; now that aspect of her function is cursed and there is a blight on that because of sin. Then there is the punishment of the man. Man and the environment are spoiled and at enmity with one another, vv. 17-24. So everything in chapter two, up to chapter three verse five, leads to this center topic, the sin of the man and the woman and God’s uncovering of it.
In chapter four the focus is on Cain’s murder of Abel. It starts off with Cain’s blessed beginning, the birth of Cain and Abel, vv. 1, 2. Their birth is viewed as a blessing by God, indicated by Eve’s statement: I have gotten a man child with the help of the Lord. As we go on we learn that Cain’s job was working the soil. He was a farmer whereas Abel became one who took care of the flocks. He is apparently living at home surrounded by Abel and his parents, Adam and Eve, and his other siblings. Then we have Cain’s resentment to God for rejecting his offering, vv. 3-5. God accepts Abel’s offering. In the third section of this division is God’s gracious response. In grace He warns Cain of judgment if he continues to let sin reign, vv.6-8. So we start to see this emphasis on God’s grace before judgment. Then we come to the sin. He murders his brother Abel and then God uncovers that sin. It is the same theme as we had in the first section of chapter three. So both the narrative of chapters two and three and the narrative of Cain and Abel hang on this center point of sin and God’s uncovering of the sin. But rather than having a chiastic structure in chapter four we have a parallelism. We have Cain being cursed in vv. 11, 12. He is cursed from the ground. Earlier we saw that he was a tiller of the ground. He is cursed from the ground and he is cursed from his relatives. So now there is a theme of cursing. In vv. 13, 14 Cain resents God’s justice. But God has a gracious response and He provides for Cain’s protection, vv.15, 16. There is an epilogue to the section, vv. 16-24, which gives us the genealogy of Cain’s descendants. This shows us the basic structure of these two sections. They are all part of this one toledot section. What happened to this perfect creation that God had?
We have the creation of man in vv. 4-17. In this section we are told how the first man is formed from the chemicals of the soil, how he lives in the garden of Eden, and how God creates the woman to be his helper. We are told of the sin that they both commit, but primarily it is Adam’s responsibility as the head of the race, and then the punishment that God is going to bring on both of them. The primary purpose of these chapters is to explain how it is that this perfect world has now become a world of pain, trouble, calamity, and cursing. In chapters 2 & 3 there are several key doctrines that are introduced. We have the doctrine of human responsibility and volition. It is not so much the emphasis on free will as it is the emphasis on responsibility and accountability; that if you disobey God and choose wrongly there will be consequences. We see that man is placed under the authority of God and is answerable to God, and this leads to another doctrine that is related to that, and that is the doctrine of labor. We will also see the sufficiency o0f God’s love. What we have in chapter two is an expression of God’s love. He provides everything for man and the woman. That is not a function of grace. Why is it not a function of grace? Grace is undeserved favor. Undeserved favor implies that the recipient of grace doesn’t deserve it because there is something wrong. But Adam and Isha created in the image and likeness of God have perfect righteousness. So God is not dealing with them in grace because they deserve this blessing—they possess perfect righteousness, so it is an expression of God’s love. The perfect righteousness of God is free to love the perfect righteousness that is in Adam and Isha. So we see the sufficiency of God’s love which always provides everything that we need. After the fall we see the sufficiency of God’s grace. Furthermore, we see the introduction of the universal law of reward and punishment: whatsoever a man sows, that will he also reap—otherwise known as the law of volitional responsibility. But here its emphasis is on reward and punishment, that when we disobey God there are consequences to negative volition. We also see the introduction of marriage, and that will fit under the overall category of the divine institutions. We see the doctrine of divine institutions. The first is human responsibility, and the authority in human responsibility is always God. The second divine institution is marriage, and the authority established in marriage is the husband. The third divine institution is family, foreshadowed by the command to be fruitful and multiply, but family itself doesn’t begin until chapter four, verse one. Incidentally, what do we see happen as a result of sin? As a result of sin volition is now cursed; responsibility becomes labor; the second divine institution of marriage is cursed, there is going to be antagonism in the authority structure between men and women, apart from the grace of God and sanctification. Then we see in chapter four the destruction of the curse coming on the family, because one brother murders his other brother and as a result he is cursed and separated from his family. So we see that sin affects all of the divine institutions. The last doctrine to be mentioned is the origin of evil and being able to answer the question: How can a good God allow evil to exist? What we see in these chapters is that if God doesn’t give freedom to man—and freedom to succeed includes freedom to fail—to truly fail and to disobey Him, which would introduce evil into the system, then they don’t have freedom. If man doesn’t have freedom then he can’t love God. Love is something that cannot be coerced, cannot be forced; love is something that must be given freely from the individual. And for God’s creation to freely love Him they must have free will and make that decision on their own. In order to give man the freedom to love Him, He also gives man the freedom to fail, and that brings with it the principle of evil. That one decision to eat the piece of fruit, a simple act of disobeying God, is what brought all of this calamity into the human race. Sin is of such a nature that the introduction of it dominoes throughout every area of life and creation. It destroys and corrupts everything. So the issue becomes clear, it is complete obedience to God. Anything less than complete obedience to God carries with it tremendous consequences.
2:4, “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”
v. 5, “And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.” It is obvious that there seem to be some discrepancies between this verse and the first chapter. In the first chapter it says that on the third day God created the vegetation (v.11). That is a picture of all the vegetation sprouting on the earth, and in 2:5 it looks as though we have a barren earth. Then we are told that the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. Obviously there is no contradiction, so maybe we have to understand what the author is getting at. Part of the answer lies in the understanding of the Hebrew here. The Hebrew word for shrub is the word shiach, and it is a category of vegetation. What we have back in Genesis 1:11 is “Let the earth sprout vegetation,” and that was the Hebrew word dese, a general, broad category for vegetation. “Plants yielding seed” is a different word, the word esev, a broad category, probably of any kind of shrub or plant. And then, “fruit trees bearing fruit throughout the earth.” In verse 5 what we have is shiach of the field, not dese or esev. It is a word that indicates a subcategory and it relates to what we find at the end of this section, and that is God’s pronouncement on the curse on man: “thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you shall eat of the plants of the field.” What the author is saying at the beginning of chapter two is that conditions were different, this was before there was a curse on the plants—no thorns and thistles—and it was before the plants of the field had sprouted. The plants of the field relates to grain—barley, wheat, corn. These things don’t grow wild, they have ti be harvested by man. Remember that was the curse, that man would have to till the soil. So there is an ominous note here because of the vocabulary in verse 5, that when it taljks about the fact that man had not cultivated the ground yet. Cultivation of the ground is part of the curse on the ground at the end of the section. Also, when it says that God had not sent rain upon the earth yet. Rain doesn’t come until the time of the Noahic flood, it is a sign of judgment. There is a completely different hydrosphere working on the planet prior to the flood. So these two terms foreshadow the curse that occurs at the end of this particular section.
There have been many people who have tried to point out differences between Genesis one and Genesis two and to try to establish the fact that there are two different narratives here. They come up with the fact that there are two different creation accounts. This has been disproven time and time again but one of the characteristics of liberal arrogance is that it doesn’t act as if there is a conservative position in existence because if you are conservative by definition you can’t think. So they never, never interact with conservative literature, they just ignore it. So what are some of these differences?
The first chapter, they would say, contains the entire story of creation from day one through day seven. And they would say the second chapter covers everything, they try to make it say that everything happens in one day. Notice verse four again: “This is the account of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” But that is not a use of the word “day” [yom] individually. When it is used with an ordinal number or with a definite article it always means a 24-hour day, but when it is used in certain contexts and certain phrases with a preposition—such as be, meaning “in”—it is an idiom for when: “in the day when God made the heaven and earth.” So it is a mistake to take the term day here in the same way as in the first chapter. Another difference, the liberals would say, is that in chapter one the earth began with water but here it begins with dry land. But chapter 2:4ff is not presenting an original account of the creation of everything like the first chapter is. Note there is no mention of the sun, moon, or stars, the creation cattle, no mention of the creation of most of the plants or the wild beasts and birds. There is nothing here that contradicts the idea that water preceded the land. It simply states that there was no shrub of the field yet on the earth and that the land is now in existence. So it is picking up at the end of the previous section and saying, Now remember is before the curse came on the earth, before there was rain and the tilling of the soil, and before there were thorns and thistles. Another difference that is often brought out is that in chapter one the two sexes are created simultaneously, it appears, vv. 26-28, but here they are created separately. But the first chapter merely summarizes the account and says yesterday such and such chapter, without breaking down all of the details. Chapter two then comes along and breaks down all of the events of that sixth day. Another difference is that liberals claim that living creatures were created before the man but here they are created after the man. That is not true, they are simply brought to the man for naming in chapter two. The main difference, though, is the new name for God. God is called Elohim in the first chapter and here He is called Yahweh Elohim, and it is the introduction of the term Yahweh that is so important. Because if you are a Jew sitting out there on the plains of Moab, when you see that sacred tetragrammaton, the sacred four letters YHWH (from which we got Johovah, which is not a real Hebrew word), Yahweh always speaks of the God who is in covenant relationship with Israel. He has entered into a contract with Israel and that means that there are curses for disobedience and blessing for obedience. So it always emphasizes the moral aspect of God and the moral requirements that God sets forth. If you are one of those Jews sitting out there in Moab you are reminded in chapter two that God gave Adam and Isha one commandment but He has given you ten commandments, because there is a radical difference in the environment now. So Yahweh is always going to bring to their mind the idea of a covenant God who has set down certain stipulations and requirements on man, and that obedience brings blessing and disobedience brings cursing.
The first section, vv. 4-7, give us this original environment and tells us a little about the hydrosphere of the early earth. In v. 6 we are told, “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.” There was no rain at that time. The cycle of water today is above ground; the cycle of water then was below ground.
V. 7 covers the doctrine of the origin of man. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
In vv. 8-9 we see the perfect environment of the garden. It is a garden where God has special trees that now grow, including two: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” The genitive construction here should be understood as ‘the tree which produces life and the tree which produces a knowledge of good and evil.’ These trees are unique to the garden.
In v. 10 we have a picture of the geography of the garden. There are four rivers mentioned. The first is the river Pishon, said to flow around the land of Havilah. We don’t know what this land was. Remember there was a massive world-wide flood that covers the earth for a year in Genesis 6-9. The geography of the planet is radically transformed. It was probably at that time that the continents split apart and began to drift apart. There were no mountains as we know them today, those were the result of the upheaval caused by the massive geological pressures at the time of the flood. The earth is probably relatively flat. The existence of high mountains would cause air to drop rapidly. There would be rapid cooling of air, and that would cause movement of air and wind. That would cause evaporation, and that is all part of the modern cycle of water but it was not part of the early cycle of water. What about the similarities in the names of the rivers? Later on we see the mention of the Tigris and Euphrates. That is because when the folks got off the ark they saw a river and named it with the name of the river they were familiar with. The name Pishon is given later on to a son of Cush in Genesis 10:7, and later a son of Joktan in 10:29. This land of Havilah was known for its gold, bdellium and onyx. These are precious metals, and there was a precious gum there, and this is something that had value. So it introduces the concept of intrinsic value which is important to understanding economics. There was a second river, the Gihon, which went around the land of Cush. Cush is later on in the Scriptures related to Ethiopia, but that is not what it meant in this context. The third river is the Hiddekel, also known as the Tigris, and that flowed around Assyria. Then the fourth is the river Euphrates.
What is interesting is in v. 10, “a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.” So we have a situation completely different from what we have today. One river is flowing out of Eden that branches into four separate rivers. In other words, what we have today is where rivers converge, but in the primordial world they diverged. That doesn’t happen anywhere on the planet today.
In verses 15-18, the conditions of responsibility placed upon the man. V. 15, “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep [guard] it.” He is not cultivating at this time, Adam was not a farmer before the fall. V. 16, introduces the doctrine of personal responsibility, volition, and the doctrine of death. V. 18, the creation of the woman. God creates the woman as the helper of the man. God helps the man realize his aloneness—God’s grace. “It is not good that the man should be alone.” The principle there is that man is crated to be a social being, for community; no man is an island. The same is true for the spiritual life, the Christian life. We are to function in the community of the local church and anything less than that is viewed as abnormal by the Scriptures.
V. 19, “And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field [not “every beast”], and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam.” This is a summary statement that God had done this. Now He brings them to the man to see what he would call them. So God gives to man the responsibility to identify them. In every one there is male and female, and what God shows him is his need for a counterpart, the need for a companion. Once he recognizes that need then God causes a deep sleep to fall upon him and He creates the woman from his side. This is just the reverse of evolution which says the female occurred first and then the male. Adam makes an announcement, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” We see the unity that they have, complete harmony and rapport. He names her Isha at the beginning, it is not Eve until after the fall. In the Hebrew Ish is the word for man and Isha is the word for woman: “she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Then in v. 24 is a comment by Moses: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” When Adam makes the statement in v. 23 he doesn’t know what a mother-in-law or a father-in-law are, so Adam is not speaking in v. 24, it is Moses’ writing under the inspiration of the Scripture making application to the Jews.
Chapter three gives us the next section, where the serpent tempts the woman. The serpent comes and enters into a dialogue with the woman. He is called the most subtle beast of the field and the craftiest of any beast of the field, and he comes to the woman and asks her a question: “Indeed, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” What the serpent is questioning is God’s love and God’s sufficiency. “Did God really give you enough. Can you really trust God to take care of you?” It is an extremely subtle appeal. The woman shows that she hasn’t been listening very clearly in vv. 2, 3: “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” The first trend of man is to always add something to what God says: “neither shall ye touch it.” The serpent responds by directly challenging God’s veracity and says she is not going to die.
Notice v. 6. “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” How anti-climactic that is! This is the big sin that plunges the entire world and the entire human race into sin, and it is just covered in a few short words, almost an understatement, to bring out the seriousness of what happened. It seems just a casual thing for them to take this fruit and eat it. That is how sin often appears to us, something casual and insignificant, and yet it has incredible consequences. Then God comes along to uncover the sin and there is a dialogue between God and the man. Notice He calls to the man, not to the woman, because the man is the one responsible and the head of the race, v. 9: “Where are you?” The man responds, “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” So we’ll have to look at the consequences of sin here and how fear and mental attitude sins and man’s exposure of fallibility before a holy God is all a part of his sin. That is why people want to suppress the truth of the Scripture, they don’t like to be exposed in all of their sin and inability by a righteous God.
In v. 11 the dialogue continues: “And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” God knows the answer to these questions but He is asking the questions to bring out what has happened. The man then blames the woman and the woman blames the serpent, and then God announces the curse. The curse is different from the penalty. The penalty was spiritual death; the curse indicates all the consequences of spiritual death. Then He first addresses the serpent and states that there will be enmity between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s, and this is the first our first hint of grace. In verse 15 we have what is called the first mention of the gospel, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed [Christ]; it shall bruise thy head [Satan would have a fatal head wound], and thou shalt bruise his heel [non-fatal wound].”
In v. 16 there is an outline of the consequences to the woman. Remember she was to be fruitful and multiply and now she is going to have pain in childbirth, and instead of being servant to her husband she is going to want to dominate him. The word “desire” means to dominate and control; “and he shall rule over thee” has the idea of a tyrannical rule. So now the war of the sexes begins.
Verses 17-19 outline the curse to Adam, that his responsibility to take care of the garden is now cursed, the ground is cursed. He is going to eat as a result of toil all the days of his life. Nature has changed, the plants have changed; they are now going to produce thorns and thistles. Eventually they will return to dust when they will die physically.
After that, there is a sense of hope. “And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.” Eve is going to be mother of the living. They have been talking about death and cursing but there is hope. And then further hope, God makes garments of skins for them. They have tried to cover up their nakedness with fig leaves, that doesn’t work, and so God is now going to provide a more permanent covering. This foreshadows the permanent covering for sin at the cross which comes through a sacrifice, and their covering comes through the sacrifice of animals.
In verse 22 God extends the penalty, He evicts the man and the woman from the garden and sets a guard against it so they cannot come back in.
Chapter four begins with the birth of Cain to Eve, the firstborn, and then a second-born, or it seems the second-born. Genesis 5:4 tells us that there were many other sons and daughters born to Adam. They grow up and each bring an offering. Cain is a farmer, so he brings that which he has worked hard on to produce. Abel is a shepherd, he doesn’t do anything to produce the animals but it is apparent that God has given specific guidelines for offerings. So Cain’s offering is not what God asked for, it doesn’t involve the first-born of the flock—we know this from later revelation that this is what God had revealed. Abel’s sacrifice is accepted; Cain’s is rejected. Cain becomes jealous, depressed, resentful and bitter. That tells us that all of these things were the result of man trying to do things by man’s efforts, and whenever we get our own will blocked, whenever we can’t get our own way, in arrogance the result is always going to be anger and bitterness and depression. So God confronts Cain, just as He confronted Adam and the woman, and He is going to expose his sin. “And the LORD said unto Cain, Why are you angry? and why is your countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.” The word “desire” is the desire to control, the same kind of desire that the woman has for the husband. Verses 8-10 is the centerpiece of the narrative of chapter four. Then God confronts Cain and discloses the sin in vv. 9, 10. “And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.” The curse is announced in v. 11, that Can is cursed from the soil, from the ground, and he is going to be driven out from his relatives. In v. 16 Cain went out from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod east of Eden. He had relations with his wife. People always want to know who Cain’s wife was. It was his sister. There wasn’t any other family, that was the only option. Marriage between those who are too close in blood relationship is not prohibited until the Mosaic law. This is because there was a very small population at the beginning and there is an incredible complexity in the gene pool. But once you get things spread out pretty much and the gene pool begins to be diluted then it becomes dangerous and harmful for people who are to closely related to procreate and have children.
Then we come to the end of the chapter which gives us the genealogy of what happened to Cain’s descendants. It is a story of sin and corruption and murder and arrogance. But it ends on a hopeful note in v. 25, “And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” So the emphasis is on grace, God’s continuing provision and supply, and it ends on the note: “ … then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.” That is a sign that there weren’t just those who were the rebellious unbelievers in Cain’s line but there were many believers in the line of Seth.
The question that is asked in chapters two through four is, why is there evil, why is there sin, why is there suffering? It is because of man’s volition. Man chose to disobey God. So the implication is that whenever we choose to disobey God there will be divine discipline, there will be cursing from God, because sin always carries with it not only specific punishment but also devastating consequences. All of the sin, war, famine and misery in human history is the consequence of man’s own decision. He can’t blame God. God gave him perfect environment, it was man’s decision to mess it all up. But the message of hope is that God in His grace provides a perfect solution so that man can have salvation, and that comes through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We can have salvation not as a result of our own works but by simply putting our faith alone in Christ alone, and there will be restoration at that point.
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018b-Creation of Man. Gen 2:4-7a
In chapters two and three we see that God blesses man in perfect environment but man disobeys God and brings upon himself cursing, and he brings that cursing on the environment. It is not just cursing on himself but it is cursing on all of creation. We see in this section that man who was formed from the dust of the ground was given everything by God and then he chooses, uses his volition in a wrong way, revolts against God, and brings evil into the world. These two chapters explain the existence of evil and why man endures pain and trouble and calamity.
V.4, “This is the account of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.” This is an introduction to this entire section, from 2:4-26. We have an obvious structure of synonymous parallelism in this introduction. It is structured to bring out a certain point. “This is the account of the heavens and the earth” (part 1), and then there is the phrase, “when they were created” (part 2), and that is mirrored by the line, In the day when the LORD God made.” Then it comes back out to earth and heaven. It is like a mirror image. The second half of the verse is reversed like a mirror image: it says, “the earth and the heavens.” And what the author is doing is driving our attention to earth. It is going to shift from talking about the heaven to earth. This just goes back to understanding this imagery that you have in a chiasm. There’s going to be “heavens and earth” and then a statement about when they were made, and that God created them. That is the center point of this verse, focusing on creation. Then there is a reverse to earth and heaven. If you take that same chiastic principle where you have heavens, earth, and then earth and heaven, whatever is in the center is what the author is driving your attention toward. So the author has moved from the creation as a whole in chapter one and all that God made to focusing our attention on just the earth.
In the first part of the verse it uses the Hebrew preposition bet [temporal bet] or “when,” “when they were created.” And it uses the word bara which is a word that technically denotes the creative activity of God. Only God is the one who creates. Then there is a line of synonymous parallelism that restates that idea in a slightly different way and slightly different vocabulary where the author says, “in the day”—actually a Hebrew idiom for “in the day when”—“when the LORD God made. In the first part he used a passive verb, the niphal stem which is the passive stem, of bara, and in this line he uses the active stem, the qal, of asah, which in this sentence parallel or synonymous to bara. But he brings in in the second line, with the active voice of the verb, the subject of creation, and that is the LORD God. So he is bringing in something new at this particular point and introduces a new name for God.
The exegetical details of the passage: It starts off “These.” This is a demonstrative pronoun and it indicates what follows—this is what we are getting ready to talk about. “These are the generations.” This word toledot is used thirteen times in the book of Genesis and it marks off, because some of those are repetitious within the account, ten major divisions in Genesis. So if we look at Genesis as a whole is it basically composed of ten books or ten parts. The word itself comes from the root yalad which means to give birth or to bear children, and here it means that which is produced or brought into being by someone. So literally we could translate this, “These are the descendants of the heavens and the earth.” Each of these toledot sections is going to focus on—here, the heavens and the earth; later on it will be Adam, Noah, Noah’s children, Terah the father of Abraham, and the Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Esau and Ishmael. This is what happened to their descendants is the essence of what it is saying.
The next thing we note is that there is a name shift for God. In the first chapter God is only known by His generic name, Elohim. It is like our word in English for God. “God” in English is just the generic term for deity, it does not distinguish any particular deity. So when you have the word Elohim in Hebrew it can have various meanings, in fact in some cases it even indicates people who are in authority, like judges, within the social structure of Israel. So Elohim itself is not a technical designation for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That comes with the introduction of this new name for God, Yahweh. This is the personal name for the God of the Bible. It is composed of four consonants, YHWH. It is pronounced in various ways. So many of the Jewish Hebrew scholars resided in Germanic speaking countries throughout the diaspora, throughout the Middle Ages; they lived in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, and a tremendous amount of the vocalization for Hebrew was influenced by that background. A W would be pronounced like a V [no W in the German language], and whenever you see a J in the German language it is pronounced like a Y in English. That is where we get this sort of shift where you have the development of the term Jehovah. The four letters in the sacred tetragrammaton [which means four letters], YHWH, because of the influence of German the Y was often transliterated as a J and the W was often transliterated as a V. That is how JHVH came up. The other thing about the tetragrammaton is that the Jews out of reverence developed a superstition about pronouncing the name of God. So whenever they read the Scriptures or were pronouncing the name of God they would read Adonai. As they wrote these words in the Hebrew Bible they would write out the YHWH, the consonants, but when they added the vowel points they added the vowel points of Adonai and put that underneath Yahweh to remind the reader not to read Yahweh but to read Adonai. As a result of that, because of the vowel pointing there, a word was developed which was Jehovah. But Jehovah is not a Hebrew word, it is a made-up word based on the consonants from one word and the vowels from another word. So when you get people like the Jehovah’s Witnesses come along and knock on your door and tell you that Jehovah is the only name for God, and there is only one God and it is Jehovah, they are worshipping a made-up name. The first time we have the appearance of Yahweh in the Old Testament is right here in verse four.
Another thing that is important in noticing this is that liberals, since the early 19th century have attempted to use the name shift to attribute different portions of Genesis to different authors. This is why it is called the JEDP theory.
The meaning, the understanding of the significance of Yahweh doesn’t come along until Exodus. God’s name is known by Abraham as Yahweh, but the real significance and meaning of the name is not revealed until Exodus. God appears to Moses in the burning bush and commissions Moses to go back and free the Jews from their slavery in Egypt. Moses says, “Who shall I tell the Jews has sent me?” God said to Moses in Exodus 3:14, “I AM WHO I AM. Thus shall you say to the sons of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.” The etymological root of this word Yahweh is the verb hayah, and it is the “to be” word, the word for is or was or to exist, and the idea behind the name is to emphasize the eternal self-existence of God: “I AM WHO I AM”. This idea, I AM THAT I AM, is further reiterated in Revelation 1:8 where it refers to the Lord who is the one who is and who was and is to come. The idea of these senses, past, present and future, being all there in that name was elucidated by an early medieval rabbi: “These three times past, present, and to come, are comprehended in this proper name as is known to all.” So he recognized that the very name of God, I AM WHO I AM, includes God’s eternal existence in the past, His omnipresence in the present, and His eternal existence in the future.
It also had specific significance for the Jews because it is Moses who comes to the Jews in Egypt and says Yahweh has sent me. So it is Yahweh who delivers the Jews from slavery in Egypt. It is Yahweh who brings the plagues, it is Yahweh who parts the Red Sea, it is Yahweh who sustains them in the wilderness, and it is Yahweh who speaks to them from Mount Sinai, gives them the Mosaic law, and enters into a covenant—the Sinaitic covenant. So when tyhey hear the name Yahweh the one thing that always reminds them of is that God has entered into a contract with them as a nation. So when the second generation of Jews on the plains of Moab hear Moses tell this story in Genesis two, that is it Yahweh Elohim who forms man, is the same Yahweh who entered into a contract with them, and the very mention of the term Yahweh picks up the moral demands of a covenant God. It is Yahweh who placed these moral demands of the law on Israel and it is the same Yahweh who places a moral demand on Adam in the garden. So this is all packing the picture of the narrative in Genesis two that God is going to establish a volitional test for the human race, and the core issue in morality is going to be obedience to God or not. This is transliterated in English with the word LORD [usually capitalized], always indicating that this is the transliteration of Yahweh. When the second, third, and fourth letters are lower case it is probably Adonai. If it is the word “God” it is a reference to Elohim.
V. 5, continues to describe the conditions on the planet at the time of the creation of man. “And every shrub of the field before it was in the earth, and every plant of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.” This is a verse that in the English not only sounds contradictory to chapter one but we are really missing the power of this verse as it comes across in the Hebrew, because there is an ominous tone to this verse. When you look at this verse you just think of the earth as a barren patch and nothing has popped out yet. But that is a contradiction to what has gone on in chapter one. First of all you have to assume that anyone who is a writer, if they have two or three brain cells that are connecting, would recognize that if he wrote it saying that this was a barren land it would be a contradiction to what he wrote just some twenty verses earlier. The typical liberal, especially liberal theologian, has such a high view of man and such a low view of God and because of evolution they think that man was much dumber than we are, so the writer really didn’t know that he was contradicting what he had just said a few verses earlier describing the third day of creation. Cf. 1:11, 12: “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.” The earth seems to be covered in grass and shrubs and trees at the end of the third day. But what is going on here? Genesis 2:5 is giving us details of the sixth day, so why does the earth seem to be barren? That is because we don’t understand the significance of the Hebrew words here.
The word that is translated “shrub” here is the word which means “weeds of the field.” The key phrase to be noted is “of the field.” This is talking about a particular kind of plant, whereas in 1:11, 12 it is talking about all of the grasses and herbs that cover the earth. Genesis 1:12 uses the word desche, not siach. Siach is a sub-category, so we are talking about a particular category of plant. The desche is comprised of two categories: shrubs, which is a different Hebrew from the siach of Genesis 2:5. So Genesis 2:5 is talking about a sub-category and this “of the field” brings in the idea that it is seen at the end of the section. Cf. 3:18 where the ground is now cursed, “Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field.” So the “of the field” is particularly related to agricultural products. The fact is, we get this misconception when we look at the garden. We think of it as a garden, and then there’s the translation later on in the verse where it says Adam is placed in the garden and it is translated “to tend and to keep it.” So we get this idea that Adam is created to be a gardener and that he is already working as a gardener. That is not what is going on in the text. The best analogy is that Eden is set up like a temple and Adam and Isha are placed in that temple as the priests who serve God. Their role is to serve God and to rule the creation. That is the function of their priesthood in this Edenic temple. These are words that are heavy with worship connotations.
When it says in v. 5, “before any plant of the field was in the earth,” this word siach has the idea of plants that grow in the desert or the steppe. Remember there is no desert in the perfect environment of Eden, so these plants weren’t in existence yet. That is what the author is saying. It is an ominous foreshadowing. He is telling his people that when God made the heavens and the earth there were all kinds of fruit trees providing all kinds of food for eating, Adam doesn’t go out and have to labor intensively in order to get food. He has responsibility and work that we will see but it is not laborious work and his sustenance is not dependent on him getting out and working the soil. There was no man tilling the soil until after the fall. So this is talking about the fact that this was before there was any curse in the land. In fact, what he is basically saying is, Remember, this was a time before the curse was on the earth or there was any judgment on mankind. Furthermore, when you look at the verse in the Hebrew it uses a word twice—the word kol, which means “all.” Literally it reads, “Before all the plants of the field were in the earth.” So he is not saying before any plants, but before all the plants. There were some categories of plants that weren’t in the earth yet—the thorns, the thistles, the cactus, etc. There is going to be a shift after the curse and there are going to be some new types of plants which spring forth from the original kinds that are less conducive to life. There is another play on words here, and that is the word “ground.” It is the Hebrew word adamah, and this is setting up a pun.
V. 6, “But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.” So here he uses the word adamah a second time. Then man is going to be formed from the dust of the ground in v. 7 – adamah, but the man is Adam. He is called Adam because that means “red”—he is colored like the ground, the earth. But v. 6 gives a hint for us of the hydrosphere of the earth at that time, that there was this mist that went up from the earth and there was no rain. There was a different kind of water cycle. Dr Henry Morris, founder of the Institute for Creation Research, has a Ph.D in hydraulic engineering. He understands the impact of water and hydraulic systems. He says, “The original hydrologic cycle was thus drastically different from that of the present day. The present cycle which began at the time of the great flood involves global and continental air mass movements into annual and seasonal temperature changes. It is summarized quite scientifically in such Scripture passages as Eccesiastes 1:6, 7; Isaiah 55:10, 11; Job 28:24-26; 36:26-29; Psalm 139:6 7 and many others. This present cycle centers around the solar evaporation of ocean waters transporting to the continents through the atmosphere of circulation, condensation and precipitation in the form of rain and snow. This, of course, is transported back to the oceans via rivers.” Obviously in the perfect environment there was not that kind of wind, there was a light breeze, and there was no major temperature variations, so it was a completely different water cycle. He goes on to say, “In the original world, however, there was no rainfall on the earth. As originally created the earth’s daily water supply came primarily from local evaporation and condensation. There was also, as noted later in the passage, a system of spring-fed rivers.” Then when he gets down to where he talks about the rivers in vv. 10-14, he says, “The change of temperature between daytime and nighttime apparently was adequate to energize daily evaporation from each local body of water, and its condensation is dew and fog in the surrounding area each night. This arrangement was implemented on the second and third days of the creation week prior to the formation of the plants on the latter part of the third day.” When he talks about the riveres, he says, “The source of this river [there was one river coming out of Eden, diverging into four] was said to be in Eden, though presumably somewhere outside the garden itself.” So that indicates that there is a location called Eden outside of the garden. “Since there was no rainfall the river would have to be supplied through a pressurized conduit from an underground reservoir of some kind emerging under pressure as a sort of artesian spring. The fluid pressure, however, could not have been simple hydrostatic pressure (not just gravity at work here) from a source area at a higher elevation, because this would also depend on rainfall… The pressure in the subterranean reservoir could have been established either when the waters were first entrapped below the land surface and compressed by the weight of overlying rocks—presumably on the third day of creation—or else by heating it from a deep-lying heat source. The latter is more likely since otherwise the pressure would gradually be dissipated as the waters escaped to the surface. If there was a continuing heat source, however, as well as a continuing supply of water to the subterranean pool then the artesian spring at the surface could be fed indefinitely.” All of this is suggesting that the information available to Moses is information that fits a scientific framework, as we understand things, but it is not anything that Moses would have had a frame of reference for. So how did Moses learn about this? It was either revealed to him by God or it was contained in these records that had been handed down from the time of Adam.
V. 7, the focal point of this section. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” First we see that God forms the human body from the dust or the chemicals of the soil. The emphasis here is that the one who creates man is the same covenant God who creates Israel. It is Yahweh Elohim. Isaiah 43:1, “But now thus saith the LORD [Yahweh] that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed [Yatsar] thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.” So Yahweh is a title that is uniquely related to the formation of Israel. Yatsar is a word that refers to the work of a potter. The imagery here is that of a potter who is bent over his clay, and he has a predetermined plan in mind as to exactly what he wants his product to look like. He is thoughtful, he is precise, he is deliberate, and there is a sense of artistry in what is going on here. That is the picture of God. This is not something that happens by chance. The omniscient creator God of the universe is bending over this and thinking: “I am going to send my Son who is going to reveal Himself to these creatures. Therefore this physical body that I am creating for Him has got to be a body that is going to be the best possible body that can be used to reveal who I am and what I am to creatures.” This will be the highest finite form of revelation of God possible. He is thinking not only of the fact that this is building the house in which He will incarnate the second person of the Trinity but, furthermore, once this creature is regenerated in the church age the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is going to take this body and make a temple out of it. Tremendous significance is placed on the value of the human body itself. Not only that, but as we study the development of the soul, the soul never exists without a body. So even though we emphasize the soul as the real you there is no time when the soul doesn’t have a body. It has to have a body through which to express itself. We know that there is an interim body through Luke chapter sixteen—the story of Lazarus and the rich man.
At this point in v.7 there is a body and no soul. It is potential human life, it is intended human life, the formation of biological life from the dust of the earth, the Hebrew word aphar, meaning dust, earth, ground, ashes. It is used of clay in a number of passages: Job 4:19; 10:9; Isaiah 29:16; 45:9. There is a contrast here with evolution. Genesis 3:19, “ . . . till thou return unto the ground [adamah]; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” If the dust of the gorund is metaphorical for the evolutionary process, then to be consistent you would have to go the 3:18 and say that returning to dust is a devolution and going down and reversing the evolutionary process. The literal meaning here is made even more clear in 2:21, 22 when the human female is derived from the one original body. And this is clear from the New Testament. Cf. 1 Corinthians 11:6-9. The point is, if you start messing with Genesis 2 you undercut key doctrines in the New Testament and you undercut marriage and the whole foundation of marriage. We see how this has worked out ideologically in our western civilization. The more we have rejected the literal teaching of Genesis two the more the roles of men and women have been affected, so that now women have the idea that they are to be equal with men in all aspects. That is not what the Bible says. They are equal in essence as human beings, equal sharers in the image of God, but they have a different role. They have a different soul, they have a different purpose and function. But when you go in arguing for a certain issues that have become so natural to our 21st century culture, what you don’t realize is that those are arguments based on a rejection of the literal meaning of Genesis two. This whole social shift has taken place because in the 19th century the intellectuals in western civilization rejected what the Bible said about who man was, who woman is, and who the human race is.
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019b-The Origin and Transmission of Human Life. Gen 2:7
Genesis 2:7 is a key verse for understanding the creation of man and the foundation for understanding many things about the nature of man, the origin of the soul and the transmission of human life. This gets into some very important, very technical questions, laying the foundation for many ethical situations which face people today. We always have to remember that the Word of God is the final authority in any area that we study, so we have to be sure to understand what the Scriptures teach, exegete the Word clearly, and then use the Word to evaluate other areas.
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Here we see that God forms the human body from the chemicals of the soil. It is very important to distinguish the fact that there are two acts of creation in this verse. There is the first act by God [Yahweh Elohim] where the emphasis is on God as the God of Israel. In Genesis chapter one we find only the term Elohim, but in Genesis chapter two we are introduced to Yahweh for the first time, and this always would bring to mind to the Jews the fact that this is a reference to the covenant God of Israel who is an ethical God, who is the God who gave not only the ten commandments at Sinai but He is the God who gives the singular commandment in the garden of Eden.
“ … the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground…” This is clear from Scripture. Again and again this same principle is reiterated. For example, in Isaiah 43:1, “But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed [yatsar] thee, O Israel.” Yatsar is a word that portrays God as a potter. It has to do with forming or shaping a physical object, something that is already created. “ … Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.” So the Jews would identify the creation of Genesis 2:7 with the God who created them as a unique nation. This verb yatsar is an important verb because, as noted, it portrays God as a potter with clay. It indicates several things about His creative activity. He is precise, deliberate, has a predetermined plan as to what the physical body of man should look like. In fact, God is thinking about the fact that, to anthropomorphize, as He is working the clay, that this is the body my Son will incarnate Himself in. This is also the body the Holy Spirit will indwell and make a temple for the indwelling presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. So He is going to be designing the human body in such a way that it will allow the second person of the Trinity, who is infinite and eternal, to become finite and localized in one body and to express all the nature of deity in this finite body. So that the physical body itself is best designed to be that instrument through which the immaterial image of God is expressed.
Too often we so emphasize the soul that we tend to de-emphasize the body, and that goes back to the old Platonic heritage that we have that the immaterial is more important than the material. What this is showing us is that we can’t make that bifurcation or stress it too much, because if you do that you end up saying the body is insignificant and irrelevant. The Gnostics and the Docetists pushed that so far that they said that anything material was inherently evil and that which was spiritual or immaterial was inherently good, and so that led them to denying the physical incarnation of Christ in a body because that would mean God would be tainted by that which is inherently sinful. So we have to maintain each in its proper perspective, and that the physical body is important.
In this first phrase, “the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground,” the dust of the ground indicates the basic chemicals of the soil, that man is made from this soil, and this is used in many passages in the Old Testament described as clay. This concept of clay or earthenware vessels is also carried over into the New Testament. Some of these passages are Job 4:19, “How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust.” Job 10:9, “Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?” Isaiah 45:9, “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?” This is in complete contrast to what evolution teaches. If someone does introduces God at some point it is the idea that God uses evolution, and the accommodationists try to develop some sort of metaphor for meaning here that from the dust of the ground is really just a figure of speech for saying that man started off in the primordial ooze and then gradually developed his way up until there was a full human being. But that has several problems. First of all, dust is used again in this immediate context at the end of chapter three, verse 19, where we are told that Adam was dust and to dust he would return. So whatever the process of coming up from the dust is, it is the same process in reverse. The implication within the text, if we are going to be consistent, is that the text means that God uses the physical components of the soil to mould and shape the human body. The literal meaning is made even more clear when we get down into the later section when we have the creation of the woman, and there she is taken literally from the side of the man. This is not something that is just thrown in there, because what that does technically in a theological sense is show that the human race is organically connected to the one original human created. God creates the man; He doesn’t create the male and the female separately. He creates the male and from the man He creates the woman, so that every person in the human race is organically connected to Adam. This is why Jesus Christ can then come and die as a substitute for the entire race—because He is organically related in His humanity to every other member of the human race. If you have two distinct origins for the male and the female then you would not have that kind of organic unity in the human race. This is one reason that there is no salvation, no savior, for the angels, because each angel was an individual creation. You don’t have father and mother angels producing baby angels.
“ … and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life …” This is a very important word that is used throughout the Old Testament to describe the nature and characteristic of life. Today we come up with all kinds of definitions. How do we know someone is alive? When someone goes into a coma, when someone has debilitating disease and they reach that final stage, how do we measure when life is no longer there? The description that is used in the Bible for life and the presence of life is the word neshemah which is translated “the breath of life” or “the spark of life.” First, what God does is create the biological home, the physical, material home for the soul, the immaterial part of man. When God forms man from the dust of the ground He is building that earthly tent, that earthenware home, for the immaterial part of man. The question to be asked: Between the time that God forms the physical body and the time that God breathes into the body, which is when He would impart the soul, the immaterial part of man to that human body, if someone was to walk up in between that process and decapitate the body, is that murder? What we have at this point is the formation of the body which is biological life, and then God breathes into the body soul life, and it isn’t until the two are united that you have full human life. Some questions we are going to have to answer: a) Does God continue the same pattern? b) When and how does God impart the soul? c) How has this been understood by theologians throughout the ages? d) How can we know when the immaterial soul is really present? That is the root question. e) What is the importance of the fetus in developing physical life in the womb? The Bible never minimizes the importance of the body.
So God breathes the breath of life into the biological life, the clay, and then man becomes a living being. Biological life plus soul life then equals full human life. What we see here in terms of an observation is that breathing seems to be a biblical definition of the presence of life. Genesis 7:22, “All in whose nostrils was the breath of life [neshamah], of all that was in the dry land, died.” Deuteronomy 20:16, “But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth [neshamah].” Joshua 10:40, “So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed [neshamah], as the LORD God of Israel commanded.” These are just some representative passages of the definition of life. One who breathes is alive and one who doesn’t breath is dead.
The second thing that we see is that breath or neshamah is the basis for life; it is God breathing a spark of His own life into the biological life of man. Isaiah 2:22, “Cease ye from man, whose breath [neshamah] is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be esteemed?” Once again, man is defined in terms of neshamah. Isaiah 42:5, “Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath [neshamah] unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein.” Notice that breath and spirit, in the last part of this verse, is called synonymous parallelism. Breath and spirit are synonymous. The Hebrew word for spirit is ruach, which often stands for the immaterial part of man. It is a generic term, it doesn’t refer to the human spirit in most places. In some places it refers to the Holy Spirit, as it does in Genesis 1:2. It is a word that refers to wind or breath and in many cases it has a generic use for the immaterial part of man. Here we have a statement that it is the LORD God who gives, and this is a qal stem verb, which means that God actively gives—it indicates that He is directly responsible for giving breath to the people, and that is life. Isaiah 57:16, “For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit [ruach] should fail before me, and the souls [breath: neshamah] which I have made.”
From these passages we make certain crucial observations.
1) It is clear that God created the biological life from the chemicals of the soil.
2) He is the one who imparted soul life to biological life.
3) Full human life is not present until biological life and soul life are united.
4) Conclusion: The sign of full human life is the presence of breath, neshamah.
What we see is that at the original creation God immediately and directly created both the human body and the human soul. It is immediate and God directly creates both biological life and soul life. But after that He gives a command to Adam and Isha that they are to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So God delegates the responsibility for generating biological life through the natural process of procreation. However, as we have seen in Isaiah 42:5, God is directly providing soul life through neshamah. The question is, how do we know this? How do we know that God is still directly giving physical life? One line of argument is that biological life is material and therefore it is dependent on a physical or material process of generation. That only makes sense. But the soul or spiritual life is immaterial and cannot be transmitted physically. Therefore soul life or spirit life is dependent upon God, both for its creation and for transmission.
Ecclesiastes 12:7, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit [ruach] shall return unto God who gave it.” The dust returns to the earth. The physical body is generated physically through procreation and the spirit is produced immaterially because it is given by God, and so it returns to God who gave it. God is the one who gives to each individual soul life. Question: Does God continue this same pattern of life. By this is meant, does God have one process for generating the material part of man and another process for generating and transmitting the immaterial part of man. To understand this we have to understand that there has been a division in church history. There are two views. The first is called Traducianism. This is from the Latin traducerio which means to transfer. This view teaches that both the material body and the immaterial soul are transmitted through physical procreation. This view was first articulated in the early church by Tertullian. Tertullian is famous for one other thing, and that is, that he is the one who coined the term trinitos from which we get our word Trinity. He was a very profound thinker but, like many of the early church fathers, he had some gaping holes in his theology. One of the gaping holes was that he was a Montanist, those who were followers of a man named Montanus who claimed that he was the incarnation of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Montanists were the early church form of modern charismatics. They weren’t necessarily speaking in tongues but they were certainly emotional and ecstatic and they had some problems. But Tertullian had another problem and this is more germane to understanding his position of Traducianism. That is, Tertullian held the position that the soul was material. He holds to a material transmission of the soul, but the reason he can do that is because the soul itself is physical and material. He doesn’t believe in an immaterial soul. So the foundation of Traducianism goes back to a man who did not believe the soul was immaterial but was material. There have been many others down through church history who have held to this position. Martin Luther, W.G. T. Schedde. Schedde has an interesting comment in his Dogmatic Theology that was published in the middle 19th century, and that is that he recognizes that up to his point the position that he holds, Traducianism, is the minority position in church history. L. S. Chafer very carefully goes through the arguments for both Traducianism and creationism in his Systematic Theology and he comes to the conclusion that the evidence can go either way, but he falls out slightly on the side of Traducianism. He really had a difficult time of coming to a conclusion and he lacked any real certainty or dogmatism on the point.
The second view is creationism. This is the position that the body is generated through physical generation but the soul is directly created by God in each individual. Historically, this position has always been that the soul is simultaneously created and imparted by God at the first breath. Advocates of creationism: Among Roman Catholics, Jerome who was the translator of the Vulgate [Common] held to this position. It was the position that was dominant before Tertullian developed Traducianism. Furthermore, Thomas Aquinas also held to creationism at birth. He has a statement in which he says it is heresy to think that a soul can be transmitted through the semen. John Calvin rejected Traducianism, as did Charles Hodge. So there have been many different theologians on different sides of this issue.
When does God impart the soul? Some believe that God creates the soul and imparts it at conception. Another group says that it is not at conception because, they say, you could have an ovum fertilized by the sperm and there is development until the cell splits, in the case of identical twins; but does the soul split? So this second view is that it is sometime during gestation. Then at the other end there are those who believe that the soul is simultaneously created and imparted at birth.
Birth. The word “birth” can function as a noun or a verb. The noun for birth does not exist in Hebrew. What you find in the Hebrew is a circumlocution or an idiom to express the concept of birth, and that is the word mibeten. Birth as a noun is usually used with a preposition. There is no noun for birth in Hebrew, thus when you have to express the prepositional phrase “from birth,” you use the phrase mibeten. The mi is a shortened form of a Hebrew preposition, min, which means from. Beten is the noun for womb. Mibeten means “from the womb.” Sometimes there is the phrase bebeten, and the be is the Hebrew preposition “in”—“in the womb.” There is a crucial difference between in the womb and from the womb, and this is based on the meaning on the meaning of the preposition min which has the idea—especially when it is used for words of action, or coming or going—of what takes place outside of the womb. If you are talking about what is going in the womb then you have the preposition be. If you are going to talk about something that has happened since birth you use the phrase mibeten. Some verses which use this phraseology: Job 1:21, “And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” He is talking about death: I come with nothing; I go with nothing. He is talking about coming from the mother’s womb, outside the womb, but notice the parameters for life here are from the womb and to death. Job 3:11, “Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?” He is saying, Why didn’t I come forth and then die, because the soul is not present in the womb. If the soul had been present in the womb he would ask why he didn’t just die in the womb, but there wasn’t an “I” to die in the womb, there was just physical life; he recognizes he had to be born before he was fully there. Psalm 22:9, “But thou art he that took me out of [from] the womb.” The prepositions EK [e)k] in the Greek and MIN in the Hebrew indicate separation. Psalm 58:3; Isaiah 44:2. The point is that every time you have a starting point in the Scriptures the writers have to use this term in the Hebrew, mibeten. The other word that is used for birth as a verb is yalad. It is used 388 times in the Old Testament and it is used of giving birth. Genesis 4:1, “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare [yalad] Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.” Yalad indicates the end of the process. The word “conceived” must be looked at the same way. For conception there is a verb. To conceive is the verb harah and it is used 52 times in the Old Testament. In the vast majority of those there is the same construction as in Genesis 4:1. This is a standard phrase but it doesn’t tell us anything about whether conception brings soul life, it is just talking about physical life when the ovum is fertilized and conception takes place. There is also a noun for conception and you have a verb to conceive. So you have a verb to conceive and a perfectly good noun that is used numerous times in the Old Testament for conception. Why is the noun important? Because if you are going to set up parameters for life and you are going to say life is from conception to death, you have a perfectly sound and used Hebrew word for conception but it is never used in that kind of a context. It is only used in the context of “she conceived and gave birth.” But as we are going to see, when the Bible talks about the parameters of life it is always from the womb (from birth) to death. They have a legitimate word for conception. If life begins at conception, why don’t the inspired writers of Scripture ever use that terminology. They never, ever do. Job 38:21, “Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great?” No verse anywhere gives the parameters of life as conception to death.
In the New Testament we have as a parallel to this we have the phrase, EK KOILIA [e)k koilia]—KOILIA is the word for womb—“out from the womb.” There is also the phrase EK GASTROS [e)k gastroj], and also the use of the phrase EN GASTROS [e)n gastroj]. EN GASTROS is talking about the biological life that is in the womb. This phrase is only used one time but it is clear that is is talking about what is taking place inside the womb in the development of biological life.
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020b-When Does Human Life Begin? Gen 2:7
The subject that we are discussing on the origin of human life has to do with two aspects: the origin of human life, as described in Genesis 2 with the creation of man in v. 7 and the creation of the woman in vv. 18-22; but it also has to do with the transmission of life and when life begins. It is amazing how few people have any real objectivity when it comes to something of this nature. We have to look at what the Word of God says. We should never be afraid to accurately analyze what the Scripture says. We will look at what are deemed problem passages by some. Whenever we talk to somebody about these things they will usually bring up two or three passages, and there are one or two that are problems for either position. No matter how we want to take it, they present problems the way they are normally used. Sometimes things just aren’t what they seem to say on the surface and yet everybody wants to jump to an immediate conclusion that abortion is murder or abortion is wrong, or not wrong, or whatever. Very few people want to sit down and consider what the Word of God says. Some people are just uncomfortable with the truth.
In John chapter three Jesus is having His discussion with Nicodemus. “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” That was a confusing statement to Nicodemus because in Judaism there were six different ways in which a person could be born again. Nicodemus had passed through all of these stages, so he just wonders, “How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?” He recognizes what is implicit in this conversation, that they were not talking about conception as the beginning of the spiritual life, but birth as the beginning. It is not until one is actually born again that there is the presence of eternal life. So what is implicit in this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus is that birth is the starting point of the new life. In other words, there is a distinction between what is going on inside the womb and birth. In v. 5, “Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water [physical birth] and of the Spirit [Holy Spirit], he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Born of water also has to do with the picture of cleansing as seen in the new covenant, Jeremiah 31:33. So the emphasis is that birth is what begins the new spiritual life.
What happens, then, in pregnancy? First of all there is an ovum that is fertilized, and at that point is becomes a zygote. The zygote is later going to split and that will develop into two cells, then there are four cells, then eight, and sixteen cells; and that beginning zygote does not have all of the genetic information that is necessary to produce human life in the long term. It will pick up and absorb information. But this is going to divide a couple of different ways. After it reaches a certain stage it is going to become a cell mass, and at that point some of these cells are going to develop some specialization. Part of it will break off and form the placenta. Other cells are going to break off and form into various fetal membranes. The point is, without getting too technical, is that this is cellular life, biological life, and the fetal membranes are cellular/biological life. But nobody would say that that is human life. There is no soul there. There are other problems with a soul creation at conception because if this mass splits at this point—so that you have triplets or quadruplets—was there one soul there before? What do you have now? Biological life does not necessarily imply the presence of a soul. There are physical traits there, a DNA, information that is then going to produce a biological life, a physical body that is going to have various physical traits, talents, limitations, and trends of the sin nature. That is part of the sin nature that is passed on genetically from father to children.
One of the problems you get into when talking about this is, if the soul is created at the time of birth, how then does that interact with the various traits and talents and limitations? The brain and the body is the home of the soul. So you have a physical home, and that physical home is going to have certain limitations, both in terms of the physical body and in terms of the physical brain. The brain is a machine that is run by a ghost, and that ghost, that immaterial thing that sits in the driver’s seat of the brain is the soul. But the soul is limited by what that physical structure can do. How does this affect volition? Volition isn’t affected at all because the soul can still use the physical body to sin. When someone has a stroke, the development of something like Alzheimer’s, or other forms of dementia, how does that affect the expression of the soul? There are many questions there that we can’t answer because we don’t know what is really going on inside that person. Perhaps the best explanation is that the physical genes, the genetic make-up, etc., limits how the soul can express itself, but the expression of the soul is still determined by volition and the ultimate issue in volition is going to be salvation. This also helps to understand how the soul that is created and simultaneously imparted by God to the human body is corrupted by sin, God is perfect and can’t create anything less than perfection. So when we were born, at that instant that we started to take that first breath of life, God had instantly created a soul and imparted it, and that is perfect. But as soon as that soul joined with a physical body that is corrupt because of Adam’s sin, the result is that the soul becomes corrupt. We have a physical body that inherits from Adam a sin nature, physically and genetically passed on from father to child. At the instant that soul life is imparted to the physical body, at the same time the justice of God imputes Adam’s original sin to the genetic sin nature, so that the person is born spiritually dead but physically alive. God is not the author of sin because in His justice He is imputing that which has affinity to the sin nature, which is Adam’s original sin, and just as the soul is created in the image of God as Adam’s was, so the sin nature comes to the genetic home of the biologically transmitted sin nature and the person becomes a fallen creature.
So this leads to the next question, which is, What then is the value of the physical body in the womb? For that we need to look at Psalm 139:13, 14, “For thou hast formed my inward parts: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb [bebeten]. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.” Psalm 139 focuses on the development inside the womb of physical life. The verb that is used in Psalm 139:13 and Jeremiah 1:5 is the verb yatsar, which has to do with the formation of the physical body. “Inward parts” is a term used in the Hebrew to describe the physical organs inside the body. “You covered me inside my mother’s womb.” What this shows is that God is involved in the formation of biological life. This is done indirectly through the procreative processes that God set up in Adam and Isha at creation. But even though God uses indirect means to do something we still speak of the fact that God is the ultimate cause. When the Psalmist is talking about his own development inside the womb he is not just talking about himself. He is talking about himself as a human being, that God has designed each of us to have the physical home that would best represent His image and likeness. Because God is involved physical and biological life is important, but it is still only physical life, the soul isn’t there yet.
Jeremiah 1:5 is a passage that is often used to support the fact that there is full life in the womb, but that is not what the passage says. The Lord is talking to Jeremiah and says, :Before I formed you in the womb …” So what we have here is a temporal preposition of time indicating action prior to the event of the main verb. So this is going back before conception, actually hundreds of years into the plan of God. The verb is yatsar, and yatsar has to do with the physical formation of the body inside the womb—bebeten, not outside of the womb. Yatsar indicates once again that this is talking about physical formation. So God is saying, “Before I formed you, I knew you…” This is the qal perfect of yadah, a term for the omniscience of God. Omniscience refers to the fact that God knows all the knowable. He knows everything that will happen and everything that could happen. He knows every potentiality that could ever happen. In foreknowledge God knows what will take place, what will actually transpire in human history. God also on the basis of His foreknowledge sets forth a plan. He has a plan and He has purposes, and within those purposes and plan He has assigned certain goals to certain people, called their destiny. And because He determines that destiny for that individual before time began it is called pre-destiny or predestination. It doesn’t mean that God makes their decisions for them, it is not a form of fatalism; what it means is that before time begins there is going to be a man here named Jeremiah and God is going to make him a prophet, and he is going to have a unique ministry to Israel. It is not talking about Jeremiah as a full person inside the womb. Once again He is talking about the fact that “Before you were even in the womb, before I was even forming your physical life, I set you apart and ordained you a prophet to the nations.” In God’s foreknowledge He knew Jeremiah would be a believer and He decided to bestow upon him the office of prophet. All of this is to say that there is no mention of what is going on inside the womb.
Problem passages: Luke 1:15, talking about John the Baptist. “For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb.” String drink here is beer. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit—this is still the Old Testament dispensation and it is still talking about the special enduement of the Holy Spirit that was limited in the Old Testament. Very few people had this special enduement in the Old Testament. None of those who were filled with the Holy Spirit were unbelievers. What people try to do is say that this shows that in the womb John the Baptist is filled with the Spirit. The phraseology in the Greek is EK KOILIAS [e)k koiliaj], which is the translation for mibeten—outside the womb. If John the Baptist is filled with the Spirit in the womb then he is the only person in history who is filled with the Spirit before he is saved. This is a major theological problem. John the Baptist cannot get the Holy Spirit, even as an infant, until he is old enough to understand the gospel. We cannot understand how John the Baptist can be filled with the Spirit prior to an expression of faith alone in Christ alone. That would violate everything else in Scripture. So that is a problem. He is filled with the Spirit from the womb or outside the womb at some point after he becomes saved.
The next passage that is a problem is in Luke 1:41, “And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” Why did the baby leap in her womb? In verse 41 it doesn’t mention the baby leaping for joy, that is mentioned in v. 44. But notice that in verse 44 this is a quote from Elizabeth. There are one or two ways to handle this. One has to do with the grammar. In v. 44 when she says, “the babe leaped in my womb for joy,” this is an EN [e)n] plus the dative of AGALLIAO [a)galliaw], a word for extreme joy or excitement. Interestingly enough, it is used in the Psalms to express the joy of salvation, and this would be related to the coming of the Messiah who would provide salvation. But this particular construction, the preposition EN plus the dative, expresses something that marks the circumstances in which the baby in the womb leaped. So this is not saying that the baby had joy but that the mother had joy. Another way that could possibly be used to handle this is that perhaps this is simply Elizabeth’s interpretation of what was taking place because this is her sentence, it is not necessarily a comment by the Holy Spirit but an accurate recording of what she said at the time imputing some sort of emotion to the baby. However, the best solution to the problem in the passage is that it was the circumstances in which the baby in the womb leapt. Why is it that the baby leaped? How can this take place inside the womb under the influence of the mother’s emotion.
There is one more in Exodus 21:22, “If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.” The word “prematurely” is not in the original. Some versions will read that she has a miscarriage. Miscarriage is not in the original Hebrew. What is in the original Hebrew is, “strike a woman who is pregnant [she has conceived] so that the child goes forth,” and the Hebrew word there is yatsah, “and the child comes out,” literally. And it says, “no harm follows.” In other words, the child is born and there is no further harm. The person who struck the woman shall be punished. Then in vv.23-25 it states, “And if there is any injury, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” The point is that if the child is born and then dies, then the law of retribution is imposed—or if there is some injury.
Some attitudes toward abortion. The view of creation, that the soul is created at the point of birth, is an ancient view. It goes back to the early church and goes further back in Jewish interpretation. Jews never thought of abortion, especially in the Old Testament. Why? The child might be the Messiah. The early church did not view abortion as an solution. For one thing it often meant the death of the mother, and for this reason abortion was outlawed in the Roman empire. They were protecting the life of the mother.
What should the believer’s attitude toward abortion be? First of all, there is just biological life there and no soul. It cannot be murder. It may at times be a sin or immoral, but there are many things in life that we do that are sins and immoral that are not illegal and not a matter for law. No nation has ever given full rights to fetal life. Furthermore, if you cannot know when soul life is present except through revelation, then it cannot be a matter of general law. God never holds the unbeliever accountable for what the unbeliever can’t know. If the only way you can determine when that soul life is present is through revelation, then the unbeliever can’t know. All he can know is when there are signs of life but he cannot tell when the soul is actually present or not. An example is found in the Old Testament where God pronounced judgment on the nations. He never pronounced judgment of them for violation of the Mosaic law. The Mosaic law was for Israel only. Abortion, like slavery, was practiced in the Roman empire, and yet the Scriptures don’t ever mention it. Why is that so? The silence says a lot.
As believers we need to recognize that when a pregnancy occurs God may be involved, and that God is involved in the process of biological life. So there may be legitimate reasons for an abortion at times—it is between the believer and the Lord—but abortion should not be used as a birth-control method of the masses, which is what is happening today. If you are going to stop something that God has started then you need to have a responsible reason for it.
What about someone who has had an abortion. Well it is not murder. It may have been a sin, but it is not a sin that is worse than any other sin or better than any other sin. All sins are handled by confession of sin, 1 John 1:9.
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021b-The Uniqueness of Man. Gen 2:7
Luke 1:44, “For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.” When we look at that verse in the English it looks as if the baby is leaping is caused by joy. This is the preposition “for” which in English is a multi-functional preposition. It can be used in a number of different contexts. But what we have here is interesting phraseology in the Greek. It is not the normal word that one would expect for joy, which is the word CHARA [xara], it is the preposition EN [e)n] plus AGALLIAO, [a)galliaw] another word for exuberance or exultation. This is a word that is used for exaltation in the Psalms to translate the word “joy” when the context is salvation. So that relates to the fact that the Messiah is coming and there is joy because of His coming. But this phrase “in” does not have the idea of cause. Cf. Ephesians 2:8, which is not “because of faith” which would be the preposition DIA [dia] plus the accusative, it is the phrase DIA plus the genitive. When you have DIA plus the accusative, that expresses cause. DIA plus the genitive indicates intermediate means, “through faith” is Ephesians 2:8. So here we don’t have DIA plus the accusative which expresses causation. What we have is EN plus the dative which usually indicates some kind of means or instrumentality. But even that is an unusual idea in this kind of context, and according to the latest edition of the Greek lexicon Arndt and Gingrich this usage is the mark of circumstance or the condition under which something takes place. So this is the condition under which the leaping takes place. So the joy, then, is not necessarily that of the fetus. The English translation makes it look like the baby is having joy, but that is a particularly troubling concept on a number of fronts.
Genesis 2:7, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” The next issue that we need to address, developing from this verse, is the answer to the question: What is man? “And the LORD God” – emphasis on the LORD as Yahweh, the creator of Israel and the one who is in a covenant relationship with Israel; therefore bringing into play at this stage a moral quality to God. What is being referred to when using the idea of morality is that God is a holy God. That word “holy” is over used and doesn’t have a lot of significance and meaning in our every-day language. It is a word that has to do with the fact that God is set apart. He is unique in His righteousness and His justice. So we refer to that as part of His integrity. God is holy. He is righteous and just, which means righteousness is the absolute standard of His character, it is absolute perfection, and justice is the application of that standard to His creatures. What we are saying here is that the Hebrew tetragrammaton, YHWH, is directly related in the minds of the Jew to the Mosaic covenant that God has given to Israel. That covenant is preceded by a preamble that is called the Decalogue or the ten commandments. God has one commandment He is about to give Adam in Genesis 2, but in Exodus He has ten commandments that precede the giving of the Mosaic law. When the Jews thought of Yahweh they thought of His covenant which imposed the righteous standards of God on people. So whenever we see the use of the term Yahweh in the Scripture part of the the baggage that that word is carrying is this quality of righteousness. It brings in the fact that there is a moral mandate placed inherently upon man as the image of God.
“ … and man became a living soul/being.” The word for soul in the Hebrew is nephesh. In the Septuagint the Hebrew word nephesh was translated PSUCHE [yuxh], which we usually transliterate “psyche.” These are important words which we tend to translate into English with the English word “soul.”
We are answering the question from this verse, What is man? The Psalmist asked, What is man that thou art mindful of him? … you have made him a little lower than the angels,” but he will be elevated eventually above the angels. Why is it important to begin here with understanding man? We can’t start with human observations because our observations are always going to be limited and affected by the fact that we are sinners with an orientation to rebellion against God and rejection of God’s absolutes. That does not mean that empiricism and rationalism do not have their place, do not have their value and some significance, but they must operate within the framework of revelation. What happens as a result of the fall is that fallen man rejects, blocks out, special revelation of Scripture so that he is left with empiricism, rationalism and mysticism operating independently. Illustration from Genesis 2: When God places Adam in the garden, let’s say God didn’t give him any revelation. All Adam has is his unfallen, unaffected five senses and his reasoning—better than anything we have. Under this idea Adam can go out and investigate all the trees, all the animals, and come up with many different conclusions based on his observations of the data. Yet there is one conclusion that he could not come up with by observing the data. He couldn’t learn that by eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would die. He could only learn that from revelation. So observation is good to a point but it is limited. There are certain things we can only know because they are revealed to us by God. So reason and empiricism operate within the boundaries established by revelation. We have to start with a biblical anthropology, a biblical understanding of man and his nature. What we see is that this affects many areas of study. It affects biology. If we study biology without taking into account the fact that man was created from the dust of the soil as God says, then we are going to have a skewed view of biology at some level. It affects anthropology, which is a branch of sociology in the study of man and the development of humanity. It affects sociology and psychology.
Then we get into another part of this subject in this chapter as look at man’s relationship to nature, because he is set over nature and there is quite a difference between the human viewpoint concept of man and the divine viewpoint concept of man. In human viewpoint paganism, which goes all the way back to the ancient world, is the idea that there is a continuity of being. This is the idea that there is no major distinction between anything in nature and man and God. As we go up the chain of being from nature, to man, to god, there is only a difference of complexity and a difference in degree, but there is no difference in kind. So they are all part of the same chain. The only difference between gods and man is that the gods have more power and more ability. For example, in ancient Greek mythology the gods are prone to all the same foibles and failures and flaws as any human being, but they are blown up in their magnitude. Their powers are greater but the are still human beings. Man is just another extension of nature. Ultimately there is no difference between man who is just another biological creature, another kind of animal. That is the whole continuity or chain of being idea. Yet this is not what the Bible teaches in terms of divine viewpoint. In terms of human viewpoint man is then part of nature, he is just another cog in nature. This idea has radical implications on how one views the environment and technology and the use of nature in technology. Whereas the biblical view, the divine viewpoint, what we have is the creator-creature distinction. The creator is wholly and completely distinct from His creation. This is the biblical teaching of ex-nihilo creation, that there is a distinction between the creator and the creature, and they are not the same, they are completely different in kind. In creation there are two distinctions, the animals and the rest of nature on one level, but over them and completely separate is man. He is unique in all of creation, he is not another animal. The Bible teaches that man was set over nature to rule nature and to have dominion over nature.
The word PSUCHE is a real blight on our understanding. If we are of western European descent, either physically or intellectually then we have been infected by a false view of the soul/PSUCHE, and that is because we are all heirs of the intellectual tradition of the Greeks— Socrates, Aristotle and Plato. Plato had a certain view of the soul that really dominated later Greek thought. It became a major problem in Gnosticism and Docetism. The Gnostics saw this dualism and separation between what they called spirit and matter. In their thinking spirit was good and matter was inherently evil. So the soul/PSUCHE in Platonic and neo-Platonic thought is in the realm of the spirit. Plato had the idea of pre-existent souls. There is one important implication from the idea of a pre-existent soul. That is, that the soul can exist without the body. That gives the idea that the soul is important and the body is somehow less significant. This is where the idea that matter is evil comes from. The body is material, so it is evil. The error in this is that it downplays the body. How did that affect thought? In the early church it affected thought in monasticism. Monasticism was heavily influenced by this whole idea form neo-Platonism, and so that affects their view of sex. God creates Adam and Isha from the very beginning to enjoy sexual relations as something that is pleasurable, and it is not merely functional, i.e. for the purpose of having children. But in medieval thought in the early middle ages and the early church fathers there was picked up this idea from Platonism that anything associated with the body is not that, so therefore sex isn’t that good and should be restricted to only producing offspring and if you have sex for pleasure that is a sin. So we have to recognize and be very careful how we handle the idea of soul because we don’t want to pick up this sort of autonomous idea from Plato that the soul can have an independent non-bodily association..
Four observations on the nature of man
1) Man’s unique creation. When we look at this in terms of divine viewpoint and human viewpoint what we see in human viewpoint is that man is the product of chance plus time. He just happened and is a cosmic gamble. Self-image is the emphasis in human viewpoint and in contrast to this we have in divine viewpoint the image of God. Genesis 1:26-28. For the believer the issue is not self-image, it is the image of God or the image of Christ. What happens at the fall is that image of God is marred and distorted and corrupted by sin. It is not destroyed or erased, it is simply corrupted. But at regeneration there is a new birth, a spiritual birth, and then for the Church Age believer there is a renewal that takes place in the believer as he grows and advances in the Scriptures, and this is called the image of Christ—Colossians 3:10, “And have put on the new self [which comes with regeneration], who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to—KATA [kata] plus the accusative, according to a standard—the image of him that created him.” Romans 8:29, we are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. So there is a renewal of that image talking place through progressive sanctification as the believer matures and grows. This shows that there is an importance to man that is based not on who and what man is or what he does—his value isn’t based on what he does. His value is based on the fact that he was created in the image and likeness of God and even though born a fallen sinner he still bears that image. The image is the totality of man. There are two errors that people have slipped into over the years. The first is that the image is the physical body of the human being. This is the distortion that you find in Mormonism. Their idea is that God has a physical body. On the other hand, to avoid idolatry and a too-heavy emphasis on the material body, Christians have tended to restrict the image to just the invisible or immaterial. The human soul never exists without a body.
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022b-The Soul: Immaterial Part of Man. Gen 2:7
2) It is through our physical body that we rule nature. Unlike the immaterial angels man has a physical body, and from that he is to from that vantage point rule physical nature. He is to exercise dominion over all the creatures. Thus we are to see that there is a connection between the material part of man and an immaterial part, and that these are united in one person and the totality of that person is said to be in the image of God. He represents God in the universe. We can’t emphasize one over the other; they are both important. John 14:9—Jesus is emphasizing, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” The point is that in the incarnation everything that God was in terms of being infinite is scrunched and packed down into the highest possible expression of deity in finite form, and that is in the person of Jesus Christ in His humanity. Colossians 2:9, we are told that in Him all the fullness of deity dwells in Him in bodily form. It is not just the fact that He is God but that He is in a truly human body that is important. So man rules nature through his body and mans dominion rule was lost at the fall. Because of the fall man could never exercise his dominion as God originally intended. That dominion rule is going to be recovered through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, and that dominion is ultimately going to be exercised when the Lord Jesus Christ returns at the second coming. This is seen in 1 Corinthians 15. In the process of the Church Age each individual believer is going to be spiritually matured through the exercise of ruling. As we learn to rule our flesh, which includes mastery of the sin nature under the power of the Holy Spirit, and then working outward in all of the dimensions of life around us. Even Jesus Christ (and He was sinless) had to be matured in this same manner of exercising authority—He learned obedience through the things which He suffered. Jesus didn’t have to be disobedient or ever disobey anyone to learn obedience any more than we have to learn that murder or some other crime is wrong by having committed that crime. We learn these things in the process of our growth and in the same way, the Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity, learned to exercise dominion and apply doctrine to every area of life as He was prepared to go to the cross. In 1 Corinthians 15 we see how powerful the implications from the creation are. Picking up the context from verse 22, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.” Look at the way this is expressed. It is very similar to the expression of man’s exercise of dominion in Genesis chapter one where man is to rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. He is to rule over every dimension of the creation. Here we see that history culminates when a human being—this isn’t talking about Jesus Christ in His deity, it is emphasizing Jesus Christ in His humanity—will fulfill that dominion mandate. This is why Jesus is given the title of Son of Man [son of Adam] in Scripture. It emphasizes the fact that He is the son [descendant] of Adam and that He is fully human and in the one who lives out the command given to Adam and fulfills God’s plan where Adam failed. The second part is that man rules nature. One important point from this, going back to the importance of the union of material and immaterial, and that is that the soul is never to be understood or thought of as having some sort of independent existence. Some of our ideas about the soul really have their historical roots in Platonism, and for Plato there was an idea known as the preexistence of the soul. So for Plato the soul could exist all by itself and the body, therefore was not that necessary, it was just something the soul had to live through for the period of migration on the earth before it eventually returned to the world of the ideal. This is why the physical world and its importance was downplayed in Platonism, Gnosticism, and later Docetism. But we look at Scripture and we realize that the soul must always be united to some sort of body. There is no independent existence of the soul. Cf. Luke 16.
3) All human beings are made from Adam’s single body. When God created the human race He did not, as in the case of animals, create male and female individually. He started by creating the male and then the female is taken from the male, so that every single human being goes right back to Adam. Adam is our representative head and he is our physical head. This makes the human race unique among all of God’s creatures. This is why God can send the Lord Jesus Christ to die on the cross as the representative for the race because there is a genetic unification in the human race that makes it possible. That can’t happen for angels because each angel is created differently and in distinction, so that there is unity among the angels.
4) Man in his immaterial nature reflects his creator. Do not misunderstand. This is not saying that man in his body reflects the creator, but in his immaterial nature. The immaterial part of man reflects God, and it is going to be housed in a material body that has to be the best possible expression of that which is the representative and the reflection of God. We are to represent God and reflect His character in ruling the creation.
There are some basic issues that have to be covered. The first is what the components are in the human being. This is otherwise known as dichotomy vs. trichotomy. The second has to do with the location of emotion: whether it is in the soul or the body; whether it is material based or immaterial based. The third is the nature of the soul itself.
a) Dichotomy or trichotomy. These are traditional theological terms that have been used for centuries. There is one view in church history that said that man is trichotomous—in three parts. The other view is that he is dichotomous—two parts. In trichotomy, which is the view of the early church, man is comprised of three parts: body, soul and spirit. In dichotomy, man is composed of two parts: the material and the immaterial, not body and soul. In trichtomoy the view is that man is comprised of the body, the soul, and the spirit; that the soul has different components to it, and that would include self-consciousness, mentality, volition, and conscience where the norms and standards are stored in the soul. The spirit is that immaterial element which makes it possible for the elements of the soul to relate to God and to understand the things of God. I trichotomy we recognize that when Adam sinned he died spiritually. That means something wasn’t active or present once he sinned that was there before he sinned. In dichotomy the belief is that all the terms you find in Scripture—soul, spirit, heart, mind—are all virtually synonymous and interchangeable terms, and that you can’t go into the Scripture and make distinctions between these terms, because the dichotomist would argue that there are many places where the terms are used in an overlapping manner. The argument for trichotomy: 1 Corinthians 2:14, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” The two key words that must be understood from this verse are “natural man” and “spiritually.” In the Greek the terminology that is used for “natural man” is not a term that would normally be translated “nature.” It is the word PSUCHIKOS [yuxikoj] which has to do with the soul; it means soulish—“the soulish man.” The “spiritual man” is the Greek word PNEUMATIKOS [pneumatikoj]. So there is a contrast here between the two men. Jude 19, “These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the [being devoid of] Spirit,” uses this same word PSUCHIKOS. The context of Jude 19 is a contrast between believers and unbelievers. The phrase “devoid of the spirit” is correctly translated, “not having spirit.” There is no capital S in the word “spirit” in the Greek text. It is a decision of the translator whether the word should have an upper case or lower case S. Since the context is believer vs. unbeliever it is not talking simply about “devoid of the spirit,” it should be understood in contrast to PSUCHIKOS and not having lower case spirit. The reason for saying that is if we look at 1 Corinthians 2:9ff there is a quote from the Old Testament in Isaiah. Paul goes on to talk about the special revelation given through the Holy Spirit. So whatever Paul says about soulish men and spiritual men in the context of 1 Corinthians 2 must also be true of Old Testament believers. Now Old Testament believers were never filled with the Holy Spirit. They weren’t indwelt by the Holy Spirit, that is unique to Church Age believers. The point is that if we are going to take a quote from the Old Testament and make application to the ministry of the Holy Spirit, whatever is said has to be true as well for the Old Testament believers. Therefore this can’t be a discussion between having the Holy Spirit and not having the Holy Spirit, but must be the human spirit vs. not having the human spirit. God creates man with a human body and then a human soul. The human soul is comprised of self-consciousness, mentality, conscience and volition. Then there is another immaterial part, the human spirit, and they are so interconnected that you can speak of one as the whole unity by talking about one. You can use either word to describe the whole. What we have in the Old Testament is a presentation of man being created with a physical body and an immaterial part, and that immaterial part has components. One component is the human spirit which allows the self-consciousness to relate to God in terms of God-consciousness, the mentality to think God’s thoughts after Him, the conscience to appreciate and understand the absolute norms and standards revealed by God, and the volition to choose to follow God in terms of positive volition. But when Adam sinned that immaterial part of man’s nature was lost. It died; it disappeared. So that the self-conscious, the mentality, the conscience and the volition could not longer relate to God. They no longer had the capacity to relate to God so they are left out to figure life on their own, apart from divine input. When someone puts their faith alone in Christ alone then they are born again and God the Holy Spirit creates and simultaneously imparts to them that human spirit. So that they go from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive. That new human spirit acquired at regeneration is what enables them to learn the Word of God again and to grow and advance in both the Old and New Testaments. However, in the New Testament we have the Holy Spirit who is the one who teaches when we are in fellowship with Him. That explains the difference between trichotomy and dichotomy. Problem passages: Luke 10:27, “And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.” The dichotomist says there are different elements there, they are all treated differently. But that is not true. There is a progression in that verse: “all you heart” has to do with the inner core of the soul. The problem with most dichotomists is that they fail to realize that when you have different terms such as these—heart, mind, conscience—that they all relate to components of the soul. The same thing can be said of the Old Testament. Ecclesiastes 3:21, “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?” There the word “spirit” [ruach] is used in just a general sense to refer to the immaterial part of man. This is where people get into trouble. That is, when they say the soul and the spirit, and they learn there is these three parts and then try to go into every passage and make every time they see the word “spirit” equal the human spirit. You can’t do it. In the Old Testament there is a much more generic use of these terms than in the New Testament. The New Testament gives us precision so that we can understand this tripartite make-up of man. Same thing in Luke 1:46, 47 when Mary is praising God. This is Hebrew synonymous parallelism and you don’t want to go in and try to make a distinction between the soul and the human spirit in that passage. They are just used in very generic terms. Remember there are eight different ways these words are used and they don’t always mean the same thing in every single context. How do we know that there are distinctions? Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.” Here the writer of Hebrews makes it clear that there are times when there is a distinction between the soul and the spirit; they are not synonymous terms. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He sees that there is a distinction there between spirit, soul, and body. The conclusion is that the Bible makes it very clear that man is made up of three parts. The other immaterial components comprise the elements in the soul—the nature and make-up of the soul.
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023b-The Makeup of the Soul
1 Corinthians 15:44, “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.” There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. We have seen that the word “natural” is not the word THUSIS [qusij] which is the word related more to nature, but it is the word PSUXIKOS [yuxikoj], from the root word PSUCHE [yuxh] meaning soul. So when Paul says it (the physical body that we are born with) is sown a natural body he is saying it is sown a soulish body. That means that this physical body that we have is particularly designed to express the soul. We also know from 1 Corinthians 2:14 that we are born a natural man, and that natural man is, again, a PSUCHIKOS person or a soulish person. A soulish person is a person who does not have a human spirit. We are born without a human spirit and there needs to be an act of God called regeneration where we are made spiritually alive at the instant of salvation. We are told that we have a physical or natural body that is sown a soulish body but the natural body is raised in resurrection a spiritual body. The body that we are born with in time has an affinity primarily to the soul, but the resurrection body has an affinity to the human spirit and to the new position that we will have in heaven in relationship to God. The Scriptures are clear that there is this distinction. However, as L.S. Chafer in his Systematic Theology points out, “In many case the term soul and spirit can be used interchangeably because the writer of Scripture is not emphasizing the distinction between the two. However, in some passages when the writer does have a distinction in mind, then he will use them in a technical sense where the soul refers to one part of man and the human spirit refers to another.”
b) Emotion. When we start talking about emotion and where emotion is located, and say emotion is not in the soul but in the body, people start getting a little bit controversial over that. But this is not something new, it is something that a number of people have held over the years, that emotion is physically based. What is the word we use for emotion? Feeling. How do you feel today? That is a physically based term. But we do have to raise the question: Where is emotion located? The question is important for a number of reasons. First of all, if emotion is in the soul rather than in the body then an argument can be made for emotion being in God—because the immaterial part of man is in the image and likeness of God and reflects the nature and character of God. So if emotion was in the soul then we would see emotion in some analogous sense. There are a number of passages that people tend to go to who think that God has emotion. There are passages that talk about the anger of God, that God demonstrates wrath or that God is a jealous God, or that God is a God of love. They take all of these terms as terms of emotion. The question, though, that we must ask is: Are these terms used in a literal manner or are they used in a figurative manner? What emotion is: Emotion is a response mechanism. When we have certain emotions they are a response to certain things that are going on in our thinking. They are a response to thought, to attitudes, and to belief. Emotions are the result of what we believe to be true. Whether it is true or not is irrelevant. It has to do with what is going on in the thinking of the soul, the response to certain attitudes in the soul and a response to certain beliefs. It is also affected by certain chemicals. There are hormones, all kinds of things going on inside the body, exercising can give rise to certain other chemicals and they give a sense of euphoria; other times we wake up tired physically and so our mental state is depressed. All that is affected specifically by things going on in the body, so we have to recognize that emotions are responders to certain thoughts, beliefs and attitudes in the soul; but they also have a certain physical orientation. In fact, one writer has stated very succinctly that when we believe something has happened or we have certain thoughts there is an almost instantaneous visceral response, for example a feeling that we have been kicked in the gut. So emotions usually produce profound visceral reactions. The term visceral describes something as relating to or affecting the viscera or the internal organs. It should be noted when we talk about this that many of the terms for emotions in both Hebrew and Greek relate to the viscera, the internal organs. In fact, there is no word in either Hebrew or Greek for emotion per se. You may have individual emotions mentioned but you don’t have a word for emotion as a category per se. There are some interesting words to describe some of these emotions. For example, in Greek there is the word SPLANCHNON [splagxnon] which refers first and foremost in a literal sense to the kidneys. It came to be used to refer to compassion. In much of the ancient world the kidneys were the seen as something of the negative emotions, but in Greek thought it was related to compassion and mercy. So often in the New Testament when we read about being merciful it is a translation of the word SPLANCHNON, it is taking the concept of compassion and expressing it through terms of the viscera or the internal organs. The word in its verb literally means to be moved in one’s bowels. It is a term for compassion, that you feel something so deeply and profoundly that you feel it in your gut. Another word that is used in the Hebrew is the word kilyah which has the same idea. This refers to the kidneys, sometimes translated “reins” in the King James Version. It is better understood as the inner person or the emotions. For example, Jeremiah 11:20, “who tries the feelings” NASB, and the word for “feelings” is the kidneys, kilyah; “and the heart,” another organ that is used to represent the totality of the inner person. Sometimes “heart” has a primary sense of the mentality, in a few places it has the idea of emotion, and in a couple of other places it has the idea of volition; but as a concept “heart” primarily is looking at the center of something, the inner man, the soul as a whole, emphasizing one or more of the various characteristics of the soul, and usually that is the mentality. Jeremiah 17:10 uses the word kilyah in the same sense: “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins [kilyah], even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.” If this is physical then we know that this doesn’t relate to God at all. If God doesn’t have emotions and if emotions are not in the soul but are in the human body then it doesn’t indicate that God necessarily has emotion in any sense of the way we do, or have emotion at all. There are some other problems with this that get more profound when we talk about the use of language in the Bible. Exodus 32:9, “And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people: now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.” So what we have here is a situation that occurs in 1446 BC. Note that there is not a word for anger in the Hebrew. The word that is in the Hebrew is aphcharah [aph = Heb. for nose; the verb charah = burning]. It doesn’t say God was angry, it says God’s nose burned. Does God have a nose? No. So it is not a literal expression of God’s anger, it is a figurative term. So when it speaks of God being angry it is using an anthropomorphism, attributing to God part of human anatomy that God does not actually possess in order to communicate something about God’s plans, policies and purposes within a frame of reference that a human can understand. The other word that comes into play here is the word anthropopathism. There is a lot of debate among scholars as to whether or not there are any legitimate anthropopathisms in Scripture. Pathos = emotion. An anthropopathism is the idea that you attribute to God human emotion which He does not actually possess in order to communicate God’s purposes, policies and plans to man in a frame of reference that man can understand. Anthropomorphism is actually a sub-category of anthropopathism. What we are saying here, simply, is that when it talks abut God’s anger it is using terminology about God that He doesn’t actually possess. He doesn’t have a nose, so why do we have difficulty in going to the next stage and saying He doesn’t possess anger? There is another problem here, a profound theological problem. Did God know about this idolatrous event in Exodus 32 when He delivered the Jews out of Egypt at the Exodus? He did. Was He angry then? If anger is the consequence of a thought or a belief or something you know, then if God knew just as about that rebellion some months earlier as He did when it actually occurred, why wouldn’t He be angry about it earlier if it is an emotion? We are talking about the fact that in God’s omniscience He knows all the knowable. Therefore if we attribute emotion to God in any sense like human emotion, then God has to be learning something, acquiring some new knowledge, in order to generate this kind of emotion. This also affects the doctrine of immutability. So perhaps, when we read passages that talk about the anger of God and the wrath of God and the jealousy of God, the author is using a figure of speech in order to communicate something to us. Emotion, then, is housed in the human body. When we talk about emotions we are talking about a physically based response to what is received in the mentality of the soul.
c) The human soul. That is the core of the imageness. When man is said to be in the image of God that relates to everything because the image is placed inside of a physical body. That physical body is designed to be the highest and best possible expression of that image. The image itself, the soul, is a finite replica and a finite representation of the infinite character of God and of divine essence. So we want to make some connections between these four elements of the human soul and God’s character. To do this we go back to the essence box, our ten characteristics of God. Man has four elements: self-consciousness, volition, mentality, conscience. God is sovereign. What does that mean? That God is the ruler and the final authority in the creation. In other words, it relates to His will. He is the final determiner of history. It is His will, not the creatures will, that is the ultimate determiner in human history. The correspondence to that in man is volition, but the volition of man is not the same as the volition in God. God’s volition is the volition of the creator and man’s volition is the volition of the creature. There is a tremendous debate between sovereignty and free will that has been going on for centuries. How do you relate the sovereignty of God to the free will of man? One of the things that we have to deal with is the fact that free will implies real contingency in human history. But sovereignty guarantees that God’s will always overrides and overrules, and He brings about His plans and purposes in human history. So what are we really talking about when we are talking about will? We are talking about causation. What is the ultimate cause in history? There have been many attempts to define the meaning of causation, free will and sovereignty. Going too far in one direction ends up in determinism, and this is the problem with hyper-Calvinism. No matter how much they talk about the fact that ultimately it is a loving personal God that determines everything you end up with no real choice and no real contingency in human history. You just have a God who ultimately determines in everything and choice is just an appearance or an illusion, you really aren’t making that decision that you think you are, it is just a sort of psychological appearance; it is not true. The theological problem: If there’s no contingency, then when Jesus came at the first advent and offered the kingdom to Israel it is not a real offer. That means it is a hoax, because Israel was determined by God in eternity past to reject that offer. That plays into the hands of Reformed and replacement theology because they have a very narrow look and the plan and purpose of Jesus Christ at the first advent. And if it was not a real offer and their negative volition was determined in eternity past then that is consistent with a view of replacement theology and Israel is now out of the plan completely. In dispensational thought, even though most dispensationalists came out of a Calvinistic heritage, they recognized legitimate contingency. That is why there tends to be almost a schizophrenic attitude among dispensationalists on free will and sovereignty because they have to admit that there is real, genuine contingency there in the plan of God, and that Jesus’ offer was contingent, and that God has greater purposes and plans for mankind than simply salvation. This is a problem with Reformed theology. It limits the plan of God and the purposes of God in history to soteriology. Soteriology doesn’t cover everything. It doesn’t cover God’s purpose and plans for the angels, it doesn’t cover a number of other issues that take place in all of creative history. And in dispensationalism the ultimate purpose for history is to glorify God, it is a doxological purpose. So you have a certain consistency here where you have in dispensational thought real contingency in the offer of the kingdom to Israel, which indicates that they had the ability to choose or reject Him, and this ultimately leads to being consistent with the dispensational, multipurpose plan of glorification of God. It would include, of course, soteriology but much more. The problem that we have in history is that of understanding contingency. Contingency goes back to the idea of causation. Aristotle in his philosophy—and this is not saying he was right—pointed out something that needed to be attended to as we think about ultimate causation. Is it God, is it man, or can God in His greatness include different kinds of causation so that He is the ultimate cause but He allows for real contingency in creaturely causation? Aristotle said that there were four kinds of causes. The first was material cause. So if you were going to build a house the material cause would be t he construction materials. The second kind of causation would be the efficient cause. This would be the builder, the one who is causing the home to be constructed. The third cause was the formal cause. The formal cause of the house being constructed would be the blueprint or the plan. Then the final type of cause would be the final or purpose cause, and this would be the purpose for which the house is being constructed or its end. This is what we need to think about, that there are different kinds of causation. So we need to make a distinction between the causation at the creator level and creation at the creaturely level. What happens is that when we try to think through the whole idea of who ultimately causes what in the universe and that Jesus Christ controls history, well that means that He must cause things to come to pass, and how can He cause things to come to pass without somehow forcing or manipulating man to do what he wants them to do? We are thinking in terms of causation at the creaturely level. Then we try to impose that upon God at the level of the creator. What we have to realize is that there are different levels of causation, so that God as the creator can override and overrule history without at the same time overriding and overruling creaturely decisions. And He can include a plan that is broad enough to include real contingency on the part of creatures and still produce what God knows the end result will be without God getting in and manipulating or forcing man to do what God wants him to do. The sovereignty of God, which is the location of divine will, corresponds to human volition. The righteousness of God, on the other hand, is God’s standard of right and wrong, of absolutes, and God’s justice is the application of that standard. And God’s righteousness and His justice combined, along with His veracity and His immutability, relates to human conscience. The human conscience is where we stores our norms and standards. Before the fall the only standards that Adam had were the absolute standards that were provided for him by God, and these standards reflected God’s absolute righteousness and justice. Conscience is one of those interesting things that always shows up somewhere, no matter how rebellious someone gets, and it always betrays the fact that they are in the image of God. So conscience relates to the absolute standards of God and it always betrays that. That is Paul’s argument in Romans chapter two when he shows that the very presence of the conscience shows that people have rejected God and know that God exists. Then we look at the idea of God’s omniscience. We link His omniscience to His love. Omniscience is knowledge and love is related to knowledge. We know love is not an emotion. Jesus said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” We may not feel like it; we may be drawn by our sin nature to do many different things that are not obedience to God’s commandments. So love there means that we have to first of all know His commandments, and secondly it involves volition. So love relates to knowledge and it relates to an understanding of absolutes. But we will look at love as it relates to thinking because it is mentality, a mental attitude. So we will connect love and omniscience to mentality. Omnipotence is defined in God as the ability to do whatever God wants to do. It doesn’t mean God can do anything. Why? Because there are certain things God can’t do. God can’t sin; God can’t make a square a triangle. Omnipotence relates also to His will. So omnipotence and sovereignty link together in relationship to human volition. Righteousness, justice, veracity and immutability are mirrored in the human conscience. Love and omniscience are linked up in man’s mentality. Eternality is not part of man’s make-up because man is finite, the same as omnipresence. There is nothing really corresponding in either of those in man because man is localized and finite. Self-consciousness in the human soul has to do with identity and a recognition of who we are, and God as well has self-consciousness. He knows who He is. So in relationship to man as the image of God we see that he is a finite replica of God’s essence and character. It primarily relates to his immaterial make-up but that immaterial make-up is necessarily housed in a body. The soul does not exist independently of a body ever.
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024b-Perfect Environment; Sufficiency; Volition
The environment in which God placed the man, vv. 8-17. “And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” This is the beginning of perfect environment and the beginning of the dispensation of perfect environment which extends from the creation of man to the fall. It is in this time period that we see the responsibility given to the man that would be the testing issue for this particular dispensation. We get the name “perfect environment” because God in His goodness provides a perfect environment for man—perfect in every possible way. We have seen the creation of the man in verse 7, and now God creates a place for the man. He had created the overall environment in Genesis chapter one, i.e. the environment of the earth itself and all of the earth’s systems—the biosphere, the atmosphere—but now God creates a specific environment for man, which is a garden. In Genesis chapter one God created the plants and the trees at the end of the third day. God had created all the tree kinds on the third day, and now He is going to take the seed (it doesn’t say in this text that he created bara or asah) from the trees He had already created and began to design the immediate environment for the human race. We are told in v. 8 that the action is performed by the LORD God, Yahweh Elohim. He plants a garden, and here the Hebrew word is nata’, which means to plant, to establish, to fix, to stretch out. It is the normal word which was used for planting trees or a vineyard and it was used metaphorically for the planting of a nation, such as the planting of the nation Israel. Just as He planted the nation Israel He is the one who planted the garden and established the first volitional test in the garden of Eden. “And the LORD God planted a garden toward the east in Eden.” A slightly more literal rendering is “He planted a garden in Eden from the east.” So Eden is a larger area and as a sub-section there is a garden planted and it is designated as being in the east. If we look at the passage in Ezekiel 28 which describes the fall of Satan it says that “You were in Eden, the garden of God.” So the term “Eden,” then, is tied in that passage to the garden of God, not to what we call the garden of Eden where Adam and Isha were placed. God has Eden, and this is a place where God dwells on the earth. We can go through a lengthy study on the dwelling of God on the earth. He dwells in the garden. He continues to dwell and places the cherubim outside to guard the path to the tree of life—they prevent man from entering Eden. He finally removes Himself and His presence from the earth before the flood. Remember it is not until after the flood in Genesis nine that God establishes or delegates judicial authority to the human race. If we are correct that the population on the earth prior to the Noahic flood was at least two and a half billion, maybe double that—the reason it was so large is that there were as many as nine generations living at one time—who handled judicial operations. Judicial operations in Scripture are usually indicated by the use of the word “sword.” The only sword in the first three chapters of Genesis is the cherub placed outside the garden. So apparently God directly and through His angels governed and exercised a judicial function before the fall.
That is based on very skimpy evidence but there is the statement in the KJV, “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man …” Genesis 6:3. The word translated “strive” in the KJV is a hapax legomenos, a technical term for a word that is used only one time in the literature. It is very difficult to work out what a word means if it is only used one time because word definitions are determined not by a dictionary but by usage. Dictionaries simply reflect word usage. When we look at cognate languages such as Ugaritic, Phoenician or Akadian, the word that is used there in Hebrew and translated “strive” means to dwell. So God says He is not going to dwell with man any more and He removed His presence at the time of the flood. His presence comes back in Exodus when He indwells the tabernacle and is enthroned among the cherubim over the ark of the covenant. Then His presence leaves or departs when Israel goes negative. Ezekiel sees the vision of the Shekinah (dwelling presence of God) glory depart, and it returns at the incarnation. Then at the incarnation there is a departure at the ascension, the Holy Spirit returns, and then in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit He sets up a temple in the believer’s body for the indwelling of Jesus Christ. The indwelling Jesus Christ is going to leave at the Rapture and return at the second coming when He is personally going to rule and reign during the Millennial kingdom.
So God dwelt in Eden, and somewhere on the east side of Eden God plants a garden for the habitation of man. “And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, v. 9. Notice that God places the man He had formed in this garden and caused to grow everything that is pleasing to the sight and good for food. They key word there is “every.” God is not skimpy with His resources; He is not one who withholds any good thing from His people; and out of love God provides everything and beyond everything that man needs. This verse forms a basis for developing a theology of aesthetics. Aesthetics is a word for beauty. God is not a God who simply makes things because they are functional, but He creates things that have beauty and are attractive to the eye. He doesn’t just grow trees that are good for food, there is an aesthetic pleasure to the trees and they provide everything that is necessary for food. He goes beyond that. All categories of fruit were available, and vegetables because man was a vegetarian at this point, and He doesn’t just supply a few things, He supplies an abundance.
Then we are told also, “the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” We will come back to this.
The doctrine of sufficiency: God’s provision for man is always sufficient
1) Sufficiency means there is enough to meet a situation, there is enough to accomplish the purpose or task.
2) Sufficiency may imply barely enough, but enough is enough. But throughout Scripture God’s grace is always characterized by more than enough, abundance.
3) Prior to the fall sufficiency came from God’s love. His love provided a sufficient environment for the human race.
4) Sufficiency after the fall comes from God’s grace. Grace is the expression of God’s love to someone who doesn’t deserve it, someone who hasn’t merited it.
5) Love is the point of contact, therefore, between God and man before the fall. Justice, then, becomes the point of contact after the fall.
6) Illustrations. God’s provision of manna to the Jews when they are leaving Israel. He always gave them enough. In the New Testament when we see Jesus feeding the 4000 and the 5000 we see the miracle of the loaves where He feeds them and there were 12 full baskets of food left over. He gave more than enough. God’s grace is sufficient but it frequently gives an abundance, an excess.
7) God’s sufficiency is abundant to all in salvation. Salvation is not for believers only, which is a heretical doctrine of hyper-Calvinists called limited atonement. 1 Timothy 2:6; 4:10; 1 John 2:2; 2 Corinthians 5:14. The death of Christ provided salvation for every member of the human race, even those who reject Christ.
8) The sufficiency of God’s grace extends to believers in all areas of the spiritual life, especially in the arena of testing. 2 Corinthians 9:8; 12:9.
Our conclusion we arrive at is that God provided a perfect environment that supplied everything that man would possibly need for his daily sustenance and provision. This would include not only the physical environment but also the spiritual environment and the information. God is going to give Adam all the information he needs, which doesn’t mean He gave him everything he could possibly know. There is a lot of information that God could have given Adam but He didn’t. Sufficiency means He gave him everything that he needed so that he could accomplish the task, and then as the Lord visited him every day He gave additional information. But from the very beginning He gave Adam and Isha all the information they needed. That means it wasn’t up to Adam to figure out if what God said about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was really true.
In the center of the garden, in the same general vicinity, God planted two trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The idea of the tree of life is found in numerous scriptures, e.g. Proverbs 3:18, referring to wisdom personified as a spiritually mature woman. “She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.” The analogy is between wisdom personified as a woman, wisdom which is Bible doctrine and the application of doctrine, wisdom as a tree of life. So there we have the idea of not simply extension of life, because a believer would have ongoing life, but here it would have to do with the quality of life that comes from the application of wisdom. Proverbs 15:4, “A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.” There it is not talking about the eternality of life but about the quality of life when there is no gossip, no slander, no sins of the tongue. Revelation 22:2, “In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” The idea there is not healing from sickness but of that which positively promotes strength and health. So the idea here is that there will be a tree of life and somehow that contributes to the quality of life in the eternal state. In Revelation 2:7, “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.” An overcomer is not someone who believes, an overcomer is a believer who has applied doctrine and advances to spiritual maturity. There is a special reward for mature believers. They have access to the tree of life. Other believers, believers who are failures, do not have this same access. So it has something to do with the quality of life, not simply the extension or eternality of life throughout eternity. “In the midst of the paradise of God,” so this is in a special area within heaven that is open to access from mature church age believers. The tree of life also remains in the cultural and historical memory of the human race and pops up in many different near-eastern cultures. So in the garden the tree of life provided life, but the real test comes from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2:10, gives us a geographical description of how God provides for the garden. This is, as well, tantalizing in terms of an understanding of the physics involved in the natural environment on the earth. “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.” Again we see this distinction between the garden itself and Eden. We see in Revelation 21 that there is a river of life which flows out from the throne of God in the new Jerusalem. We have the same parallel there; the river flows out of the throne of God and then it divides into four rivers. There is no place on earth today where there is this kind of action. Rivers converge, but what we see in Eden is a diversion: water coming from one source and then splits and goes in four different directions, and it waters the earth. A lot of people spend a lot of time speculating, getting into this passage and trying to figure out where Eden was located. If we believe in a world-wide flood at the time of Noah and we are consistent with understanding the hydrodynamics of such an event, then we have to admit that there is no way that we will ever find the garden of Eden. The geography of planet earth is radically different after the flood from what it was before the flood. The river of verse 10 divided and became four rivers. “The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.”
We don’t know where Havilah is, we don’t know what river Pishon would have been, but we are told that there was an abundance of gold there. This tells us again that God provided a tremendous amount of natural resources for man—valuable metals and other resources that could be developed and used by the human race as they were exercising the dominion mandate to go out and to control this planet that God put them in charge of. Gold also tells us that apparently there is a value to gold that is implicit and recognized by man as being one of the most valuable commodities we can have. Cf. Psalm 19, which tells us that God’s Word is to be desired more than fine gold. So gold has an inherent value. God has created certain metals and precious stones that are inherently valuable. Ultimately that will form the basis for economics. Verse 12 is a passage which is difficult to translate and understand because we don’t know exactly what bdellium was or what the onyx stone was. The bdellium mentioned could either refer to the resin from a tree or from a jewel. The jewel had an amber tone to it and so the resin from certain trees picked up that name because it reminded them of the color of the jewel. It most likely refers to some form of precious stone but we don’t know exactly what it is. Nobody knows what the onyx stone is either. This is reflecting an environment prior to the flood that is completely foreign to the environment after the flood. The thrust of this is that God provides a beautiful and attractive environment that is filled with a remarkable array of natural resources that the man can develop under the guidance and authority of God as His representative on the earth. The second river is the Gihon, and we have no idea what river that is. It flows around the land of Cush. Cush is the name later on used for Ethiopia, but that doesn’t mean that is what it referred to initially. The name of the third river is the Tigris, and it flows east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates. Notice this is translated in the present tense. It is not really in the present tense, it is added to make it look readable in English. It is really talking about the way it was before the fall.
Verse 15, “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” God puts man there [it is the word for rest], indicating that man can relax and rest in the perfect environment that God provided for him, and he can relax and rest in carrying out God’s mandate. God’s mandate doesn’t mean that he is going to be a farmer. He is not there to cultivate the garden and farm the garden. There are other meanings to those words that indicate that this is a temple type of environment and they are carrying in a priestly function. These words are loaded with worship overtones and with the overtones of serving in a temple.
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025b-Divine Institution 1: Human Responsibility
Divine institutions develop here in Genesis chapter two with the first divine institution, and then we shall also see the other divine institutions develop in the first few chapters of the book. We are in the second division of Genesis which began in 2:4 as we began the results of the heavens and the earth established in the first section. In this section, from vv. 4-7, se saw the creation of man and that initial environment. This is focusing on the events of that sixth day of creation and an expansion of it. In vv. 8-14 we saw the perfect environment that God created for the human race. In v. 8 He put the man in the garden, and there we have the Hebrew word sim which means to simply put or place. It is a very general word and not the same as we are going to find in Genesis 2:15. Verse 8 gives us the summary statement. Verses 9-14 describe the garden that He plants, including the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the rivers that flow out of Eden which water the garden and provide the basis for the hydrosphere of that early civilization.
Then is verse 15, “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” Now we look at the development of the second idea of verse 8, putting the man in the garden. The word that we have here for putting him in the garden is a much different word, not the general word sim but a much more nuanced word, a word that comes with a certain amount of baggage if you were a native Hebrew speaker, the word nuach, the verb root for the name Noah. Noah means rest. In the hiphil form here it means to place or to set or deposit. But since the root idea in the qal stem is to rest. It has the overtones of security and rest, so that when God places Adam in the garden it is a place of rest and security. The word is the cognate of the noun used of the promised land, a place that is spoken of as entering into God’s rest for the children of Israel. The main idea here is that God takes the man and places him in the garden of Eden. When we look at the phrase “garden of Eden” we realize that this is a genitival construction. The noun “garden” is a part or region of the genitival noun “Eden.” So once again we see that Eden was not simply the garden itself, it is a much larger area, a part of which is this garden that God has designed for the perfect habitation of man. God places him. We see strong action here. God has a plan and a purpose, this is not some sort of random event. It indicates from the text in v. 7 that the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground, then He forms the environment for the man, then He places the man in the environment. So there is a plan, procedure and order to what God is doing in this process.
Then we have a construction in the Hebrew that indicates purpose. He places him in the garden to tend and keep it. God creates man with a purpose: he has responsibilities from the beginning. Now we have to examine these two words. The NASB translates the first word “tend.” The KJV translates the same word “to dress it.” There is an interpretation that is already frontloading those words by the way they are being translated, indicating that God made Adam a gardener. That is not the picture that we see here. This is a pre-fall condition when man is in harmony with nature and there is a sense of cooperation, not an antagonism as there will be after the fall. God is establishing a purpose for man and He is giving him a particular job. The question here when it comes to guarding or keeping is the Hebrew verb which means to work. This is the core meaning of the word. It also means to labor. It is used in Exodus and Leviticus in all those passages related to the temple with the idea of service. If you were a Jew on the plains of Moab and you are hearing this for the first time, what have you just gone through? A recitation of the Mosaic law. Moses has given Deuteronomy, the second law, as a rehearsal of all God’s purposes and plans for the nation Israel. And in all of that there is a lot of the use of this word, abad—serving God. So when they hear this and hear the idea of work it is nuanced in the direction of worshipping or ministering in devotion or service to God. The second word that is used here is shamar. This word also is loaded with theological baggage. It has a lot of connotations to it other than the simple one of simply keeping or watching over something. It means to keep, to tend as a shepherd would tend the sheep or a herdsman would tend the herd. It means to watch over something or even to guard. It also has a heavy nuanced meaning of obedience—to keep a covenant, a contract, to keep the way of the Lord. In Genesis 17:9 it is used of keeping the Abrahamic covenant; in 18:19 it is used of keeping the way of the Lord. Throughout the Mosaic law it is used with the idea of keeping the commandments of the law. So as soon as the Jew hears this he immediately is thinking in terms of the covenantal responsibilities that God gave him. In other words, the language that is used here is covenantal language. This takes us back to the fact that God is establishing a covenant here. A dispensation is defined as an administration of God’s rule on the earth. We have an initial covenant that is established here and is referred to as the Edenic covenant. The responsibility positively for the Edenic covenant is that the man is to serve God and to watch over and guard the garden. Each of these two verbs has a third masculine singular suffix indicating that the object is the garden itself. The question here when it comes to guarding and keeping is, What is he guarding and keeping? In sense he is keeping the mandate of God in relationship to the prohibition that is going to come up in the next two verses, but he is also guarding it in relationship to the angelic conflict. These two words abad and shamar are used throughout the Pentateuch for spiritual service. These words also indicate also something about the function of the priesthood. So there is also a tone here with the abiding of God in the garden that this is like a temple, and it is Adam who is functioning in some way like a priest serving God. All of this is embedded in the language and the tone that is used in this passage.
What we see here in the use of these terms is that man has a responsibility in the garden. His work is not simply in relationship to taking care of the garden as a gardener would do, but that the idea goes far beyond that. He is in the image of God and as such is the image representative of God, and so his work is going to be described in words that connote spiritual service to God. He is going to reflect the creativity of God in his own labor. The act of creation itself is an act of work, an act of labor, and man is going to reflect that in the image of God. The application is that the man’s work in the garden is a reflection of God’s character and God’s work. Therefore, in terms of application, when we think about our own work that we do every day, we should not think of it simply as a way to put food on the table and a way to pay our bills, but that this is an expression of our service to God and a form of our own personal worship of God. In the New Testament Paul says in Ephesians 6, as well as Colossians 3, that we are to all do our work as unto the Lord. So these words indicate that there is a biblical doctrine of labor, a biblical doctrine of labour that begins before the fall, before there is sin on the earth and before environment is tainted by sin. So before the fall we have to look at labor in perfect environment to get an idea of what labor should be like.
Remember, man is placed in a perfect environment in the garden. This is an environment that has a rich and abundant supply of natural resources. Adam did not come along with a full knowledge, he had to learn all about his environment and that was part of his responsibility. We will see this in the next section when he is to name the animals. He does not know all the characteristics of these animals intuitively. They have to come before him; God brings the animals before him; and he has to sit there making observations, he has to note the differences between the different kinds of animals, and he has to be able to categorize and classify the animals and then to choose a name that reflects something about that animal. Man was to exercise dominion over everything and emphasize every branch of knowledge, every sphere of activity, every kind of craftsmanship—everything from the creation of art work to music, to skills, etc. All of that is part of dominion. Adam’s responsibility in the garden if he had not fallen would have included all of that as he expanded his knowledge base, studying and analyzing and learning how to utilize all of these natural resources that God had given him. Yet it would have been done in an environment that wasn’t antagonistic. We do it in an antagonistic environment and we muck up the environment considerably as a result of the fall. We have to factor all of these things in as we develop the concept of the biblical doctrine of labor. Furthermore, we have to realize that labor and the value of labor is at the very core of the whole idea of economics. So this begins to lay a foundation for a biblical theology of economics, something that is rarely thought about or talked about. We have to realize that labor and work as they are introduced here in v. 15 are sub-categories of an even larger doctrine, and that is human responsibility.
Genesis 2:16, 17, “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” The sentence begins, “The LORD God [Yahweh Elohim],” the covenant God of Israel, “commanded the man.” The Hebrew word for “commanded” is the verb tzavah, to command or to give an order. The noun form means a commandment. To a Jew this would be a reminder that this same Yahweh Elohim commanded Israel in the ten commandments. The commandment indicates that there is an authority structure and a responsibility structure. God had more than sufficiently provided for the sustenance of Adam. He supplied many different kinds of fruit, many different kinds of trees, and He is telling Adam that from any of these he may eat. When it says “you may eat freely” a particular construction in the Hebrew is used that is important. It is important because the same grammar is used in the next verse. What we have here is a double form of the verb. The first verb form is a qal infinitive construct; the second form is a qal imperfect. If you want to say something in Hebrew and emphasize its certainty, what you use is this idiom. You take a qal infinitive construct of the same verb and pack it in front of the main verb itself. You are not repeating the concept. He is not saying, “Eating, you will eat,” he is saying “Eating, you may certainly eat.” He is giving him permission. So it is an emphasis on the certainty of the action. Then v. 17 begins, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”—knowledge of good and evil is the name tacked on to this particular tree—“you shall not eat.” What we have in vv. 16, 17 is direct revelation which God is giving to Adam.
There are four different ways that we know anything: rationalism, empiricism, mysticism. The difference between mysticism and the previous two is that rationalism and empiricism are both based on the rigorous use of logic. Mysticism rejects logic and relies on a sort of intuitive insight into things. No matter how many empirical studies Adam conducted, no matter how rigorous his logic, he on the basis of either reason or empiricism could never have worked out that if he ate from that tree he would die. That was information that was only available through direct revelation. That is our fourth area of knowledge, and it is therefore that revelation that builds a fence around rationalism and empiricism. Rationalism and empiricism are not necessarily wrong but they must be used within the framework of the boundaries that God gives in terms of revelation. What happens in the fall in Genesis 3 is they decide to empirically test revelation. So what have they done? They have established their own experience as the authority over revelation. Principle: You always start with the Bible in every single discipline of life. That sets the boundaries. You either have a God that speaks to everything or you have a God that speaks to nothing. This is where we are building our understanding of reality in Genesis. This is why these initial chapters are so important and why they are so attacked. This information from direct revelation enables Adam to correctly now interpret all the data.
God tells Adam that there is one tree from which he is not to eat, and here a different Hebrew construction is used. Lo akal—the Lo is a negative; the verb akal is the same verb we had earlier in “you may freely eat.” Now He is going to say “You shall not eat,” the qal imperfect of akal. When we take Lo as a negative plus a qal imperfect, this is the strongest possible way to express prohibition in the Hebrew. This is the same construction that is found in the ten commandments—“Thou shalt not.” What came to the mind of the Jews on the plains of Moab when they read this? The whole Mosaic law, the ten commandments. It is the same God who gave them the ethical mandates of the Mosaic law as the God who gave the mandate to Adam. The Jews would be thinking, “Look at what happened when Adam violated the mandate given to him, so what do we think will happen when we violate the ethical mandates given to us?” This is a reminder to them that the same God who told Adam not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as gave them the Mosaic law.
“… for”: He is going to explain why: “in the day” is the preposition be plus yom, an idiom which means “when, at that time”; “you will surely die” is the same grammatical structure we saw with the phrase, “you may eat freely.” The word for to die is muth. When you double it, when you have a qal infinitive construct and then a qal imperfect, it doesn’t mean “dying you will die.” If it did, then earlier it could have been translated “eating you will eat.” We have heard that this refers to two concepts of dying—dying you will die: the first dying being spiritual death, the second being physical death. But if that is true then there would be two kinds of eating in the previous verse: “eating you will eat.” This is not talking about two kinds of death, it is talking about the absolute certainty of death at the instant of eating. This can be checked in any Hebrew grammar text book, and when you double the verb with the qal infinitive construct plus an imperfect verb it means certainty. What God is saying to Adam is that there are certain consequences to the violation of this mandate, and at that instant you will die. It is not physical death because physical death does not occur for Adam for 930 years, but what does occur when he disobeys is spiritual death. The relationship between Adam and God fragments at that point.
What we have seen in these three verses is a foundation for three very important doctrines. The first is the introduction of human responsibility. Man is responsible to obey God. He is responsible for his decisions and he is responsible for his actions, and he is given certain tasks to perform. The second thing that we note is that there is the introduction of authority and accountability. God has the authority to tell man what to do and what not to do. God defines morality; God sets the absolutes. Absolutes are not derived from empiricism or rationalism. Absolute morals do not derive from cultural convention. They are not derived relatively. It is not the result of man’s experiment in society. This is what we get in sociology classes and psychology, that basic mores of man and basic ideas of morality and ethics have come about as a result of experimentation and that this is the result of man deciding what works and what doesn’t work. It is just the basis of each individual culture deciding what their own values will be. That is not what the Bible says. The Bible says values come from outside of creation. It begins with the creator-creature distinction. So we have the introduction of authority here, that authority is present in perfect environment. Second, there is the idea of accountability. If you are responsible for something you are accountable for your actions. Therefore we see that man will die spiritually. There are negative consequences to disobedience to God, and they are instantaneous—man will die spiritually. The third thing we see is the first mention of tasks that man has to perform. He is to work and to guard the garden. This mention of tasks underlies the later development doctrines of the calling or vocation of God. Notice the calling and the responsibilities, are directed toward Adam, not the woman. She is created to be the helpmate, the assistant. Now that runs counter to everything in today’s feminized society, because the feminist movement comes along and says that women ought to have equal access to jobs. But the woman is not the one who is called in terms of the divine viewpoint framework, it is the man who is given the task and the woman’s responsibility is to help him, to assist him, to do what she can to make him successful as he can be in that calling.
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026b-Doctrine of Divine Institutions
1) The laws of divine establishment are principles ordained by God for the protection, perpetuation, orderly function, survival and blessing of the human race. In His omniscience God knew the limitations of mankind. He also knew that man would sin, so He is establishing certain institutions from the very beginning. These we call the laws of divine establishment and they are covered under five divine institutions. These are for everyone, not just for believers.
2) The term “divine institutions” has been used by Christians to speak of the absolute social structures that have been instituted by God for the entire human race—for believers and unbelievers alike. The term “divine” emphasizes the fact that they have their origin in God. These are social structures that have been built into creation and into the nature of man by God.
3) There is a conflict between the divine viewpoint which says that there are absolute social structures established by God, and human viewpoint which teaches that these are simply social customs or conventions that have been developed pragmatically through human history and are different in every culture. Postmodernism would say that the various expressions of these customs are all equally valid. So human viewpoint sees these as purely relative, something that man just developed over time to pragmatically handle the situation.
4) These divine institutions represent absolute structures which God has built into the social constitution of man. If these institutions are violated then something fundamental falls apart, and there are serious long-term consequences in human society.
5) There are five divine institutions: a) Human responsibility or individual responsibility; b) Marriage; c) Family; d) Human government; e) Individual nations. Each of these are established over the course of human history. The first three were established pre-fall because the command was to be fruitful and multiply and that envisions family even though there are no offspring until after the fall. Human government and individual nations doesn’t come in until after the flood. Government institutions are introduced to restrain sin and to control unrighteousness.
6) The first divine institution, human responsibility, or sometimes individual responsibility. Sometimes it is labeled simply volition, emphasizing individual human choice. Sometimes it has been called personal responsibility, responsible dominion, responsible labor. The issue is responsibility. Genesis 1:26-30; 2:15-17; Psalm 8:3-8. The main idea here is that man has been placed on the earth and given responsibility. He is answerable to God and he is to manage the earth under God’s authority.
7) The very concept of being responsible for something includes the idea of volition. A person makes a choice as to whether they will be responsible or be irresponsible, whether they will fulfill the obligation or not. So the issue: Will man fulfill the responsibility that God gives him in the garden in perfect environment?
8) As we look at each divine institution each has an authority with it. In human responsibility the authority is God. Adam is responsible and accountable to God for his actions. In human responsibility man is ultimately accountable to God at the judgment seat of Christ for believers and at the great white throne judgment for unbelievers. In marriage the authority is the husband. The wife is under his authority, under his leadership, and she is responsible to the husband. 1 Corinthians 11:3. It is the man Adam who is the federal head, the representative head of the human race. When Eve sinned nothing really happened, but it is Adam’s sin that causes the human race to fall. It is in Adam all die, not in Eve. So man is the head. In the family it is the parents who are the authority and who are accountable for the welfare of that family. They are responsible to God for what happens in the family. Children are to be obedient to their parents. That is where they learn authority orientation. If they don’t learn authority orientation in the family, then when they become adults they are going to have major problems handling any other situation where they have to face authority. Then we come to human government, and whether that government is a monarchy, a some form of totalitarian government, a dictatorship, an empire, whether a democracy or a republic, there is always an individual or a group of individuals who are the final authority. Then the individual nations are accountable once again to God. And the nations will be held accountable and there will be a judgment of the nations at the great white throne judgment. So each divine institution has embedded within it an authority structure.
9) Accountability has to do with either cursing or blessing. This is a major theme in Genesis, that if man is responsible then he will be blessed—if he is obedient to God—and if he disobeys God with reference to the mandate in Genesis 2:17 then there will be cursing and spiritual death which will hinder man in fulfilling his responsibilities.
All that introduces us to the first divine institution, human responsibility. When you have human responsibility, when someone understands the nature of responsibility and grows up, matures, and demonstrates responsible behavior, then this is going to strengthen the marriage, strengthen the family, it strengthens human government and it strengthens the nation. But when there is a nation that fails to understand responsibility and accountability it destroys marriage, destroys family, destroys government, and will ultimately destroy the nation. It sets up the domino effect. That is why it is so crucial for parents to teach responsibility and to have consistent accountability with their children as they are growing up.
Each of these of these institutions is under incredible assault today. There are all kinds of attacks on human responsibility from humanistic psychology—it’s not my fault, it’s my parents’ fault, society’s fault, the education system’s fault, or somebody mistreated me and it’s their fault. It is never my fault that I make bad decisions, it is somebody else’s fault, and so psychology comes along with its sister sociology and they have presented a two-fold frontal assault against personal responsibility and accountability in our society. Marriage is under assault today and one of the reasons is because we’ve allowed the world to redefine marriage. The world has redefined marriage as a loving relationship between two people. That is not how the bible defines marriage. Marriage in the Bible is a relationship between a man and a woman to fulfill certain responsibilities under the authority of God. The Bible never presents marriage in terms of a loving relationship and this idea of dating and courtship and finding somebody you fall in love with, finding a soul mate, and all of that. This is not to put it down but it is not the picture you get in Scripture. In Scripture you have people who have arranged marriages throughout. For example, Mary and Joseph, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, etc. This is not a situation where love and romantic love is the foundation of the institution, that is a human viewpoint concept.
The bottom line to all the other divine institutions is human responsibility. But part of that includes fulfilling responsibility, and in the garden there wasn’t just the responsibility of not eating the fruit—that is the only mandate that carried with it a penalty—there was the positive mandate of working the garden and guarding the garden.
We need to address the issue of labor and how God views it. This is very important because Christians in history have done some thinking about how God views labor. They have done some confused thinking about God and labor and produced some rather odd economic theories as a result.
Labor
The first picture we see of God in the Scripture is a craftsman, a laborer who is creating. In Genesis chapter one He is fashioning the universe. He is the arch-laborer.
Later on we see that Jesus labors, and we talk about the work of Christ on the cross. We reap the benefits of His work. Salvation isn’t free; somebody paid the price.
God labored six days, we see, in Genesis and then He rested for one day, and that sets a pattern that is embedded in creation.
In human history man generally divides labor into two categories: toil and leisure. Toil is what you must do to survive, whereas leisure work is optional. Leisure work is
work that you would do even if you didn’t have to work.
God portrays labor as a function of the divine image and creativity. He uses the image of a laborer many times to represent Himself. From the very beginning we see
this picture of creating or being a craftsman as something that is viewed positively.
God glorifies the laborer by using the images of a laborer to convey His own plans and work. For example, in Psalm 8:3, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy
fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained . . .” God’s creative work is compared to the work of a craftsman who is taking painstaking efforts over his
work. He is also portrayed in the Old Testament as a potter, someone who is getting his fingers dirty, someone who is messing with the clay. God is viewed as a
shepherd. In the ancient world the shepherd was viewed as the bottom rung of the work ladder. Nothing was disdained more. He is husbandman who trims the vine.
Jesus was a carpenter. So the bible does not see manual labor as something that is beneath man, something that is demeaning, but God glorifies the work of a physical
laborer by using their work to picture His own work.
We see that God’s labor in creation involves thought and planning. Psalm 33:6, “By the word [implying thought and reason]of the LORD were the heavens made.”
God worked, not because He had to but as an expression of His own creativity. The application there is that in our own work we ought to think of it as an opportunity to
put our own stamp of creativity on it. This is something that we make, something that we should take some ownership in, some responsibility for.
When we look at those six days not only does God create because He wants to as an expression of His nature but there is a certain pattern there. He sets a pattern of
creating the universe in six days. He doesn’t do it all at once, though He could have done it in a split second.
At the end of each day God “saw that it was good.” He evaluates His work and takes satisfaction in it. The application here is that we should take satisfaction in our
own work.
God’s creative labor tells us something about His character. Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork.” We learn
something about God and His character by observing what he has brought forth through His labor. The same thing is true for us.
Man’s Labor: Man’s labor is derivative because He is the creature. He is in the image of God; he is a reflection of God.
1) Man was created to exercise dominion (That’s labor) and to rule the earth, Genesis 1:26, 28.
2) When the fall occurs it destroys man’s ability to completely fulfill this dominion mandate. Man is still involved in that but he is never going to be able to fulfill the mandate as a sinner. This is part of why Jesus Christ came. He is called the Son of Man, and as the Son of Man Jesus Christ ultimately will fulfill that dominion mandate: He will rule. 1 Corinthians 15:24, 25, “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.” So Jesus Christ fulfills the dominion mandate.
3) In Genesis chapter one we see the mandate that man is to rule over all of nature, that he is to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over the creatures of the sea, the sky and the field. The specifics of that are then spelled out in 2:15 where man is to work the garden and to guard it.
4) Another example of man exercising dominion is given in 2:19. “And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.” There are a number of things going on in that passage but the point is, Adam isn’t working. He has to do a lot of mental work, he has to observe all of the different animals, he has to note their characteristics, he has to categorize and classify the animals. This is the starting point of human knowledge, to take what God has provided and then begin to develop it, to learn about it. So even in an unfallen state man would continue to learn about the environment to bring it under dominion.
5) Our observation from Genesis 1:26, 28 is that the earth without man is not fruitful. It is man who is to bring forth fruit on the earth, he is not to leave it in a natural state. That runs completely counter to the human viewpoint thinking of modern environmentalists. That is because they are rooted in paganism and not Christianity.
In Genesis chapter three we have the fall and that radically changes the nature of labor. Up to this point labor is positive, beneficial, something that man enjoys. There is
complete harmony between man and his environment. But after the fall there is disharmony, antagonism and difficulty. Genesis 3:17-19, “And unto Adam he said,
Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for
thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of
thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
Scientists have identified six different kinds of sweat and different kinds of sweat glands. We will deal with three of them. There is the kind of sweat most of us think
about, and that is, thermoregulatory sweat. That is perspiration designed to cool the skin and keep the body at the right temperature. There are thermoregulatory sweat
glands in various places on the body, but not in the arm pits, for example. There is also emotional sweat, a different kind of sweat gland, and that we have under the
armpits. Then there is mental sweat, and when we are under the mental stress it produces activity in a different sweat gland and those are on the soles of the feet and
the palms of the hands. It is interesting that there is only one place on the human body that has all of the sweat glands, and that is the forehead. In the Hebrew it doesn’t
say “in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread,” but “in the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread.” It has to do with mental toil, physical toil, and heat discomfort.
Labor as such is not renovated until Jesus Christ comes back. But in the Church Age believers are given a certain amount of injunction as to their view of work.
Colossians 3:22-24, “Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God: and
whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.”
This is addressed to slaves. We are not slaves, and it is an a fortiori argument. If slaves were to have this attitude, then we should have this attitude.
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027b-Responsible Labor
The divine institution of marriage, Genesis 2:18: “And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” The first thing that we note is that it is Yaweh Elohim speaking here, and to the Jew who is reading this, this is a reminder that this is the same LORD God who has entered into covenant and contract with Israel at Sinai. This God has the best interests of man at heart and He says that it is not good that the male should be alone. The first thing He notes here is that it is not good. This is why this word tob, good, is not a moral good. Some want to argue that “very good” necessarily excludes evil. Their argument is that Satan hasn’t fallen yet. But one of the problems is that if good has a moral context to it then it is immoral for man to be single, because God is saying it is not good for man to be alone. So that shows the logical fallacy in treating tob as a word that has an inherent moral connotation. It does not. What God is saying here is that it doesn’t fit His plan or purpose, or how He designed man. This is half way through the sixth day, so it is not good, it is not according to plan for man to be alone. He needs to make a helper for him. Then we come to a word that the feminists just grind their teeth over, the Hebrew word etzer, which means to be a helper, an assistant, to be someone who would come alongside the man and help him achieve the goal that God set for him. “Male and female He created them,” both are created in the image of God. So together they represent the image of in exercising dominion over the planet. The plan is that the man is the one who has the vocation and it is the female who is to come alongside and be the helper.
Being a helper is an extremely high position. We live in a culture where if you are the number two person then you just aren’t as important. The feminist philosophy has picked this up to make women think that if they are a helper then somehow this is a low position, and that they are somehow being devalued as a human being and as an individual, and are nothing more than a slave and a servant. This accusation has theological implications. For example, Psalm 33:20, “Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he is our help and our shield.” God is our etzer, so if somehow being an etzer is being in a second class position then you are making a statement about God, that that is a second class thing for God to do. Psalm 70:5, “But I am poor and needy: make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help [etzer] and my deliverer; O LORD, make no tarrying.” Psalm 115:9, “O Israel, trust thou in the LORD: he is their help [etzer] and their shield.” Then in Exodus 18:4, “And the name of the other was Eliezer; for the God of my father, said he, was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh,” where the name Eliezer is from the Hebrew word for God [El]; the “i” is the first person common singular suffix, meaning mine—so “My God”; and then ezer is help: “My God is my help.” Again and again God is referred to as a help, so this is a very high view. In fact, when Jesus came at the first advent He said, “I cam not to be served, but to serve, and to give my life as a ransom for many.” So the very image of Christ as a redeemer is the image of an ezer, someone coming to give help, to give assistance, so that man can be what God intended him to be. So in the marriage you have a corporation where the man is the one who is the leader. How a woman helps her husband be successful is that they seek to exercise dominion in whatever sphere God has put them in, and this is a function of her creativity where she is reflecting her being in the image of God and her exercising creativity in that arena.
In marriage what we see is a situation today where the man and the woman do not have a real plan as to why they get married. The picture that we se in Scripture is that the man needs to identify his calling before the woman marries him because she needs to discover whether or not help him achieve the calling that God has given him. Furthermore, the man needs to recognize that he has a responsibility to take care of the home and the family. For example, Proverbs 24:27, “Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house.” This is an injunction in Proverbs to men to first establish their work and a financial basis for the family, and then build the home in terms of getting married and having children. What happens today and puts incredible pressure on marriages is that couples get married too soon, the man doesn’t know what he wants to do, forces the wife to get out and work full time; they never get themselves established and it ends up often coming back to haunt both of them in the marriage.
We see a pattern developing in Genesis 2:19ff. “And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.” God has a purpose for this. In v. 18 God recognized that it wasn’t good for man to be alone, but this hadn’t dawned on Adam yet. So before God creates the woman He is going to cause Adam to recognize that there is a need there for the woman. So the first thing God does is take the beasts of the field, the domesticatable beasts, not the wild beasts and every category of animal that is found in Genesis chapter one. It would seem that the order of creation on that day is first the beasts of the earth, then Adam, then the beasts of the field, then the woman. God brings these animals to Adam “to see what he would call them.” This is a function of Adam’s creativity as the image of God. He has to do the observation; God is not going to tell him what to call the animals. We don’t have divine guidance here. There are many areas in life where we don’t have divine guidance. God is not going to tell you, “This is how you cut the grass,” or “This is how you pay your bills.” God leaves many things open to you to exercise your volition and to function in the realm of creativity. The test isn’t so much what you decide to do as how you decide to do it. They are both part of the package. The names Adam gave to each would say something about the nature of that creature. Verses 20, “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field.” Notice it is all the domesticatable kinds that were in the garden, not every single kind of animal on the planet.
“ …but for Adam there was not found an help [etzer] corresponding to him.” There is no comparable, corresponding pattern, so Adam recognizes that he is alone. All the other animals have pairs. It is at this point that God has prepared Adam for the next act, v. 21, “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs.” The word here for ribs is the Hebrew word tzelah which doesn’t really mean rib, it means side. The is the only time in about twenty-five places in the Old Testament that it is translated rib. It has to do with bone and flesh that is taken, which it must be because Adam will say that this is “bone of my bone and flesh of my flash.” So it is not just talking out bone, it is taking out flesh, the muscle, everything that went with it, and from that God fashions the woman.
Verse 22, “And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.” Literally, the LORD God built from the rib [side] a woman.” The word there is banah, the fourth Hebrew word now for creation—He built the woman, He fashioned her from the rib. Many have noted the symbolic value that He takes the woman from the side of the man. He doesn’t take her from the head, indicating superiority, or from the feet, indicating that she would be in a place of servitude, but from his side because she is going to be serving side by side as together they exercise dominion over the plant. They are to be a partnership, a team, and like on any team there is one who is the primary leader and the other who is the follower or the helper. That is the situation with Adam and Isha.
Verse 23, “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh [Hebrew idiom for the fact that she is one with him]: she shall be called Woman [Ishah], because she was taken out of Man [Ish].”
Verse 24, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Adam doesn’t say this, he doesn’t have a concept of father and mother yet. This is typical in Genesis where Moses who is writing to Jews makes application. It is an editorial comment by Moses under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so he is teaching the Jews about the origin of man and the origin of marriage. And notice it is the male who leaves, not the female. Here the Hebrew word which has the idea not simply of sexual union, although that is definitely part of the word, but has the idea of a full union with the woman as they become one together, spiritually, psychologically and physically.
Verse 25 really sets the stage for the next chapter. “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” They are naked, they are exposed, they are not ashamed because with no sin or sin nature and therefore do not have a comprehension of all the evil things that can come from perverted sex. So there is no embarrassment over this, no shame. They are open, they are vulnerable, and there is no sense of danger, no sense of being taken advantage of. This is going to be in contrast to what happens in the next chapter, because in 3:1, “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.” The word for “naked” and the word for “cunning” are words that are very similar and so there is a definite word play in the Hebrew which is set up by this contrast: they are naked, and in contrast to them being unashamed and open we now see the villain work his way on to the scene in chapter three.
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028b-Temptation and Fall. Gen 2:25-3:7
When we get into the story of the temptation and the fall in Genesis chapter three there is clearly a human viewpoint approach to the study of this section. Human viewpoint approaches usually want to relegate this to some form of myth and that it was written simply to explain how certain things came to be in history, how animals came to be a certain way, perhaps why people wear clothes. It is basically thought of as just a story and there is no real history here. However, if we take the time to compare what is said here in just seven short verses with, for example, a myth such as Pandora’s Box, which was a Greek myth used to teach about the origin of evil, we see that there are certain elements in myths that are similar to all the different myths, whether and ancient near eastern myth, an Asian myth or Greek myth. There is a certain amount of fantastic information there that just goes beyond credibility, whereas when we look at the biblical story of the fall and the introduction of evil into the human race it is a very concise episode. The Holy Spirit always uses an economy of words and doesn’t get into a lot of extraneous detail that would satisfy the curiosity of most of us. Another attempt is to sort of spiritualize the story, once again rejecting the fact that it would be a literal historical event, and thinking that is was merely representational. At this point all kinds of odd explanations come to play. For example, one writer would say that there is no real serpent and that this is a literary device to explain what is going on inside of Eve’s head. Also the allegorical approach is predominant, especially in Roman Catholic theology where it really isn’t literal, it just represents sexual knowledge. Embedded in that is the idea that somehow sex is inherently evil, and then once they discovered sex then everything went downhill from there. All of that refuses to take the Scriptures as a literal, historical event that took place approximately four of five thousand years before Christ.
In chapter two there is really a shift that takes place between verse 24 and verse 25. The chapter break should come in verse 25. There we read that the man and his wife were naked and not ashamed. The reason we make the paragraph break between v. 24 and v. 25 is one the basis of vocabulary. We have the word “naked” which in the Hebrew simply means to be naked, but the word is repeated in chapter three verse seven. There we discover that the word is not only repeated but now is a source of disgrace and shame and exposure and guilt. This forms what is called an inclusio, the Latin term, or the Greek term epanadiposis. They both have the same idea, i.e. the repetition of a word or a phrase at the beginning of a section and at the end of a section. That is what would be called in the army, bracketing, and that basically circles the topic, and by repeating material at the beginning and at the end it emphasizes the material that comes in between. So it forms an inclusio here from Genesis 2:25 to 3:7, and that becomes the main section.
The emphasis in chapter two as we have seen is on the perfect environment created by God. Thus when we come to chapter three and we see the fall we realize that it can’t be blamed on insufficient information. That is a sub-theme in this whole section: the sufficiency of God and the rejection of God’s sufficiency. The fall can only be blamed on the personal choice of the individuals involved. And thus even though it is not written as an explanation of evil it does give an answer as to how evil entered into the world. God created everything good, it was man who mucked everything up by making a disobedient and rebellious decision. At the beginning there is a complete openness, and innocency, and in a sense almost naivety when it comes to evil. There is no awareness of the evil that can come from sexual manipulation and sexual distortion. So they are naked and not ashamed. The word “ashamed” is the Hebrew word bosh, and it means to fall into disgrace through failure. It has the idea of a sense of guilt over failure as well as the ideas of confusion, dismay and embarrassment. So none of these things are present here, there is nothing but pure optimism and hope. Everything is positively good. The man and the woman are not created neutral, they are created with the positive righteousness of God because they are created in His image. However, it is an untested righteousness. The test is whether or not they will follow God’s instructions related to the prohibition of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When we look at this beginning we see in 2:25 that they are both “naked,” arummim, which is a plural form of a cognate noun as the word we run into in 3:1 describing the serpent. The serpent is the craftiest or wiliest creature of the beasts of the field that God created. The words “craftiest” or “wiliest” is the Hebrew word arum, so obviously writer is making a point here, he has a pun going here to draw our attention to the fact that man as created is unashamed, there is integrity in both the man and the woman, and yet the serpent, when he comes along, by this play on words the author is indicating that it is this very integrity of the creature that is going to be the target of the serpent. What we see in this section is that man moves from the innocent, uncorrupted nakedness to vulnerable shameful nakedness. He moves from integrity as one created in the untarnished image of God to guilt and the corruption of that image of God. This is one of the most dramatic stories in all of Scripture and it is covered in such sparseness that we have to take some time to develop what happens. It is great drama and it is told with tremendous finesse.
Verse 1, “Now the serpent.” The structure of the grammar here at the beginning uses the Hebrew conjunction waw plus a noun, which is always a disjunctive idea. So it is bringing out a contrast, and the contrast is with that which is before: the naked man and woman who have integrity and were unashamed are contrasted with the serpent who is more cunning. The word there for serpent is the Hebrew word nachash, the normal word for serpent or snake but it also has some other interesting uses. For example, Isaiah 27:1, “In that day the LORD with his severe and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the fleeing serpent, even leviathan that twisted serpent; and he shall slay the reptile that is in the sea.” This isn’t the normal serpent, so when we think of nachash and the serpent or the snake in the garden there are a couple of things we need to pay attention to. First, this is used to describe a mighty sea creature that in many passages in the KJV was translated as a dragon. This is a huge dinosaur type of creature, so it is a huge reptilian creature that is pictured also in Revelation 12:9, “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan”—the judgment on the devil and Satan who is pictured as a dragon is the fulfillment of Isaiah 27:1. In Hebrew imagery they reach back into their past and pick up this early Israelite myth that did not have anything to do with Scripture and used that imagery of Leviathan in his struggle and revolt against God, and so the Leviathan becomes a picture of Satan. All of the ancient peoples had a mythology where they have in their creation mythology a revolt of the sea against their god or gods. This revolt of the sea—this is why the sea was always pictured as uncontrolled. Back in Genesis 1:2 when we talked about the Spirit of God hovering over the depths. That word always has this negative connotation of uncontrolled, rebellious sea, the salt sea. And there is no salt sea in the future creation. Mythology always has some sort of remnant memory of what truly happened. It doesn’t tell us what happened, but these ancient mythologies are corrupt, corroded versions of what had actually happened. So embedded in these ancient legends is the idea that there is this primeval revolt among the gods, which is comparable to the angels, and this revolt is led by a creature called Leviathan. This Leviathan is not a simple snake but more like a dragon type of creature. So when we look at this we think about what kind of creature this is in the garden and we think that it is nachash, but it is not just a simple serpent, it is much more than that because there are other references to this creature that have him as a much larger creature and more dynamic role. But whether he is small or large we can’t tell, nevertheless the serpent is the symbol and the picture of the one that led the revolt against God in eternity past.
This creature is said to be arum, more cunning, crafty or subtle. That indicates that the knowledge that the serpent had was insightful when it came to watching the woman. So he doesn’t just show up on creation day plus one, he sits back and observes. He has been observing the relationship between the woman and the man and has decided on the most effective course of action. Their weakness is their naivety, their ignorance of good and evil—remember that good and evil here is not a contrast between good versus evil. The word here is not talking about righteousness but good in terms of human good and evil in terms of sin. The word “evil” can also be applied in some places in Scripture to that which appears to be good but is really destructive. In many places in the Old Testament the word “evil” relates to that which is sinful—and their unawareness of their vulnerability and how they can be taken advantage of, and they are unaware of the consequences of sin, evil and rebellion. So the use of the cognate here is to focus the mind of the reader on the target: the integrity of the man. And the serpent decides that the woman is the most likely target of success.
The next thing we see here is that the serpent is more cunning than any beast of the field. If we go back to Genesis 1:24, 25 it talks about God creating the beasts of the earth. Then in chapter two when on the sixth day when God created Adam and then brought forth the beasts of the field there is a contrast. The beasts of the field is a term that relates to the domesticatable animals that exist in the garden. For example, there are sheep in the garden. The beasts of the field indicates that this serpent lived in the garden, and that this was a domesticatable animal and had some sort of regular concourse with Adam and Isha. This suggests that this is why there was no real surprise when it started talking. We know that certain changes took place after the fall. One of those obvious physiological changes was that the serpent was to crawl on its scuts. Furthermore, it seems that the serpent had some vocal ability in some sense, or maybe this happens rather early and caught the woman off guard, we don’t know. That is just one of the enigmas in the passage. But the serpent speaks because it is indwelt by Satan.
As for the identification of the serpent, God does give us a clue as to how this started in two chapters in the Old Testament: Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. Ezekiel 28:1ff, “The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus,” and the first part of this funeral dirge is in reference to the prince of Tyre. But there is a change in verse 12 which is a second part of this dirge: “Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus.” We know for extra-biblical data that there was a leader in Tyre, but the king of Tyre is really the power behind the throne, because the things that are said of the king of Tyre could never be said of any human king, especially any human king in Tyre. This passage is coming under a tremendous amount of attack today by all kinds of liberals and it is beginning to influence a number of evangelicals. Unfortunately several of the more recent study Bibles argue that this cannot and does not refer to the fall of Satan. The problem is that even though various scholars make the contention that this is basically a borrowing of some basic Canaanite or near eastern myth no ancient Canaanite or near eastern myth has ever been discovered that even comes close to what is mentioned in this passage. In other words, it is just a rejection of what the Word indicates. And if you take this out of the Scriptures it has damaging theological consequences because it opens the Bible up to an eternal dualism, because if this doesn’t tell us about the origin of sin in the universe then nowhere do we have anything telling us about the origin of sin or evil in the universe and so there is nothing to indicate that it had a beginning anywhere.
We see here that this king of Tyre was the seal of perfection. That was never said anywhere of any human being. “…full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.” The adjectives here just mount up, describing the perfection of this creature. Verse 13, “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God.” This is not talking about the Eden of Genesis chapter two, this is talking about the Eden that existed on the earth prior to Genesis 1:2, because the description of Eden here doesn’t match the Eden of Genesis two. “…every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.” If we were a Jew reading this the imagery that would come into our head would be a picture of the high priest and the breastplate, the ephod of the high priest, which had the precious and semi-precious stones on it. The Jewish high priest had twelve stones on the ephod for each of the twelve tribes and there are only nine stones mentioned here. Furthermore, there is a reference to the musical ability of this creature in the last part of v. 13. Verses 14, 15, “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth [covers the throne of God]; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.” It repeats this idea of sunless perfection, that this cannot be a human king. Verse 16, “By the abundance of thy trading they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.” Tye was a major center for commerce and trade and so this uses that imagery that apparently this creature (Lucifer before the fall) traded on his influence. And the idea that he was the anointed cherub indicates something about a priestly role, and apparently we derive from this text (we can’t be dogmatic) he had some sort of priestly function in relationship to the angels. And instead of receiving the worship for God he wanted all of that worship for himself. And so verse 17, “Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.” That relates to his judgment.
The details of that sin, his heart being lifted up, are in Isaiah chapter fourteen which is a prophecy of the future fall of the king of Babylon. Think about this. Isaiah 14 is written in the seventh century BC, but it is looking forward to an event when this king is going to be judged. This actually takes place at the second coming of Christ. So the vantage point is looking to the future, but it is looking to a point in the future that looks back on the immediate judgment that just took place on this king. Verse 12, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer…” The word is not Lucifer in the original, that comes from the concept of light. The Hebrew word has the idea of bright and morning star. “… son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” When did he weaken the nations? All through human history, culminating in their final weakness during the Tribulation period. Notice it is past tense, it is over with. Verses 13, 14, “For thou hast said in thine heart.” So it is looking at this time and reflecting back on the original fall. “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God [the angels]: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation [i.e. to rule over the assembly of the angels], in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds [the glory of God]; I will be like the most High.” These five “I wills” summarize Satan’s arrogance and his fall. The conclusion: v.15, “Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the lowest depths of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms.” So it is looking forward to the time of his judgment and realizing that when he is judged people will look at him and ridicule him and wonder how they could have been misled by this creature.
So this is the origin of Satan, the origin of sin in the universe, and man is created to resolve the angelic conflict. After Satan fell he took one third of the angels with him. Those angels went with him in revolt against God, and eventually God judged those angels. In that judgment Satan challenged the integrity of God. We don’t have specific scripture on that but we infer it from the fact that it is in Genesis chapter three that the serpent challenges the integrity of God. This seem to be his modus operandi throughout history: to challenge and attack the integrity of God and the goodness of God. And along with that Satan wants to prove that he, the creature, can successfully rule creation apart from the creator. So God in grace is demonstrating that the creature cannot live independently from the creator, and that when the creature does that there is always destruction. It doesn’t matter what the creature does. It may not be a sin of any consequence. It may be an act that no one would classify as something that is moral or immoral. Eating a piece of fruit is not on your list of immoral actions, but it was an act of disobedience to God, the creature exerting his independence from God that is the source of all the sin, suffering, death, misery, warfare, horror, famine that we see. It comes from the creature acting independently from God. We think that it is just a minor thing, and we look at what happened in Genesis three as if it was some minor thing that they eat this fruit, but look at what God has to do to reverse the consequences. He has to send His Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for sin. He has to go through thousands of years of earth’s history in order to bring about the resolution of the consequences of their actions in chapter three. So God has created man in order to demonstrate His grace, to demonstrate His integrity, to demonstrate through human history that the creature cannot live independently from the creator. God works things out and allows things to develop through the course of human history so that every possible permutation of creaturely independence is going to be demonstrated to be fallacious. God is going to show that it never works under any circumstances or under any condition.
He allows Satan to test the creature and the serpent takes first assault on the woman and he does it in an extremely subtle manner. He is not going to go for that head-on frontal assault but he is going to carefully address the subject. The question that he asks is, “Hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” He doesn’t say God is wrong but by the way he forms the question he is suggesting that somehow God is leaving something out, that somehow there is something good that God is withholding from the creature. By raising the question, Has God said? the serpent is challenging the integrity of God. But there is something that is more insidious about this approach. By asking the question this way he immediately puts the woman in a position of judging God. If she falls for the question she puts herself in a position that is going to predetermine her defeat. God has said one thing, the absolute value. That absolute value is that if they eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil there will be certain death. The serpent is going to come along and say no death. So there are competing truth claims. What the serpent is saying to the woman is, You need to be the one to decide who is true. By buying into the question she is elevating herself to a position where she, the creature, is going to determine whether God’s statement has ultimate value or the serpent’s statement has ultimate value. It’s like answering the question: Have you stopped beating your wife yet? However she answers this question she is in trouble. The solution is to turn her back on the serpent and to walk away. But by answering the serpent she has already put herself into a trap that can go in no other direction other than to culminate in her eating the fruit, because she is elevating herself into the position of judging the veracity of God’s statement.
In verse two we see the beginning of her answer. “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden.” But notice she is leaving things out. God didn’t say they could just eat from the trees of the garden, He said they could eat from all the trees in the garden except one. She is leaving out that qualification of all. She is beginning to diminish what God has said. She is deluding the Word of God. “But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” God didn’t say that. God said, “You shall not eat it,” but when she quotes God, not only does she add something about not touching it but she also misstates the severity of the prohibition. When she says, You shall not eat it, she reduces the significance of that, it is not stated in as strong a prohibition as God originally stated it. She diminishes it by adding the phrase “lest you die.” By changing the consequences from You shall certainly die to Lest you die, she weakens the penalty. Her statement backs off the absoluteness of the penalty just a little bit. So the changes that she makes dilutes God’s Word and weakens the mandate. But the serpent gets it right when he responds to her.
Verse 4, “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.” In the Hebrew there is the negative plus an infinitive construct plus an imperfect tense verb. The normal way to write this in Hebrew is to put the negative between the infinitive construct and the imperfect tense verb. God said, “You will certainly die” and He used that phrase of that infinitive construct plus the imperfect, and so rather than break that up by putting the negative before that phrase the serpent is making an extremely strong statement that God is wrong, that He said you will certainly die and I’m saying you will not certainly die. So he changes up the grammar in order to make sure that the point is made that he is 180 degrees opposite the statement of God. He is opposing what God said. So the serpent accurately states the penalty but he rejects it, he says it is not real. This is all part of the ongoing lie that man wants to buy into, that there are no consequences to disobedience, that we are going to get away with sin, that God is going to wink at sin, is not going to see our sin, and somehow we are going to get away with it. Furthermore, the serpent goes on from a simple rejection of what God said to an explanation that impugns the integrity of God, v. 5: “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” In other words, God’s real motive is so you won’t have everything He has, He is being selfish, He is not good, He doesn’t have your best interests at heart, He has lied to you about the penalty, the only thing that is going to happen to you is that you are going to become like God. An so he holds out the temptation of the promise of divinity. This idea for the creature to be like God is this same temptation that he fell into. He wanted to be like God, and the irony here is that the woman who, like the man, is supposed to exercise dominion over these creatures is now going to be led by this subordinate animal to get to deity. She has just had the wool pulled over her eyes.
It is furthermore an attack on the sufficiency of God’s provision. He didn’t tell you everything you needed to know, He left some really important facts out. That is how Satan has always attacked the Word of God. There is always an assault on the Word of God. First there is an assault on its integrity and it is always followed by an assault on its sufficiency. We have seen that in the 19th and 20th centuries. There has been a tremendous assault on the integrity of God’s Word. For example, it’s not infallible, it’s not inerrant, and liberal theology has made its statements and these have seeped into conservative evangelical theology. But even when conservatives stood up for the inerrancy and infallibility of God’s Word where they lost it was on the doctrine of sufficiency. They lost it because science comes along and says it’s great to tell us about the origins, the Bible is great to tell us about the cross and salvation, great to tell us about our spiritual life, but from science we know all of this information and so we can have a better understanding of origins from science and we don’t have to pay attention to what the Bible says about science. So we lost the battle of sufficiency. Then it went to sociology, and sociology has its roots at the same time period as evolution. And sociology comes along and says man can understand its social relationships and marriage and families and cities and countries much better without paying attention to what the Bible says. The bible is just antiquated information, you don’t need to pay attention to the Bible, it has nothing to do with social organization or social structures. Then we have psychology. Psychology comes along and says you ought to understand behavior problems and why you do the things they way you do them, and you don’t need to pay attention to the Bible. The Bible isn’t sufficient, it just tells you about spiritual things, not about the soul. And if you want to know about the soul then you come to psychology. All of this is evil; all of this is deceptive; all of this is an attack on the sufficiency of Scripture which is an indirect attack on the integrity of God. When people buy into Darwinistic evolution or any compromise on the literal six-day, twenty-four-hour creation of Genesis chapter one, when they buy into sociology, and into psychology, then they are completely immersed in the devil’s thinking and they are under the control of the cosmic system. They are operating in the field of good and evil.
In verse 6 we see the woman’s response. She begins to really look on this fruit, it is attractive. “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”
We need to pay attention to a couple of words here. The first word is the word “pleasant.” This is a word in the Hebrew which has a basic meaning of that which is pleasing or pleasant, to have a longing for something, something that is desirous, and something that one would lust after. This word is used in the context of the Mosaic law in Deuteronomy 5:21, “Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour's.” The second word is the word “desirable” which is translated “covet” in Deuteronomy 5, which joins both of these words together. And if you were a Jew reading this account that the woman looks on the tree and she sees it pleasant and desirable, the words that you would hear in Hebrew are words that speak of being covetous and lustful in the Mosaic law. We miss so much in the English! The writer is using these words in such a sophisticated manner as he writes the episode in Genesis chapter three. The second word is the word desirable. This is the Hebrew word chamad which means to lust, to covet or to desire. This word is also used in Exodus 20:17, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.” So as she looks on the tree she begins to lust and covert, and this automatically culminates in eating the fruit. Now this whole action really is viewed as one action. Nothing is a sin yet, but once she starts down the road it’s an irreversible process and once she begins to think that she can evaluate God it’s going to automatically culminate in her disobedience to the divine prohibition.
Notice how the writer ends this. It is very rapid. She took, the fruit, she ate, she gave her husband, and he ate. He wraps it up very quickly and very succinctly, there is no drawing out of the details. Many people look at this and try to interpret it in some sort of allegorical manner. But we should observe how the New Testament handles it. The New Testament does not look at this in an allegorical manner. We see how Paul handles it in many places but one in particular is 1 Timothy 2:12-14, “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” Paul is giving instructions on how the church should conduct itself in the first century and his explanation isn’t grounded in 1st century attitudes towards the sexes. He goes back to creation. Paul in the New Testament builds sex relationships, the relationships between the two sexes on a literal understanding of Genesis chapters two and three.
Then verse 7 gives us the consequences of the disobedience. “And the eyes of them both were opened.” This is spiritual death. They were to die immediately. They didn’t die physically but they died spiritually. “… and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” Now there is exposure, there is guilt, there is disgrace, there is shame, and they have to cover it up. Notice that God hasn’t shown up yet and they are already having to cover up the problem. They are immediately exposed and they try to solve it on their own terms. This is man’s problem, he doesn’t understand the ultimate issue is always spiritual. The human solution is always a failure. Adam and Eve tried to solve their problem by sewing fig leaves together and covering themselves. That never works. This is the picture of human good. There is nothing sinful in what they are doing but it is an inadequate, farcical solution to the problem. The human solution is never a solution, the only solution is the divine solution. The only solution is a complete and accurate understanding of the Word of God and an unshakeable trust in the integrity of God. It is only on this basis that man, the creature, can live as God intended.
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029b-Confrontation and Consequences
We now see God’s uncovering of the sin and disclosure of that sin in verse 8. “And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.” At this point we see God coming to confront Adam and Isha. The term “in the cool of the day” is not accurate. In fact, it is an extremely odd Hebrew idiom which is used this one time only in the Scriptures and literally it has the idea “in trhe spirit of the day” and it is an idiom for the afternoon time. And it is a reminder that God had warned the man that if he ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in that day he would surely die. The emphasis that the author wants us to see here is that it is in the afternoon of the very day where they have disobeyed God and eaten from the fruit of the tree. The term “walking” is not really an anthropomorphism at this point. This would be the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ who clearly has certain appearances in the Old Testament where He has a pre-incarnate form, and this form is that of a man. We call these theophanies. A theophany is an appearance of God. We know that God the Father never appears to anyone in the Old Testament—John 1:17, that is the role of the second person of the Trinity, God the Son. As the man and the woman hear the sound of Him coming they hide. We are not told at this point why they hide. There is a drama, a certain tension that is being built in the narrative. This should leave the reader asking the question as to why they are hiding.
What we see here is a physical demonstration of what takes place in every single human being in Romans chapter one. This is the confrontation of a holy and righteous God and what happens when a holy and righteous God confronts mankind who is –R. When Adam was created he was created as a perfect image and likeness of God. He is a representative of God, thus he possessed at creation perfect righteousness and there is perfect rapport between God and man. The instant he ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he died spiritually. He lost that perfect righteousness and his relationship with God was severed. This is the thrust of Genesis 2:17. There are a number of Christians who do not make this distinction clear enough in their understanding of what happens. They think that physical death is the penalty for sin. We have to read the text very carefully here to notice that physical death is not the judgment for sin. There is a judicial penalty that is outlined in Genesis 2:17, and that judicial penalty takes place at the instant that they disobey God. They don’t die physically at that instant. The penalty of sin went instantly into effect and we see its consequences here, that the sinner has an orientation of arrogance and of autonomy of asserting his own independence from God. Autonomy means self-law [a)utoj = self; nomoj = law]. So he has this double facet to his nature and the result of that is that he is constitutionally oriented toward rebellion.
The New Testament describes this in Romans chapter one. Verses 18ff is a section where Paul begins to outline the historical outworking of God’s condemnation of the human race. It is focusing on a judicial aspect. This is the key to understanding all of Romans. Romans is talking about righteousness, about man’s lack of righteousness and about how God’s solves the problem of man’s righteousness by imputing righteousness. But at the very beginning Paul sets up Romans is a very logical order. He first lays down the case that man fails to come up with God’s righteousness and all of the human race, Gentile and Jew alike, are under the condemnation of God’s justice because man has failed to live up to God’s righteous standards. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” There is a certain amount of discussion among theologians as to the nature of the verb “suppress.” There are those who are in the Calvinisitic and hyper-Calvinistic camp who take that as a gnomic tense—a universal truth that applies at all times in all ways to everybody. If that is true, then who suppressed the truth in unrighteousness means that all mankind always suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. But if you take this as a historical situation, and we think it is—it is a summary of mankind’s rejection of God and God’s judgment on them, and what happened is that God revealed His judgment against unrighteousness and ungodliness in the Old Testament in either this period before the flood or after the flood and it was against the men who suppressed the truth in unrighteousness. Then the phrase “who suppressed the truth in unrighteousness” is an adjectival participle describing the men. What kind of men does God reveal His wrath against? It is men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. But nevertheless, this is the tendency or the trend of fallen man, to suppress the truth. This is their action. We see this from day one with Adam. As soon as God begins to walk in the garden, what does Adam do? He suppresses the truth about himself. He wants to hide the truth, he wants to cover up the truth, he doesn’t want to expose himself—now that he realizes he is naked and vulnerable and exposed morally before a righteous God—he wants to hide. So the way that suppression reveals itself in Adam is he wants to hide from God and, as we will see, he wants to come up with his own solution to cover up the problem. So Romans 1:18 describes the action of Genesis 3:9. Man is trying to construct his own understanding of reality. This is the orientation of the human fallen mind. It tries to reconstruct reality according to its own fallen standards. So that when Adam sins he now lives in a fallen world. The instant he sinned the entire universe changed because there is this ripple effect from his spiritual decision.
As a result of that ripple effect he is now living in a different world than he was two seconds earlier. It is now a fallen world and rather than being under the authority of God and interpreting the world under the authority of God and the revelation of God, Adam now wants to reinterpret the world on his own terms, not listening to God but determining everything and its relationship to him on its own terms. That is the orientation of arrogance.
“ … among the trees of the garden.” Every time the author repeats that phrase what he is doing is bringing back to out minds that this is where the problem occurred. They violated God’s commandment in relationship to one tree in the garden.
Verse 9, the confrontation. “And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?” Notice that God doesn’t call to the woman. The prohibition is originally given to the man, the man is the one who is responsible as the head of the race. This is where we are going to build our doctrine of what is called the federal headship of Adam. Adam is our federal head because he is the designated responsible party and his decision is viewed as our decision. Some think this to be unfair, but the omniscience of God knew that if we were placed in that garden we would have made the same decision that Adam made. When Adam falls the entire human race also falls. He is not simply related to the race federally, he is also related to the human race seminally. The word seminal has to do with seed. He is biologically related to everyone.
Now God is not ignorant of where Adam is. God is omniscient and knows exactly where Adam is. He is really asking the question along the lines of, Where are you and why are you where you are? He is emphasizing the “where?” God wants Adam to focus on his position hiding out there in the trees. So the emphasis here is not to find out where he is but why he is where he is. This is clear from the way Adam answers. What Adam does in his answer in verse 10 is to explain why he is where he is. “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” There is a lot in that verse. What Adam realizes as soon as he hears God is that he is afraid. The response of fallen man to God is fear, and that fear is related to condemnation. He knows at the very core of his person that he is condemned. Romans chapter one elucidates this: vv. 18, 19, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them.” In other words, there is an eternal knowledge of God. God has revealed to every human being the reality of His existence. Verse 20, 21, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” This is exactly what happens to Adam. He becomes futile, empty in his thinking. He is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. He knows God exists but he is trying to act as if God doesn’t exist. He is hiding from God, but how can he hide from an omniscient God. So he is afraid, and this fear is related to condemnation. He knows he is under condemnation and he is guilty of violating God’s prohibition. He is afraid because he is naked, arum. The nakedness indicates he is vulnerable and he is exposed. What has exposed him is that he is –R, he lack righteousness, and he is afraid of condemnation.
1 John 4:17, 18, “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” The context of 1 John 4 goes back to an understanding of the warning in 1 John 2:28. What happens at the coming of Christ? Judgment, the judgment seat of Christ for believers. So the context is talking about being prepared for that evaluation judgment. In 1 John 4 the writer is contrasting fear and love. What is the fear here? The fear is the sort of existential fear that every human being has when confronted with the perfect righteousness of God. As a result of the unrighteous fallen man being confronted with the perfect righteousness of God there is terror, fear deep in the core of the soul. So man is trying to run around and cover this up and camouflage it with everything he can so that he doesn’t have to face the fact that on a day to day basis God has condemned him. This is why man works so strenuously to come up with alternative explanations of creation, of origins, of who and what man is, to cover up this deep existential terror in the soul because he knows God exists and he knows he is condemned. The only thing that is going to get rid of that is for the believer to mature in love. That starts at the cross and extends through spiritual growth. The believer who has matured in love knows that when he stands before the judgment seat of Christ there will be no need to be afraid because there will be no sense of shame. He has grown and matured as a believer and produced gold, silver, and precious stones under the filling of God the Holy Spirit.
Genesis 3:11, God’s response. “And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” In the Hebrew the word order is switched around for emphasis. The emphasis comes at the beginning of the sentence, “from the tree that I commanded you that you should not eat, have you eaten?” That is the question. The focus is on the tree and on the act of disobedience. God doesn’t dance around the issue, He just comes right out and confronts the man. There is mention of the verb to eat in verse 11, and it is there twice. Then again in verse 12 the man is going to answer and utilize the verb “ate.” The woman is going to use the verb “ate” in v. 13, and then in v. 14 when God announces the judgment on the serpent, the serpent is going to be told that he will eat dust. So there is this repetition at least four of five times of the verb which means to eat to remind us of the fact that the sin was eating. So the sin that plunged the whole human race into condemnation and judgment was just a simple little act, but it was an act of disobedience.
The man’s response is the first indication of how mankind wants to handle his responsibility and accountability to God when it comes to sin. Verse 12, “And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” His answer is very short and to the point but he manages to blame both the woman and God. He is developing a skill right off the bat. Notice how he didn’t have to learn this. It is the natural inclination of the fallen creature to shift blame and to avoid responsibility. This is a violation of the first divine institution—human responsibility and accountability. As a result of that fallen man has a natural orientation to avoid accountability and responsibility.
Verse 13, “And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” The question does not suggest that God didn’t know what the woman had done. What He is really saying is, What in the world have you done? Do you realize the significance of what you have done? Then the woman answers and she is already learning from the man that you don’t take responsibility, you just blame someone else, so she blames the serpent. Both of them have admitted that they ate but they want to ignore any kind of responsibility for this. This shows that there is a difference in the culpability of the woman and the culpability of the man. She is deceived but he went into it with his eyes open. This is picked up by the apostle Paul in 1 Timothy. The New Testament treats this as something that literally happened, it isn’t some mythology or something developed to explain then origin of man and the origin of evil. 1 Timothy 2:8-15 gives Paul’s instructions as to how males and females are to function in the corporate worship of the local church. This is an extremely controversial passage but it is only controversial if you don’t like what it says. In v. 12 Paul says, “But I do not permit a woman to teach, or to have authority over the man, but to be in silence.” There is all kinds of gymnastics going on today to try to explain this away. Actually, the way it is constructed in the Greek is that the two infinitives, to teach and to have authority, are separated at different ends of the sentence. That means you can’t mix them up, you can’t say that one modifies the other. What Paul actually says is, “To teach, I do not permit a woman or to have authority.” So the emphasis is on the first infinitive of the verb which is on reaching. He makes it very clear that he doesn’t allow a woman to teach the Scripture. The “over a man” modifies the second infinitive authority. The way it comes across in the English is as if teaching and authority both relate to “over a man.” But the way it is structured in the Greek is teaching is one thing and authority over a man is a second thing. What about Titus? It doesn’t say in Titus that older women teach younger women. It says older women are to teach younger women to love their husbands, to be good workers in the home, to love their children. In other words, the context of the teaching is a one-on-one mentoring of older women to younger women to teach them how to be good wives and mothers and how to take care of the house. But the focus, the content of the teaching, in Titus one is teaching related to domestic responsibilities. So Paul goes on to give his reason, his rationale, for why he doesn’t allow women to teach or to have authority over a man. V. 13, “For Adam was first formed, then Eve.” He goes right back to creation and the order of creation. Then he says, “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression.” The idea in the deception is not just the fact that the serpent sort of pulled the wool over her eyes and said she wasn’t going to really die and she was going to be like God, but the woman came out from under her God-ordained authority and made the decision independently of the man. By removing herself from his authority she was putting herself in a position of vulnerability and deception. Verses 8-13, then, describe the confrontation from God and God’s exposure of the fact that man is a sinner and has fallen.
In verse 14 we come to the next section where God outlines the consequences of the fall. This section is commonly referred to as the curse, and because we get sloppy in our terminology we talk about this as the curse as if there were three stages to the curse: the first stage being to the serpent, the second to the woman, and the third to the man. But the word “curse” is only used in relationship to the serpent. This is really more of a sense of a divine oracle. What God is doing here is giving the consequences of their action. He is outlining how the universe has changed as a result of man’s decision to disobey Him. The reason this point is made is that there is a difference between the judicial penalty of sin and the consequences of sin. Physical birth is not mentioned until verse 19. There are a number of other consequences that are listed in this section. One of those is that the woman will have pain in childbirth. That is not a penalty for sin. Jesus did not pay that penalty on the cross; He did not go into labor. We are told in v.17 that the ground is cursed (second mention of the word “curse”), “ … cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.” So there is going to be toil. The penalty for sin is what was outlined in Genesis 2:17, and that was “in the day that you eat from it you shall certainly die.” So we have a judicial penalty there and these are consequences, and that has tremendous implications for what happened on the cross. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, between twelve noon and 3pm there is darkness on the face of the earth, and it is during that time that Jesus Christ is judged for the sins of the world. He pays that spiritual death penalty. But physical death is a consequence, the greatest consequence of sin, and the reason we go through so much pain when a loved one dies is because we were not designed to go through that. That is a result of the fall. Every time somebody dies and we go through that pain it is a reminder of the fact that this is not the way God intended it.
The first thing that we see when we look at the outline of this curse is that the animal kingdom is addressed. But it is not just the animal kingdom. Romans 8:18, 19, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.” Here Paul is talking about creation as a whole, what we would call nature—the created world, geology, biology, all the stars, everythjng in creation. Then he explains what he means by that in v. 20. “For creation was subjected to futility” – not just mankind. The consequences of sin reverberate through the impersonal creation; “not willingly [i.e. it doesn’t have its own volition], but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.” God brought consequences on creation in hope, that is, looking forward to what would eventually take place in reversing that judgment. V. 21, “Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” If it is going to be delivered from the bondage of corruption that means it is already corrupted. So all of creation, the physical universe, is corrupted. “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” Adam’s sin did not affect just Adam or just Adam and Isha, just the human race, it affects the entire universe. It changed the laws of physics. Everything is moving from a state of order to disorder.
We see in Genesis 3:14 that biology is affected. “And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” The serpent is cursed more so than the other animals, so that means the other animals are cursed also. That means that there is judgment there and therefore consequences. There is a change and animals that were grass eaters now become meat eaters. There was development through three or four generations, not instantly, and what that shows us is that God built into the DNA structure of all the plants and animals a certain flexibility to handle the chaos that is going to come from sin. So there is not a rigidity there, there is a framework or boundary line—animals still stay in their kind—but now there is chaos, a disruption and deterioration. So there are consequences to the animals, but specifically upon the serpent. “…upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.” This is not a literal statement, although we think of it that way because the serpent crawls along the ground and whatever he kills he eats right there on the ground, but actually the phrase “eat dust” is a metaphor for defeat in Scripture. It is used in Psalm 72:9, for example. “They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.” Isaiah 49:23, “And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet.” Other passages like Micah 7:17; Isaiah 65:25 also indicate some of these ideas as eating dust as being symbolic of judgment.
Verse 15, the first mention of the gospel. There is the conflict here between the serpent’s seed and the woman’s seed. It is very unusual to talk about seed, Heb. Zere, and this has to do with physical seed which is normally produced by the male. Here we have a conflict between the serpent’s seed and we know that in eschatology and prophecy this is fulfilled in the Antichrist, the son of perdition, versus the woman’s seed which is Jesus Christ. And in this concept of the woman’s seed there is just a hint of the virgin birth. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head [fatal wound], and thou shalt bruise his heel.” This indicates some sort of wound on Jesus Christ which is conquered by His physical resurrection, but it would not be a fatal wound. The wound to the Antichrist would be a fatal wound. Ultimately in history evil will be resolved. The evil that starts in the human race as a result of the serpent’s temptation is ultimately going to be judged and isolated in the lake of fire.
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030b-The Consequences of the Fall. Gen 3:14-24
What is very important is to understand is that human sin does not just affect the human race, it affects all of creation. All of nature is transformed as a result of Adam’s sin. The other corollary principle to this is that any sin that we commit has reverberating consequences far beyond our comprehension even though we may not immediately perceive those consequences. Remember that the sin that Adam and Eve committed was not a sin of gross immorality, of violence, of perversion, not a sin that any of us normally think of as great and gross sins. It was the simple act of eating a piece of fruit but the act itself was in disobedience to the command of God. So sin is ultimately defined as any thought, word or deed that violates the character of God. So their sin has some impact on all of creation.
Verse 16, “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” We now advance to the consequences to the woman. The translation makes it sound that there are two things here: “I will multiply your sorrow and your conception.” The NASB translates it more accurately: “I will greatly multiply your sorrow (or, pain) in your conception.” But we need to understand this concept of multiplication. This is the Hebrew verb rabah which means to increase or to multiply. It could even have the meaning of intensify. It may or may not suggest that there would already be pain with labor, but we suggest that it does not imply that. The idea here is not so much pain, it would already be this. But there would now be an intensified pain associated with child bearing. The word translated “sorrow” is the Hebrew word itztzebon, and this noun is only used three times in the Hebrew Old Testament. It can be translated as sorrow, toil, labor, hardship, difficulty. The main idea of the root verb is the idea of either physical or emotional sorrow and toil. It can refer to mental discomfort of physical discomfort. It can refer to anguish, and sometimes to sorrow or even anger. So the main idea in this word group is of something that is difficult, painful, unpleasant, either physical or mental, but it is definitely indicating something that was not there before because they were in perfect environment. So now the woman is told that there is going to be a curse related to the process of childbearing.
Remember that in the original mandates of Genesis 1:27, 27, the man and the woman were told that they were going to rule over nature. And what they are just indicating is that nature is now going to be changed because of sin. Now we are going to see that there is also another curse or consequence related to childbearing. When we use the word “curse” it is not this kind of mystical, magical witchcraft sense where I’m putting a curse on someone. A curse in the Bible simply refers to negative, harsh judgment; the evil consequences from an action. God doesn’t put a curse on man like we see in some fables or myths. This is expressing the consequences of sin throughout history. So whereas in perfect environment the man and the woman were to be fruitful and multiply and have many children, now there is going to be labor, hardship, sorrow, toil, associated with giving birth. It doesn’t mean they aren’t still engaged in that initial mandate from God but the problem is it is now toilsome, it is difficult. There will be pain and sorrow associated with the attempt to overcome it. Then we think also of what happens in the eternal state, that there will be no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain, for the old things will be done away with. There will be a reversal of this in the eternal state.
In the Hebrew we have, “I will greatly multiply your sorrow in your conception.” There are two nouns linked together by a conjunction and they are not two separate things, they are the same thing, so there is an intensification of toil or labor or pain in the pregnancy. Literally, the word translated “conception” here is the Hebrew word haran, and this indicates not simply conception, although it may be limited to that in some passages, it is also used in a number of passages to indicate the entire pregnancy. So what this passage is saying is, “I will intensify your pain in your pregnancy.” Then we have in the development of the thought in the parallelism of the next phrase the word “in pain” again, and this time it picks up another form of that noun, a cognate noun etzev, which is the root concept. There is a thread that runs through here and that is the idea of pain, toil, and difficulty. This is the same word that we will find in v. 16 and down in v.17, “in toil.” So there is clearly a theme running through here that sin not only brought the spiritual death consequences but it also brought misery and toil and pain into human existence. The Bible clearly explains that God did not create the world this way, He created the world perfect but He gave man volition. Man abused his responsibility and used his volition in a wrong way, and because of man’s wrong choices he brought misery and toil and pain and hardship into existence. So secondly, “in pain you shall give birth to children.” This is not indicating that she is just now being able to have children. That would indicate that children are a part of the curse, and throughout the Bible the theme is that children are a blessing. The psalmist says, “Blessed is the man who has many children.”
So we have the idea here of negative consequences associated with fulfilling that original mandate to be fruitful and to multiply. That is the first problem, so the woman is going to really have three problems. As a result of her part in the sin her first problem is that there is going to be pain and toil associated with giving birth. The second problem is that she is going to enter into an authority conflict with the male. This is the beginning of the war of the sexes. It says that her desire shall be for her husband. You may have been taught here in the past that the desire here is a sexual desire, and there are many men who in arrogance think that somehow their wife should be all hot for their body and they try to go to this passage to try to intimidate their wife into thinking that they should have this strong sexual desire for them. And there are a number of commentaries that have supported that over the years. The problem is that there are several different words for desire and lust in Scripture and this is not one that relates to physical or sexual desire. This is the Hebrew word teshuqah and it is used only three times in the Bible. It is used twice in Genesis and once in the Song of Solomon. One rule in any kind of Bible study is that the way a word is used by the same author in the same time period takes precedence over a word that is used by another author in another kind of literature in another generation. The Song of Solomon uses this word in order to get a parallel for love, but three things are important to note. First of all, Song of Solomon is written probably 2000 years later. So this is not a word that Moses would have originated as much as a word that could have gone back into antiquity. But, let’s say Moses under inspiration of the Holy Spirit coins this word or uses it in his time, in roughly 1400 BC, so that is still 5-600 years before Solomon. Words change over a period of time. So it is a different time period, a different author, and a different type of literature. Song of Solomon is romantic poetry and this is not. All of those factors affect words.
But we do have a parallel use of this word in Genesis 4:7 by the very same author. The situation in Genesis 4:7 is that Cain has been angered by God’s acceptance of Abel’s offering. God confronts him with his sin in v. 6 and says to him, “Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And its desire is for you, and thou shalt rule over him.” There is that word “desire” again and it is the same word that we have in Genesis 3:16. It is a desire to control, a desire to dominate. What we see in the context of Genesis 3:14-19 is a list of negative consequences for sin. If this is not a negative consequence, if this is physical desire or sexual desire in a positive sense then it is the only positive result of sin. We really don’t want to follow that to its logical conclusion because that would have a damaging influence on how we understood the role and influence of sex. That would somehow diminish it. So ti is excluded not only by word study but it is excluded by context. Context argues for something negative. So the woman is told that she would have a desire to rule, to control, to dominate her husband. And in contrast he is going to want to rule over here. This is the Hebrew word mashal which means to rule and to dominate, and it has the connotation in many passages of a tyrannical use of authority. So there we see that man and woman in their raw sin nature state are in a condition of warfare. The woman wants to run the house, the man wants to dominate her. There is only one thing that turns that around and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ, regeneration and then spiritual growth. That is what changes this, but this desire is the natural orientation. The reverse is seen in Ephesians chapter 5:22 where the wife is told to submit to her husband and the husband is told to love the wife as Christ loved the church. If you don’t put that in context with Genesis 3:15 you won’t understand it. The woman is told to submit to her husband because her basic problem is that she wants to run the husband. The husband is told to love the wife as Christ loved the church, i.e. as a servant, because his basic orientation is to tyrannize the wife. Apart from the grace of God and apart from Bible doctrine that is exactly the way every marriage is going to go because of the orientation of the sin nature.
Now let’s look at the man, v. 17. “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” God makes sure that Adam understands the issue. Notice He did not explain the why in terms of either the serpent or the woman because they weren’t the determinative decision. The determinative decision was made by Adam as the head of the race. God explains to Adam that if he hadn’t listened to his wife—and the idiom here is the idea of obeying the voice of his wife, there was a reversal that took place in authority in the fall. The woman, instead of exercising dominion over the serpent, listened to the serpent; the man, instead of exercising authority over his wife, listened to the wife. In the whole conglomeration of the events surrounding the fall there was a role reversal and an authority reversal. That is why there is such a problem with authority subsequent to the fall. There was authority before the fall.
“Cursed is the ground for your sake.” Before, the ground was blessed. He was to serve in the garden. The garden was going to bring forth all manner of trees and food, sufficient for the man, but now the ground is cursed instead of the ground automatically bringing forth the bounty of the soil and all that would be necessary for his sustenance he now has to work for it. There is now toil, and this is the word itztzabon again, repeated to run this theme of labor, hardship, difficulty, anguish, discomfort, as the consequence of sin; “in toil you shall eat of it.” In other words, you will have to work for it. There were no thorns and thistles, no cactus in the original created state. Those plants developed as a result of the changes that occurred in botany due to Adam’s curse. In other words, nature itself is going to become an obstacle to man’s productivity and there will always be a struggle. ”You shall eat the herb of the field,” so man was a vegetarian at this stage. He is not a meat-eater until after the flood; “till you return to the ground,” and this is our first mention of physical death. Notice that we have seen a list of ten consequences to sin. If physical death is the penalty for sin, then all of those other nine consequences are the penalty for sin. When Jesus Christ went to the cross He did not go through labor, He did not deal with all of these other categories of consequences. He only is separated from the Father for three hours and between twelve noon and 3 pm God the Father pours out on Jesus Christ all the sins of the world, and He pays for them. When it was over with, to make sure we got the point, the apostle under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit uses this word twice in this form: tetelestai [tetelestai]. The duplication of the first syllable indicates that this is a perfect tense verb. The implication of the perfect tense is completed action. So John says, first of all when it was complete, when it was finished, he said, “I thirst.” So that ,means at the point of that verse whatever it was that Jesus was doing was completed before He said, “I thirst.” Completed action means the action is over and done with. The verb itself, TETELESTAI, means to bring to completion. So it is almost a redundancy to take a verb meaning completion and put it in the perfect tense, but it emphasizes the point that whatever Jesus Christ was doing on the cross was over and done with prior to the point where He said, “I thirst.” Everything Jesus Christ did for our salvation, then, was said before He said “I thirst.” He doesn’t die physically until after that, therefore the physical death had nothing to do with paying the price for sin. The physical death was not the redemptive factor on the cross, it was the spiritual death that occurred between 12-noon and 3pm when God the Father poured out the penalty for sin on Jesus Christ so that all sin was paid for at that point in time. Why does He die physically? To show that He conquers the greatest consequence of sin which is physical death and to show that through the resurrection that God had accepted that payment.
Verses 20, 21, Adam names his wife. He gives her a new name now because she is going to be the mother of all living. “And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” When they sinned they realized they were naked and tried to clothe themselves with fig leaves. That is what man tries to do with religion. All religions try to cover up the sin problem by man’s efforts. At some way man is trying to gain ultimate peace with God through his own efforts, through his own good deeds by trying to conform to some standard of morality. But what God says is that all of our works are as filthy rags. They are useless, they are worthless, they are no good, they don’t measure up to God’s standard. But God demands the standard of His own perfect righteousness and man can never make it. Therefore God provides the solution, just as God provided the solution for Adam and Eve by slaying animals. To get skins you have to kill the animal. In order to kill the animals you are going to shed blood. This is the beginning of that blood trail through the Old Testament that pictures the spiritual substitutionary death of Christ on the cross. Physical death, therefore, becomes a physical emblem or representation of what takes place in that unseen spiritual realm, the concept of spiritual death. So God provides the perfect solution to the problem and He made tunics of skins and He clothed them. Salvation is performed by God, it is not helped or aided by man. Man cannot help God. God does everything, that is what grace is all about. And this foreshadows what would take place at the cross, that Jesus Christ was called the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So that Adam and his wife accepting God’s provision indicate that they are saved. They understood the plan of salvation. God didn’t simply give them the tunics of skins, He explained the whole concept of salvation to them and He clothed them.
Verse 22, “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.” Here we have a conference between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Man wanted to be like God and he wanted to determine what was right and what was wrong, and now he has a conscience and has experienced good and now evil. Therefore man is expelled from the garden.
Verse 23, 24, “Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” What happens in these last three verses is that God recognizes that man, like God, knows good and evil, i.e. he has an awareness of that standard. Before the fall Adam in naivety had no awareness of either human good or evil. But (v. 22) God is aware of the existence of relative [human] good and of sin. He could have theoretically lived forever if he had eaten of the tree of life. That indicates again that physical death is not the penalty for sin. So God says he has to be kept from the tree of life and he was evicted and ejected from the garden. To prevent man from returning to the garden God establishes a new guard. Remember, man’s original task was to guard the garden. He was placed in the garden to serve God and to guard it, and now we have the cherubim placed on the east side of the garden with a flaming sword indicating judgment. Sword in the Bible always stands for judicial prerogatives.
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031b-Adam's Original Sin; Introduction
Review: Genesis 3:20, “And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.” Eve’s designation as the mother of all living indicates the unity of the human race. This indicates that there are no homo sapiens that are not descendants from Adam and Eve, and it indicates that there is one human race. This is important because in distinction from the angels there is a corporate unity in the human race. We will see the significance of this as we go on into some of the doctrines that need to be developed, i.e. the doctrine of the federal headship of Jesus Christ and the idea that there is one human race and we are all related to one another therefore because of the fact that there is one man whose sin affects all of us there is one man, the God-Man, who can die for all of us. Because of this unity of the human race God can provide perfect salvation. That wasn’t possible for the angels. Each angel was created individually, so there is no corporate unity among the angels, no procreation among the angels. So Eve is the mother of all living. This is further supported by Acts 17:26 where Paul said, “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.”
Another thing that flows out of Genesis 3:21 is the principle that there is a resolution to the shame problem. The reality was that Adam and Isha were both naked and not ashamed. Is the shame related to one another or is the shame related to the two of them in relationship to God? The end of chapter two points out that they were naked and not ashamed. The nakedness was not an exposure to one another. The shame was not related to other human beings, the shame has to do with God. Because when we come to Genesis 3:7, “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” The context indicates that the covering is designed to cover up their nakedness in relationship to God, not in relationship to each other. Because in verse 8 we read, “And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.” So they are trying to solve their problem through their own solution. Verse 10, “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Their nakedness there is directly related to their fear of God and their exposure of their relative righteousness before the perfect righteousness of God. So this puts a new slant on things, that this has to do with exposure of man’s inability, exposure of man’s unrighteousness, and exposure of his rebellion.
So God is going to provide a temporary solution to this problem in verse 21 where He makes garments for them of skins. Although this does not tell us specifically that He gave them instructions related to the sacrifice, that He gave them doctrine related to the shedding of blood as it is developed throughout the Scripture, the implication is nevertheless there because in order to make garments of skin there has to be the death of the animal. This verse points out that God provides a perfect solution whereas man’s solution was no solution. This is a constant theme throughout the Scripture; that man’s solution is no solution and the divine solution is the only solution, and that has implications for everything from salvation to solving problems in life. So this begins at the fall. All man’s problems began at the fall and all solutions must begin with the divine solution of salvation, otherwise they are nothing more than temporary fixes, just a patch, and it doesn’t work. So operation fig leaves was nothing more than an inadequate attempt to cover up a problem, and even though it had some temporary benefit it had no lasting benefit. A point that we have to understand is that human viewpoint often comes up with all kinds of workable solutions which seem to alleviate the pressure for a while but in the long run there is no adequate solution. In fact, all human viewpoint solutions end up creating more problems down the road than a divine viewpoint solution.
Then in verse 22, “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever…” Here we have a divine conversation again between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Yahweh Elohim is the speaker and it is believed that this refers to the second person of the Trinity; He is the one who reveals Himself. “The man has become” is a qal perfect tense the verb hayah in Hebrew, and the perfect tense (there is no present tense in the Hebrew, there is just the perfect tense and the imperfect tense) can be simple past, and it can also be perfective action which is completed action. We have to look at the context, and the context tells us that when God says that the man has become like one of us He is not simply saying the man became like one of us, simple past, but He is emphasizing the present and ongoing results of a completed action. That is perfective action. The action isn’t still going on, it is finished, and He is emphasizing the present results of a past action. When there is a perfective idea here it is emphasizing an action that is over and done with, it is not still going on. The present results are such that man is now in some sense like God, and that means in a sense radically different from being in the image and likeness of God. This is a degenerative state. He has become this way, it represents a change, so that excludes anything related to the meaning of image and likeness.
The first thing we have to ask is: What does this phrase “knowing good and evil” mean? Option one: it refers to human good and evil; option two: it refers to positive righteousness and evil, and that is saying that man was aware of positive righteousness before the fall and now he knows what sin is because he has had an experience with sin. So once again we are back to a conclusion that the knowing here is an experiential knowledge. But that is a problem. If this is experiential knowledge of sin then we have a problem because God is the one speaking here and He says the man has become “like us.” God does not have an experiential knowledge of evil. He has an awareness of evil; He knows what evil is by His own intuitive omniscience, but He does not have a personal experiential knowledge of evil. So we have to ask in what sense man knows good and evil as God knows good and evil. In what sense does man after the fall know good and evil in the same way that God knows good and evil throughout all eternity?
There are three basic ways that question can be answered. First of all, we have to understand that all of these come out of the general meaning of the Hebrew word yada. Yada has a lot of different meanings. It can mean to know through observation and experimentation; it can mean to know experientially; it can mean to know intimately; it can mean to know sexually. Sao let’s look at the options here. Basically what we are saying is that the first option is to know something experientially. We can eliminate that because God does not know evil experientially. The second option is that God knows something intellectually or through observation. For God that would be an eternal observation, omniscience, more of an academic intellectual simple cognitive awareness of what something is. Well that may be true but man’s knowledge of good and evil at this point is not a mere cognitive act, man is not simply aware intellectually of what sin is. He has sinned, he has an experiential knowledge of sin. So it can’t be restricted to a mere academic, intellectual or cognitive knowledge. The comparison indicates that the knowledge man now has is the same as the knowledge God has. So what this does is it eliminates completely the idea that good and evil stand for human good and sin, or even righteousness and sin. It has a different connotation here. What we have is resolved, we think, by the fact that we have in this statement a reconstruction where there is the preposition Lamedh attached to the infinitive construct of the verb yada, and in some case that indicates purpose but here it has more of a gerundive idea of knowing. But the context indicates the idea of determining what good and evil is, and this fits the context best. Because if we go back to the first part of the chapter the serpent comes along and says they won’t die, “your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be like gods, knowing good and evil.” The temptation is to be like God. And God is the ultimate determiner of what righteousness and evil are. It is God’s character that is the absolute measuring rod of all ethics, of morality, of fight and wrong in the universe. Man wants to be “like us.” Man wants to be the final authority in his life. He has rejected God’s authority: God doesn’t have the authority to say that this is right or wrong. Eve began to walk into that trap when the serpent asked the question: Has God really said? As soon as he asks that question she starts to look at that tree and think: How do we know He is right? How do we know that if we eat that it is going to be a harmful thing? She put herself in a position of judging the veracity of God’s prohibition. By yielding to the question, by even entertaining the question, Eve has put herself in the position where she is acting like God and is questioning God’s authority and His right to command and determine moral and ethical absolutes in the universe. So when we look at this phrase, what it means to become like God to know good and evil, it means to act as if you are God, being the final or ultimate reference point for values, morals and meaning in life. Once man put himself in that position he is acting like a little god and he is spiritually dead. He is divorced from God and he has a new problem, separation from God and spiritual death. He is spiritually dead but still physically alive. God has announced that he will eventually return to dust, that physically he is in a position of deterioration and his body is subject to corruption.
He is going to die, but apparently there was one option available to man and that was the tree of life. Because of what God said, “lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever,” it would be possible for man in his deterioration and depravity to be corrupt and spiritually dead and yet to eat from the tree of life and go on living in a corrupt body that would be under condemnation and continue to deteriorate and to shrivel. So God guards them from this horrible fate and erects a guard at the gates of Eden, a cherub with a flaming sword who prevents man from being able to come to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:23, “Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.” The word for tilling here is the same word we have in the initial mandate to Adam, the Hebrew word abad, which means to work, or to cultivate. It can mean to serve or to worship, but here it is tied to cultivation so it has the connotation of manual labor. And then the conclusion in verse 24, “So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” Cherubs were always associated with the holiness of God, and so we see that the area of Eden is still the throne of God, the area of God’s presence on the earth, and so the cherubim is stationed there in order to protect the holiness and integrity of God. The implication of sword in Scripture is the power of life and death and governmental power. We think this implies that throughout the pre-flood period in the antediluvian dispensation that God’s presence is still on the earth and He is executing judgment. There is no provision for delegation of judicial power to man in that dispensation. The contention is that God is still mediating justice through the angels in the antediluvian world.
The importance of the historicity of Adam and the account of the fall
Is Adam viewed in the rest of Scripture as a historically existing individual? Or is he viewed as some sort of allegorical type or picture? The Scriptures consistently portray Adam and Eve and the story of the fall as a historical event, not as some allegory.
1) In Luke 3:38 Adam is listed along with all of the other historical figures in the genealogy of Christ. If Jesus doesn’t go all the way back to Adam then we can’t argue that He is truly human. Adam must be a historically existing individual if he is listed in the genealogy of Christ. The principle in Scripture is that if it just proven in one point it is proven completely.
2) In Romans 5:14 we are told that Adam is the source of spiritual death for the human race. This is represented in contrast to what Jesus Christ has provided for us in salvation. “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the type of him that was to come.” When the Scripture uses type [tupoj] it doesn’t mean he did not literally exist because the types all did literally exist but they were used to foreshadow or picture something. If Adam wasn’t a historical figure then the entire analogy between Adam and Christ and statement “from Adam to Moses” are rendered meaningless. Therefore to understand the fallen state of the race Adam must be a historically existing individual.
3) In 1 Corinthians 15:22 Paul refers to Adam in establishing the reality of the resurrection. So the conclusion is that if Adam wasn’t a genuine historically existing individual then there is no resurrection. The argument is that because of Adam’s decision physical death entered the human race (v. 21). This isn’t spiritual death, it is physical death because the subject is physical, bodily resurrection. Then in v. 45 of the same chapter we read, “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul [quote from Genesis 2:7]; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” Paul again draws a parallel and an analogy between the first Adam and the second Adam, and since the last Adam is a historically existing individual, the first Adam must be as well, otherwise the parallel breaks down.
4) The importance of marriage as a divine institution in then understanding of both marriage and divorce is built on a historically existing Adam and Eve, Matthew 19:1-6. Verse 4, in Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees, said: “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female.” That is from Genesis 1:26, 28.
5) In the New Testament there are a couple of passages that deal with the role of men and women in marriage and the role of men and women in the local church and the worship setting. 1 Corinthians 11:8, 9; 1 Timothy 2:8-14. In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul bases his whole argument for role distinctions in the public worship service of the church on the order of creation. Paul, like Jesus, quotes from Genesis chapters one and two and does not see a contradiction between the two accounts.
6) Conclusion: If the account in Genesis 1-3 is not historically accurate then there is no basis in the New Testament teaching for sin, salvation, bodily resurrection from the dead, marriage, family, or the distinct roles within marriage and the worship service in the New Testament church. That shows why creation is important. You can’t come along and just allegorize or mythologize the first eleven chapters of Genesis as if they are just some sort of morality play because everything that the New Testament teaches is predicated upon the historical accuracy and veracity of that account. If you do away with Genesis 1-11 you may as well do away with the cross, with Jesus, the deity of Jesus, the authority of Scripture. You basically destroy Christianity. That is why Genesis 1-3 is such a battleground, because the devil knows that if you destroy that you cut out the foundation for the rest of the Bible.
The impact of Adam’s original sin
1) The first point has to do with Adam’s loss of dominion. This is described in theology as original sin because it was the first sin, it was the sin that mattered. No one can commit any sin that has a billionth of the consequences of Adam’s sin. And all Adam did was eat a piece of fruit. Man is placed—Genesis 1:26-28—as God’s representative over creation. But when he sinned he abdicated his position to Satan, so that Satan became the ruler of the planet. For example, in Luke 4:6: “And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.” Jesus doesn’t dispute it. Furthermore, a couple of the titles that are ascribed to Satan indicate his authority over the planet: 2 Corinthians 4:4, he is called the god of this age; Ephesians 2:2, he is called the prince of the power of the air. Furthermore, he is the king of the kingdom of darkness into which we are all born. This again indicates his position of authority. In Acts 26:18 there is a prayer, with reference to Paul’s role as a Gentile missionary: “To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the dominion of Satan unto God.” The word for “dominion” there is the same concept that we have in Genesis 1:26-28. We are born in the dominion of Satan, and under his authority, his power. This is the same ideas presented in Colossians 1:13, “Who hath delivered us from the domain of darkness, and hath transferred us into the kingdom of his dear Son.” So there is the contrast between the kingdom or domain of darkness, the dominion of darkness, to the kingdom of His beloved Son. Even though we are still living in Satan’s domain we now have a different authority over us and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
2) Man is born in a state of spiritual death. Adam was created in a state where he was spiritually alive but all of his descendants are born in a state of spiritual death. We see this is Ephesians 2:1-3, “And you hath he quickened, even though you were dead in trespasses and sins: wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”
3) Man is born spiritually blind. 2 Corinthians 4:3, 4, “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” Man is blinded by the message and the ruler of the cosmic system. 1 John 5:19, “And we know that we are of God, and the whole world [cosmic system] lies in the power of the evil one.”
4) Man is condemned because of his relationship to Adam, not because of personal sins. That is one of the most difficult things for a lot of people to understand. You sin because you have a sin nature; you sin because you are a sinner. You are not a sinner because you sin; you were condemned because of your possession of the sin nature and the imputation of Adam’s original sin, not because of anything that you did. This goes back to an ancient heresy called Pelagianism which plagued the early church. Pelagius thought and taught that every person was born in the same state that Adam was created in; therefore we are all neutral, and we are condemned because of the decisions we make. And that has been clearly and correctly recognized as heresy since the fifth century AD. The reference point is Romans 5:12: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
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032b-Adam's Original Sin: Imputation
The doctrine of Adam’s original sin
1) The term “Adam’s original sin” refers to Adam’s first sin. It is not his whole life, it is the first sin he committed which was the sin of disobedience in eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was the issue. Throughout the Scriptures there is so much teaching about the impact of Adam’s sin, and it always treats Adam’s sin as a literal historical event. If that did not occur historically then it takes the foundation completely out from under what is taught in the New Testament regarding sin and salvation.
2) Adam was the designated head of the human race, and that is called federal or representative headship. That means that is was Adam’s sin and not the woman’s sin that is determinative. 1 Timothy 2:13, 14, “For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression.” So in some sense her sin is not as significant as his, first because he is the head, and second because she is deceived. Her sin did not impact the creation, it did not impact their progeny. It was not her sin that was determinative, it was Adam’s sin.
3) Federalism is the view that Adam is the representative of the entire human race. Therefore Adam’s decision would affect all of the human race. Adam’s decision was set up to be a representative decision so that whatever he decided, however he went, that would determine the course for the human race. If he passed the test and rejected the temptation and did not eat of the fruit if the tree of the knowledge of good and evil then all of his descendents would be born with positive, confirmed righteousness. If he failed the test, then all of his descendents would be born in corruption, in a world of suffering and spiritual death as well as physical death. Therefore when Adam sinned as humanity’s representative head the entire race fell. There are many examples in the Scripture of representative headship at work, where God designates a certain person as the head of the family or as the head of a people group, and their decision has ramifications that go down throughout all of history. For example, in Genesis chapter nine there is a curse announced by Noah on his grandson Canaan. Actually, it is his son Ham who violates Noah’s privacy, but when Noah pronounces a blessing and a curse on his sons that curse fell on Canaan. Canaan wasn’t even the one directly involved in the sin and it is actually his descendents on whom the curse falls. We can also say that the blessing on Japheth was one that didn’t actually go to Japheth himself, but went to all of the descendants of Japheth. Another example is with Esau and Jacob. When Esau sold his birthright to Jacob all of his descendants from the consequences of that as they were excluded from the blessing of the promise to Abraham and to Isaac. And again, the promise to Abraham is a promise of blessing to a representative head. The promise to Abraham was to all of his descendants. The principle in the federal headship of Adam is that God in His omniscience knew that any human being put in that same situation with Adam under any set of circumstances would end up committing the same sin eventually.
4) The other view, which has to do with the transmission of guilt, is called seminalism, which comes from the Latin word which means seed. The idea in seminalism, which was a view originally set forth by Augustine and also held by Calvin and Luther, is the view that all humanity participated physically in Adam’s sin, that the sin nature and the guilt of Adam’s sin was passed on physically through procreation. That is the idea of seminalism. It is not only the sin nature but also the guilt of Adam’s original sin were passed on physically through procreation. The biblical support for seminalism comes out of a passage in Hebrews—Hebrews 7:9, 10, “And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham. For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.” Levi was one of the sons of Jacob who later became known as Israel. Levi was the great grandson of Abraham, so there was quite a distance of time between them. Levi was not physically present when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, but what the writer of Hebrews says is that he was there seminally “in the loins of his father.” Therefore you can say that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek. So the argument is that this shows that there is a physical or genetic tie or connection that is passed down physically through procreation from one generation to the other. When the argument is looked at you have Romans 5:12 to support federalism and you have Hebrews 7:9, 10 to support seminalism. The fact is, there are elements of both that are true and so we have to refine our thinking a little bit. Remember that in federalism both the sin nature and Adam’s original sin are imputed on the basis of the representative principle. In seminalism the sin nature plus Adam’s original sin are passed on genetically. But the way both are true is that the sin nature is passed on genetically and Adam’s original sin on the basis of Adam’s federal headship, is then imputed to that sin nature. So there are elements on both that are true and this is how you put them together. Adam’s original sin is the result of the federal headship of Adam; seminalism is the result of the physical connection the sin nature is passed on genetically from father to the next generation.
5) Understanding how the elements of both are true. In seminalism we see that the sin nature is passed on genetically through procreation. On the male side every sperm cell in the human body contains 46 chromosomes which give the blueprint of who you are. Those chromosomes pass on the genetic physical aspect to the sin nature. Wee know this because the sin nature is referred to in Scripture with such terms as “flesh,” “body of sin,” an other terms indicating a physical dimension to the sin nature. When these chromosomes that contain this genetic corruption of the sin nature are passed on they go down through the male. The cell splits into two cells that have 23 chromosomes each, and then those two cells mature into two mature sperm cells. This is an operation called meiosis. Then on the female side there is an egg that is produced, and it starts off with 46 chromosomes but in the process of meiosis it throws off 23 chromosomes in what is called polar bodies, a process of cell purification, so that when it is ready for fertilization the egg has only 23 chromosomes and has been purified. So on the female side is a purified egg but on the male side nothing is lost and so there is still a sin nature. When the sperm cell fertilizes the egg then the sin nature is passed on from one generation to the next. This shows one of the reasons for the virgin birth. When the male side is removed at the virgin conception and the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, then what happens in the virgin conception is the Holy Spirit causes the egg to have parthenogenesis without benefit of the sin nature so that the product is one hundred per cent true humanity, minus a sin nature and minus Adam’s original sin. Because there is no sin nature there is no home for the assignment/imputation of Adam’s original sin. Therefore Jesus in His humanity is born without a sin nature and without the imputation of Adam’s original sin. He is born sinless or impeccable. That explains the seminalism side of the issue. It just deals with the physical transmission of the sin nature. On the federalism side where we see Adam as our designated head, his guilt is imputed to us, so that at the instant of birth we are born with a sin nature, and that sin nature is going to be the home to which God is going to impute Adam’s original sin—the legal (not emotional) guilt of Adam’s original sin.
The doctrine of imputations
There are two categories of imputation. The first is real imputations and the second is called judicial imputations. Real imputation is when the justice of God imputes under the principle of antecedence and affinity. What is imputed has an affinity, which is an agreement or a correspondence for that to which it is imputed. That means there is an affinity between Adam’s original sin on the one hand and its home which is the sin nature. They are like things, there is no discontinuity there. So there are two factors involved here: what is imputed from the justice of God, and the home or the target for the imputation. In terms of antecedence, that antecedence goes back to Adam’s original sin, the original fall, and the affinity is the agreement between Adam’s original sin and the sin nature. This makes it a real imputation.
There are four real imputations. The first is Adam’s original sin to the sin nature. The second type of real imputation is eternal life to the human spirit—there is an affinity there. The human spirit is that which the Holy Spirit creates and imparts to us at the instant of salvation, and that is what gives us the ability and understanding to relate to God. The third is blessings in time are imputed to our perfect righteousness. We have perfect righteousness imputed from a judicial imputation and blessings in time are imputed to that. Fourth, blessings in eternity are imputed to the resurrection body. So those four imputations are real—Adam’s original sin to the sin nature, eternal life to the human spirit, blessings in time to perfect righteousness, blessings in eternity to the resurrection body. Those are all real imputations because there is an affinity between what is imputed and its home.
Then we come to the second category of imputations, and these are judicial imputations. Judicial imputations take place where the justice of God imputes what is not antecedently one’s own and where there is no affinity. In other words, there is no preceding action of event in the one to whom something is judicially imputed which warrants that imputation. Therefore there is no affinity, no agreement or inherent similarity between what is imputed and the recipient. That becomes clear when we look at the two judicial imputations.
The first is personal sin to Christ on the cross. Jesus Christ was born without a sin nature. He never committed any act of personal sin. Therefore there is nothing in Christ, no antecedent action, nothing preceding the cross which has any affinity or correlation with sin. The point here is that when personal sins were imputed to Christ there was nothing in Christ that had any affinity to personal sin, or there was no action in the life of Christ which made a basis for that imputation. In the same way on the second type of imputation, which is perfect righteousness to the believer at the point of salvation, there is no affinity. The believer is born with a sin nature. He has three strikes against him: he has a sin nature; he has been imputed with Adam’s original sin; and he has personal sins. So there is no antecedent action of perfection in man to make him worthy of salvation. There is nothing in man that has affinity with perfect righteousness; therefore it is a judicial imputation.
So to go back to where we started, there are two ways of explaining the relationship of Adam’s sin to his descendants. These are called federalism and seminalism. To remember this, a key word for federalism is “representative”; a key word for seminal is “physical.” So that one is not physical and is going to be legal and the other is going to be physical and genetic. They both have elements of truth to them and they are both supported by passages in the Scripture. Therefore we can say that federalism deals with the imputation of Adam’s original sin and seminalism has to do with the genetic transmission of the sin nature. They way they come together is that at the instant of birth Adam’s original sin is imputed to the sin nature, and that is called a real imputation. The key passage for this is Romans 5:12, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and [spiritual] death by sin; and so death [spiritual] passed upon all men, for [this reason] all sinned.”
The “one man” of Romans 5:12 is Adam. Because of Adam’s decision sin entered into the world. Here we have the aorist active indicative of the verb EISERCHOMAI [e)iserxomai] which means to go into or to enter. This is a culminative aorist, it looks at the conclusion of a process, the completion of an action in past time, and that indicates that Adam’s sin entered the world at one time in human history. That is a completed action that happened when Adam sinned in Genesis chapter three. That sin ended the age of perfect environment, ended the first dispensation, violated God’s covenant which had been established with Adam, and plunged the human race into sin. Prior to the fall God’s love was the basis for man’s relationship with God and the foundation of his fellowship, but after Adam sinned the point of contact shifted from God’s love to God’s righteousness and justice. These had to be satisfied before God could save mankind.
All have sinned because spiritual death is the situation in man. This takes place because man is born with a genetically formed sin nature to which Adam’s original sin is imputed. The result of this is spiritual death. This occurs at the instant of birth. That explains man’s condition. The reason there is so much suffering in the world is because man is under condemnation. He is spiritually dead, separated from God, cannot understand divine things, and he does not understand the truth of God’s Word.
Romans 5:13, “For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” The point that Paul was addressing here is that there were many Jews who taught that it was the Mosaic law that condemned man, that because they failed to obey the law they were under condemnation. But the problem is that the Mosaic law doesn’t define sin, it is not the basis for condemnation, it exposes sin. All of the things defined as sin in the Mosaic law had been sin for 2000 years before the Mosaic law. It was a sin to commit murder in Genesis four, as we will see. So the Mosaic law doesn’t define sin, it is designed to expose sin in the life of the nation Israel. Romans 3:20, “ … by the law is the knowledge of sin.” The law was designed to expose man’s inability to live up to God’s righteous standards. Cf. Romans 7:7. The point of this, then, is that personal sin is not the basis for condemnation. We are not condemned because of what we do, we are condemned because of what Adam did. Condemnation is based on original sin. As a result of that we are born condemned, born a sinner.
The conclusion that we draw from all of this is that Adam’s sin is not just his sin. Adam’s sin is our sin, the sin of the entire human race. All of Adam’s descendants are born in a state of helplessness, hopelessness and under condemnation. They are born with a corruption. That means that there is nothing in any of us that allows us to do anything to merit salvation.
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033b-The Problem of Evil
We now want to look at the problem of evil, the problem of sin and death and suffering. How do we as believes handle this problem? This is considered by many non-Christians to be the Achilles heel, the weak point in Christianity. How can you as a Christian claim that you believe in a loving, good, righteous God and have all this horrible sin in the universe? This is the problem that plagues many, many people. We often address this from just a personal and more practical level. Usually the question about pain and suffering is couched within more personal experiential terms when somebody is in the midst of some horrible circumstance. They often ask, Why did God let this happen? Why did God cause this to happen to me? When a person asks you that question they are going to ask from one of two perspectives. One is from the framework of their own personal hurt. They are in a position of suffering and misery and they really are looking for answers. The other way is they are challenging you. How you handle the question really depends on being able to perceive where the person is coming from. Are they looking for an answer in the midst of their own personal pain or are they simply challenging you like, How can you as a Christian really believe in a loving, caring God when there is so much pain and misery in the world? That is the practical side of the question, but we can’t get in to the practical or experiential side of the question in answers to that question if we don’t deal with the more intellectual formation of the argument. It relates to the essence of God, primarily focusing on His righteousness, His love, and His omnipotence. Those are the three elements of God’s character that are really challenged.
Here is how the argument usually is structured. If God is good, then He must not be powerful enough to control all the evil, injustice and suffering in the world, since it continues. Or, if He is powerful enough to stop all this injustice and suffering then He must not really be a good God. The underlying argument here is an assumption that there is no overriding purpose great enough that would justify God to allow sin and suffering and evil to exist in the world. This whole question reveals that this problem is one of the most important problems raised by just about anybody at some point in their life, wondering why bad things happen to good people, or why bad things,, suffering or whatever, happens at all. But we must recognize, too, that the very fact that somebody raises this problem hints at the solution to the problem itself. The fact that people do not naturally accept a world full of injustice, suffering, disease and death, and say that shouldn’t happen, this ought not be the way it happens, then they are making a moral judgment. And that moral judgment contains within it a reference to some sort of universal absolute, some concept of a universal good that they are appealing to, and in that they are recognizing that despite the fact that they are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness they expressing the fact that it is not right, that something inside of them is testifying to the fact that this isn’t right.
The modern unbeliever recognizes that there is something irrational here, that they have to find meaning somewhere but they can’t just live as if there is meaningless existence, and yet on the other hand they can’t really come up with an answer to why there is suffering and pain in the world. So there is a certain level of outrage at the very existence of evil, and that is a clue that we can point out that they must have some standard of the way things ought to be and that there is some standard of goodness.
The problem of evil, of sin, pain and suffering is clearly recognized by the writers of Scripture. The Bible deals with the reality of evil in a way that is more real and genuine than modern writers. A modern writer who has rejected God, operating on atheism, operating on naturalistic presupposition, will talk about how there is evil and injustice in the world, but he can’t really talk about injustice to the extreme that a Christian can because it is so overwhelmingly pessimistic and depressive that he just can’t go there. So as believers, when we are dealing with someone who is presenting something more of an intellectual challenge to God and to Christianity can use that like Judo, when you use their momentum against them. The problem is better handle by turning it back on them.
The writers of Scripture clearly recognized the depth of the problem of sin and suffering. This is something that is real, we can’t just step past it and not emphasize it. Psalm 40:12, “For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.” Romans 8:22, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” Everywhere we look as a Christian we see evidence of this problem of sin and suffering and death. And only as a Christian do we have the answer for pain. The unbeliever says that there is no God but he constantly appeals to some sort of absolute through using words that are universal: “nobody should ever do that,” or “everything” or “all,” or “all/that values are relative.” Paul argues in Romans 2 that the very presence of the conscience, that there is a sense of right and wrong, is a sign that they understand that they are a fallen creature. That is evidence of their negative volition and their suppression of truth, and that is a point that we need to highlight.
There are always only two ways to answer questions about life: either the biblical viewpoint or human viewpoint. The Word of God expresses one consistent, harmonious answer from Genesis to Revelation. It touches everything in life. It gives us a philosophy of history, political theory, legal theory, ethics, basics for understanding economics and labor. The Bible talks about everything, it gives a framework for every area of thought. It is directed to man so that man can know how they can with a divine viewpoint approach to reality continue to exercise dominion over every aspect of creation. But the human viewpoint way is multifaceted, there are lots of different types of human viewpoint solutions. Even though human viewpoint may have different manifestations to it, it still expresses the same basic viewpoint that man is trying to explain reality apart from God, and he is suppressing the truth of God in unrighteousness, according to Romans 1:18ff.
We hope to show from here on into the next couple of classes that it is only the Christian God and the Christian view of sin and suffering and evil that will allow us to explain and understand the existence of evil. In fact, all of the alternative positions to position of a loving, omnipotent God controlling evil are difficult to live with. It is impossible to live with any of the alternatives. What we are going to see is that the only really adequate explanation for the existence of suffering is by postulating a God that is loving and a God who is omnipotent. That is the only way to explain it. So the way we want to approach this is by utilizing our strategy of trying to throw the issue back on the human viewpoint challenger rather than addressing the challenge head-on, which is: How can you believe in a God who allows all these things to happen? Let’s throw the question back at him and say: Assuming that you are right for the moment, how do you explain the existence of suffering and disease and pain and evil? By doing that we can help the unbeliever who is challenging us to understand about the reality of pain and suffering and evil and the fact that there is a loving, omnipotent God who will ultimately bring resolution to the problem. Every other solution to the problem ends up with some sort of hopeless, dark, depressing or pessimistic view of reality that people just can’t live with. That is why we live in a time when we have such a plague of drugs and alcoholism. People have been left hopeless without God and the only way to dull the pain is by pursuing drugs, entertainment, fun activities in life, anything to distract them from the emptiness of existence as it is described by modern thinkers.
To review what we have learned from the Bible so far
1) First of all we know that in the beginning we have an eternal, righteous God, and that the God of the Bible is distinct from any other god that is ever postulated by any human system. The God of the Bible is both personal and infinite. As a personal God He is able to have a relationship with each individual human being. As an infinite God in all of His perfections He is over and above everything in the creation. So he is able to rule the creation. Other terminology that is used to express this, synonymous with being a personal God, He is a God who is immanent. This means that God is present in every part of His creation all the time. He is involved in His creation in every aspect of His creation. It is the opposite of the idea of transcendence. Transcendence means that God is over and above and beyond everything in His creation. God is both immanent and transcendent, He is a personal, infinite God who stands over His creation. The implication from that is that God is in control ultimately of what is going on in human history. Jesus Christ controls human history.
2) We have learned that God created a perfect universe. He created this perfect universe initially in eternity past. In eternity past there was the initial universe inhabited only by the angels, and there was no sin.
3) Then there was the first fall, the fall among the angels, the fall of Lucifer that is described in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. Then there is a judgment on the universe, then God restores the universe, and there is a second creation or restoration that takes place. This is a perfect environment, and in some way God protects, ropes of this new restored creation so that there is no influence of sin or evil from the angelic fall on this new restoration. The only influence that is going to come is when Satan utilizes the serpent to tempt the woman. But this is a perfect environment that they are in. There is no evidence of any prior fall, no evidence of sin, no destruction, no disease, no death, there is nothing negative. It is an environment of absolute perfection.
4) The effects of the human fall transcend the human race. In Romans 8:22 we learn that the whole creation groans under the curse of sin, so that Adam’s decision to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil didn’t affect just the human race, it affected all of creation. It changed the dynamics of physical laws. It is at that point that suffering and disease and deterioration enter into all of the natural world. Furthermore, we have another clue in the Bible, in Revelation 22:3, “And there shall be no more curse.” What we learn from this is that sin and evil and disease and death and destruction are bounded in a biblical world view. They are limited, they are finite, there is a point where evil begins and there is a point where evil ends. There is a point where death and destruction begins; there is a point where death and destruction will end. There will be resolution to the problem.
The human viewpoint perspective as to how they explain the existence of evil: In the Babylonian creation myth, their creation epic which describes the early gods and goddesses, their interaction and how they created all of the universe and all of the living things on the earth. In that creation myth they are going to reveal how ancient man having rejected the truth of God is going to try to explain where evil came from. There is no mention of how pain began, it is just there from the beginning. What the text shows is that from the very beginning of the Babylonian conception of reality there is already pain and misery and chaos. It is interesting that in all of these ancient myths there are certain elements of truth which have survived. The evolutionary perspective of history is that religious beliefs were developing and they went through these primitive stages and they ultimately developed into a higher form of Judaism and then Christianity. But in the Bible, what there is is a deterioration, a decline. You start with the absolute and then as men are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness these myths often contain vague shadows and memories of the truth of Genesis.
In all of the ancient cosmogonies there is always something there in the past but there is no explanation of how it came into being. Furthermore there is no explanation of how evil or death or destruction comes into being. It is there from the beginning. There is pain, there is misery, there is warfare among the gods from the very beginning. There is no explanation of sin and evil. What that tells us is that in human viewpoint systems evil is eternal; it is natural. Sin and suffering don’t have a beginning, they are always there. If you stop and look at evolution, what is the basis for advance in evolutionary theory? Survival of the fittest. Survival implies struggle. Therefore if you are going to advance in the Darwinist evolutionary system there has to be struggle, there has to be survival. Survival means that something has to die and something will live. So disease, death and destruction are not only normative, they are the means for advance. And if you are going top be consistent as an evolutionist, as an atheist today you have to think that sin, suffering and disease is good. War is good, famine is good. You can’t go anywhere else with it, you are trapped by the logic of your own position. So in all human viewpoint approaches to evil when you are trying to deal with someone there is the need to put them in that trap and make them realize they don’t have the solution for evil. For them evil is normal, evil is unbounded, eternal.
The first conclusion that we have based on this is the idea that we see in the pagan/human viewpoint of evil is that evil is infinite, unresolved, normal and natural. It never ends. There is no basis, then, for making any sort of morality statement. There is no basis for making any sort of judgmental statement. If evil is normal, then how can you say it is not good. If evolution proceeds on the basis of suffering and disease and destruction, how can you say that is not good? You have to put the pagan in the position of realizing the tension of their belief. The unbeliever, the pagan, cannot live consistently on what he claims to believe. When it comes right down to it there is this tremendous discord in what he believes.
In contrast, the biblical view of evil is that evil has a beginning and an end. It is finite. It began by a decision by a creature, either Satan or Adam. It is resolved. There is ultimately judgment at the great white throne judgment where God is going to bring ultimate justice. If there is not justice in this life there will be justice in the future. Evil is judged and it is restricted and confined and punished to the lake of fire. And all sin, suffering and death is viewed not as normal but as abnormal. People know that inherently. As soon as they say it shouldn’t be that way they are affirming a biblical view, but they don’t have a right to say that. To even affirm something as being wrong means they are illegitimately buying into a Christian world view of absolutes.
The second conclusion is that when you look at the pagan view of evil—suffering and pain being eternal, normative and going on forever—is that this is the way things are, that I am not at fault when I commit a crime, when I sin, when I do evil things, because that is just the way the universe is. In other words, it is the basis for the ultimate rationale of victimization. Man did not originate sin. Sin and evil and destruction is not the result of a wrong moral choice, it is just the way things are in the universe. Therefore it is not my fault, it is the universe’s fault. It is just the way things are.
They come up with all kinds of justifications to avoid responsibility for sin, but the Bible says that man is responsible and sin does have a beginning. But there is a resolution because the sin problem was paid for by Christ on the cross. And it is because of that payment for sin on the cross that the curse will be rolled back on creation eventually, that there is going to be a complete resolution to the problem of sin and evil. In every unbelieving system there is no resolution, therefore you end up having to justify sin.
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034b-The Problem of Evil
A third category of paganism is mystical eastern religious paganism. In a lot of mystical eastern thought evil or suffering or sin is just an illusion, it is not reality. It is in the new age movement to some degree in places, that this isn’t the real world. We can even see some of this in Platonism, because Platonism thought that you have an ideal world which is where ultimate existence is and this world is just a shadow world, and so ultimate reality is somewhere else. They reduce evil; it is not real in some sense. In the eastern variety of thought, when you come along and say that evil doesn’t really exist, what have you done? You have trivialized it. It is not real, it’s just illusion. And when you come along and say that evil is normal you’ve also reduced it, it is not as significant, and you are not dealing with it as the Bible deals with it. One illustration of this in our modern world is the environmentalists who come along and in their thought man is the real enemy of the environment and man is really evil. So let’s think about this from the Christian perspective. Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and God explains the consequences of that in Genesis chapter three. It changed all of nature radically. So we say to the environmentalist, Yes, you’re right. Man is the cause of tremendous environmental disaster. But wait a minute, they don’t want to go that far. They want to blame man but they don’t want to take evil and sin to the same level of destructiveness that the Bible does. That is going way too far. So they diminish their understanding of the depths and the extremes of evil.
When evil becomes normal there is no longer a basis for distinguishing between good and evil, and anything goes. Furthermore, when sin is trivialized, when you start reducing the significance of sin and the impact of evil and its depth and depravity what also happens is you trivialize the need for salvation, and also the means of salvation. So man doesn’t really have a constitutional defect, he is not depraved through and through, needing a savior to die on the cross as a substitute; what man needs is just some help. He is not dead, he is sick. Now he can pull himself up by his own boot straps because he really doesn’t have the problem the bible says that he has. Also, when sin is trivialized, when you diminished the depths and depravity of sin and evil, then the need for sanctification is trivialized and the means for sanctification is trivialized. Man can do it himself, he can help himself out, he just has to perform some good works. So in human viewpoint what we see in our first observation is that evil is eternal. The implication of that is that evil is normal.
The second observation is that if evil is normal then we are all victims and man isn’t responsible because we are just products of our environment. And the environment is screwed up, it is just a natural thing, we are just products of environment and it is not our fault. Let’s go our and justify this. We are going to find the gene for alcoholism, the gene for drug abuse, the gene for homosexuality, and we are just going to blame it on to the universe. That is just the way it is and so man isn’t responsible. And there you have the foundation for modern victimology. That affects how you look at everything in life. As a matter of fact, how you view evil is important to every arena of thought. If you do not treat evil the way the Bible treats evil, if you do not look at man the way the Bible looks at man, then you are going to have a skewed theory of economics—man’s relationship to man, a skewed view of social relationships, of marriage (e.g. when marriage is viewed as a relationship between two people instead of a relationship between a man and a woman). This is just the result of trivializing evil and making evil normal.
What we see here is that there are ultimately two different views of reality. This was clearly spelled out in a book by Thomas Sole called “Conflict of Visions.” That is, that basically you can determine the difference between liberals and conservatives because liberals do not view man as being constitutionally evil and conservatives do. And he traces it all the way back to the Enlightenment to demonstrate his case. People have to recognize that, that everything that is coming out of the liberal left in this country today is antagonistic to reality because of the very foundation not only of theological liberalism but political liberalism is a view that man is inherently good versus inherently evil. You cannot be a consistent Christian and a Bible believing Christian and not deal with the fact that every aspect of human society is permeated by the fact that he is a fallen creature. You can’t have a legitimate consistent view of literature, economics, politics, law, science—any discipline that man puts his mind to is ultimately comes back to something about man’s sociology, psychology—if you are not dealing with man as a fundamentally flawed creature, fallen, constitutionally changed by sin. If you aren’t, then you are not in the realm of reality. And anything you build on that is not in the realm of reality.
In contrast to that we have looked at divine viewpoint when we saw that in Genesis 3:7ff we have the beginning of sin and evil. Then we have seen in Revelation 22:3 the statement that there will no longer be any curse, and in Revelation 21:4 that He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, there will no longer be any death, etc. This is a direct counterpoint to the human viewpoint view that evil is eternal, for the Bible says that evil is bounded, restricted, and is contained by God. There is a starting point and there is an ending point. There is resolution.
So in answer to the pagan position of eternal and normal sin we see in the Bible sin is not normal, that the present world is abnormal and not the way it ought to be. And that is, again, evidence of our own being created in the image and likeness of God. In John 11:35, why is Jesus weeping? It was not because Lazarus had died. It was because He saw all of these people in misery. It is His compassion. He sees that man is an abnormal state. He is having to go through what god never intended for him to go through initially, and that is, death and disease and destruction and sorrow and misery. Man was not designed for that initially; that is the consequence of the fall, of sin. So we see this tremendous picture that we don’t see in any other kind of religious system of a God who incarnates Himself as a creature and encounters and experiences the consequences of sin, and demonstrates His compassion for that.
A second counterpoint to human viewpoint which claims that man is just a victim to what is naturally there, in Christianity and the Bible we see that man is responsible, it is his decision that has brought sin and suffering into the world, and man has a responsibility that goes far beyond anything that the non-Christian would ever want to put on the back of man.
The big question that usually comes up in a discussion about the problem of evil is: You say that there is a reason for God to allow sin and suffering in the world, what could possibly justify God allowing evil to exist in human history and all of this sin and suffering and destruction? First of all, there are a couple of hidden assumptions in that question. There is an assumption that a) we know the justification, or b) can know the justification. That is, once again, the creature dictating to the creator in that chain of being. If you have a human viewpoint chain of being concept then the creature can understand God, but if you have God outside that circle with that creator-creature distinction then man can’t understand everything in the mind of God because God is incomprehensible. God being incomprehensible does not mean God being irrational. To say that we can’t comprehend the answer does not mean that the answer is not rational, it means it goes far beyond our ability to comprehend it now in this life. God has a plan; He has just not disclosed to us everything that is in that plan.
The Bible gives us sufficient revelation. It gives us enough information to answer the question but it doesn’t give us comprehensive knowledge, it doesn’t tell us everything there is to know about the problem or God’s reasoning for allowing sin, suffering and disease to take place. And why is that? Because it calls upon us to trust Him, to understand who He is and to rely upon Him in the midst of those horrible circumstances, and to know that if God resolved the problem as much as He has then He can resolve all the other details. Because He has solved the greatest problem we will ever face at the cross the rest of the sin-evil problem is simply mopping up the minor details.
What we see in this question is that man wants an answer. Man wants to understand why it is that there is sin and suffering. That in and of itself is an important thing to observe because that is evidence of man being in the image and likeness of God. We have this sense of oughtness, of right and wrong, that this isn’t the way it ought to be. We have talked about how man was created in the image of God. We saw that there were certain attributes of God which correspond to certain things in man. For example, God’s integrity in which He is absolute righteousness, the standard of His character. He is just, and that is the application of those standards. Veracity has to do with truth and reality, and that corresponds in man’s make-up to the human conscience. There he has certain norms and standards. Those norms and standards before the fall reflected God’s norms and standards in his righteousness and justice; after the fall they became distorted and perverted and he still has a conscience, indicating that there is a remnant there, a residual of His image. That is what Paul deals with in Romans 2 among the Gentiles, because they know there is right and wrong even if their sense of right and wrong is not correct. The fact that they know that there is right and wrong is evidence that God exists and that they know that God exists. God has omniscience, and corresponding to that man has finite knowledge. Because man has standards and because he has knowledge we know that man is a rational creature, and with this inherent oughtness he knows that things aren’t the way they are and so he is seeking an answer.
The creature may want to know an answer but the creature is finite, limited, and he can’t understand all of the answer. The Bible never tries to give a comprehensive answer to the question. In fact, the Bible says that you’re wrong to try to find a comprehensive answer; you’re just an arrogant creature whining in self-pity. What we see in Job is great example of biblical counseling. Job starts off giving us what is going on behind the scenes, and that is the angelic conflict dimension of suffering and evil. We have pointed out that when God restored the earth after the angelic fall He restricted the angelic evil from the new creation of Genesis chapter one, so that there was no evil in that new universe of Genesis 1:2ff. But once man succumbs to Satan’s temptation then there is an intersection of angelic evil with the human environment, and the human environment now comes under the domain of Satan who is the prince of the power of the air and the god of this age. What we see in Job is the background of this and how there is this intersection. What we have to realize is what we see in Job chapters one and two is that the interchange between Satan and God is unknown to Job. This is off-stage. Job has no idea what is going on, he is just living his life, obeying God. He is said in the text to be upright, he’s righteous, he is not sinning. Even when all these things that are happening to him at the conclusion of Job chapter one he did not sin or charge God with wrong. Job is an upright man. What happens to him is not the result of anything he does, any decision he has made, or any defect in himself. He is living in a fallen world and that is one reason we have sin and suffering.
God says He is going to make a testimony of Job. He is going to teach us some things and gives Satan permission to test Job, but in a limited way. After the initial disasters Job tears his robe, shaves his head, falls to the ground and he worships God. He is not at this point into self-pity, he is not whining, not crying, is not self-absorbed. He is focused on God; he is using doctrine. Then Satan is allowed to test Job in terms of health testing in chapter two. From here Job starts going on his pity-party. In chapter three he is deploring his birth, wishing he had never been born because life is so miserable. Then we have Jobs friends come along and they all tell Job that the reason why he is going through suffering is just because he made bad decisions, and he is a sinner and deserves all this. Job knows that is not right, but ultimately he gets to a point where he wants an answer from God. And he is doing the same thing that arrogant people do, whether they are believers or unbelievers, and they say: God, I want to know why. God gives Job and answer in chapters 38-42, and the interesting thing is that God doesn’t answer the question. Notice the counseling technique here that God uses. God doesn’t put His arm around Job. God, as it were, takes out a face cloth and slaps Job in the face with it. He gets Job’s attention. He says, Job, you’ve been hit with a lot of suffering. Get over it and get your mind on the Word and what is really going on here, and quit asking these stupid questions. This is not our picture of a loving compassionate God, because we have a screwed up picture of who a loving and compassionate God is. God is compassionate in that He wants us to think correctly, not in terms of arrogance and self-absorption. So as Job is asking and demanding from God an answer to his suffering problem God appears to him in a whirlwind (Chapter 38) and begins by asking a series of rhetorical questions that are designed to point out Job’s limitations; that he just has a finite mind and he really can’t comprehend the mysteries of the universe. He tells Job to stand up and take it like a man. Finally, Job gets the point: that he doesn’t need to know the answer, he just needs to trust God who controls the situation. In the first six verses of chapter 42 is Job’s recognition of his own limitation. “I have uttered what I did not understand”—I am just an arrogant, ignorant creature; I should not have asked those questions. Job recognizes that the creature is limited; he is not going to know the answer to everything and that it is arrogant to expect an answer.
Part of the reason is that evil and sin is so complex and profound that we diminish it. One of the ways that we understand the depths, the dimensions of sin and depravity is by looking at the solution. The solution is that the eternal, holy, righteous God of the universe sends His Son to become a creature. He has to set up a plan that takes basically four to five thousand years to work out before the people on the earth are ready for His Son to appear—Galatians 4:4, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son …” That means that it took four thousand years to prepare mankind, fallen creatures, to receive the savior. That means He was taking them through a learning process which involved giving man the opportunity to try every conceivable solution and see that they failed. Every solution to man’s problems were tried in the ancient world, and there was an expectation of some sort of Messianic deliverance even among the Gentile pagans at that time when Jesus appeared. They were ready; the world had been prepared. The penalty was paid at the cross and that becomes the foundation for the redemption of the whole universe, and this is referred to by Paul in Romans 8:19-23, and the curse doesn’t get rolled back until the second advent. It is not completed until the end of the Millennial kingdom when there is the creation of the new heavens and the new earth. There is the complete destruction of the present universe because it has been irreversibly marred by sin. It can’t be eternal; it has to be destroyed.
Our conclusion is that after we understand the dynamics of the cross and how the sin and evil problem is resolved at the cross, then even though we sit out here in our lives and we still deal with the problems of birth defects, war and famine, and all these other problems, we know the solution has been here. And if we can trust God to solve the problem at the cross, then He can solve eventually all these other problems and there will be a resolution. So when we are the innocent victims of suffering we know that the judgment of the Supreme Court of heaven will bring proper resolution for every injustice, for every piece of suffering and disease in human history.
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035b-The Problem of Evil
Three different world views that deal with evil
The first of these is the atheist position:
Proposition # 1: If God is all-powerful He could destroy evil.
Proposition # 2: If God is all good He will destroy evil.
Proposition # 3: But evil is not destroyed.
Proposition # 4: Therefore there is no all-good and all-powerful God.
So the atheist concludes that either God is all-powerful but He is evil. Or he may conclude that He is good but not all-powerful. But ultimately the atheist will conclude that there just isn’t any God and evil exists but God doesn’t. This is the position that evil is eternal. But he doesn’t even have the right to make those propositions. For example, if evil is eternal then it is normal, and if evil is eternal and normal then what that means is you can’t really distinguish between good and evil. All human viewpoint concepts go back to the chain of being where everything is within one circle. That means you don’t go outside the circle to get some absolute value of what is good or bad, it is determined by what is inside that circle. So their concept of good and evil is generated by the creature. In Christian terminology we would say the circle really describes the creation. In divine viewpoint we have the creator who is distinct from the creation. So atheists are generating their values from within their own experience, from within the framework of creation itself. Ultimately, if evil is eternal then that means that any distinction between good and evil breaks down and their position destroys and real substantive meaning for good and evil because they are determined on a relative basis. How do you know this is good and this is evil? It doesn’t work for us. That is what our society has determined. That is what our group has determined isn’t right for now but it may be right or wrong for another culture or another group. So that it becomes fluid. Well once it becomes fluid then the meanings of something being good and something being evil are completely destroyed. You can’t even communicate any more. You don’t have the right to say this is good and this is bad because, Oh, in the 1920s homosexuality was bad and marriage and fidelity was good; but now that has changed. So what gives you the right to even use terms that imply absolutes? What we see is that in their very discussion they are borrowing the meaning of good and evil as absolutes from Christianity. You can’t let an unbeliever do that. Where do you get the concept of good and evil? How can you say that? That is one approach. You have to ask the basis for their definition of good and evil.
What we see happening here is something we can be very guilty of ourselves, and we have to be careful of this. Don’t develop abstract concepts and then make God conform to those abstract concepts. For example, don’t come along and say, I have an absolute concept out here of power. This is what the atheist does. He says, Okay I’ve got a definition of what omnipotence is. But what is embedded in their definition of omnipotence is that omnipotence means you will restrict evil in a certain time period. They don’t bring that out; that’s in the closet. Then they’ll also talk about goodness, but embedded in their definition of goodness is the concept that if you are really good there is no reason that you would allow this kind of suffering to take place. So they develop an abstract category, and abstract value, and they say, God, if you are God you have to conform to omnipotence and goodness. In other words, they are approaching God is if out there somewhere there are ideals, some sort of yardstick or measuring device that God has to measure up to. That is an intellectual form of idolatry.
There is a passage where Isaiah deals with this in
So the atheist concludes that if God exists He is not all-powerful. So therefore if evil exists God must not exist. Or in some case the atheist would conclude that if God exists He is not all-powerful.
The other hidden assumption which undergirds almost all human viewpoint reasoning on this topic is that if God wanted to destroy evil it would have been destroyed by now. How do you know? How do you know that there is not some higher purpose? Well, I can’t conceive of one. So in your limited empirical knowledge you know enough to know that there can’t exist anywhere at any time a higher good that is being accomplished by God’s extension of evil and allowing evil to run its course in the universe. There are hidden assumptions in each of these points and we need to be sure that they are understood. The assumption there is that God would destroy evil if He could. That presupposes an omniscience about evil and the purposes of the unive4se on the part of the creature that is cannot be derived from either empiricism or rationalism. He is just assuming this.
Now the Christian has an answer to this that has been formulated:
1) If God is all good, and He is, then He will destroy evil.
2) If God is all-powerful then He can destroy evil. He has the ability to destroy evil at any point in time.
3) Evil is not yet destroyed, therefore evil will be destroyed eventually. Evil in the biblical world view is limited, it will be destroyed. Because the Christian position recognizes that there is a plan and a purpose to history and there is a reason. We don’t have to understand it fully for there to be a reason. Just because it is incomprehensible doesn’t mean it is unknowable or irrational. God is rational, He has a plan and a purpose, but as we saw with Job He is not required to let the creature know all the information. That is the arrogance of the human viewpoint position.
In pantheism there is the view that God exists but evil doesn’t, it is just illusion. This is the Hindu position. In America this came up in Christian Science. To accept that position they have to deny the data of empiricism. In other words, whatever we know or learn from our senses it is not really true. Well if evil is an illusion, good is an illusion. You can’t have it both ways. You have to ask the question, how do you determine that good isn’t an illusion? Or maybe it isn’t that good is the reality and evil is the illusion but that good is the illusion and evil is the reality. So in pantheism they not only have to ultimately deny that empiricism can provide any factual, reliable data whatsoever.
Second, it would deny all scientific data in relation to disease and historical disaster. It denies, of course, the biblical data about the reality of sin and evil. This is one way the unbeliever copes with evil. In the first position the atheist has to cope with evil by ultimately reducing its significance by making it normal because he can’t handle evil in all of its biblical reality. The escapist, the pantheist, can’t deal with evil either so it doesn’t really exist. He is just living in a state of psychological denial. This again shows that all unbelieving positions either trivialize evil or act as if it doesn’t exist. Those are the only options.
A third position that has been popularized over the last few years is that God has lost control. So what we see again is the same basic fallacies that are in the other positions, a creaturely imposed definition on the creator. This is what good is and, God, you have to meet my idea of good. It is once again the creature trying to dictate to the creator.
What we have to realize as Christians is we must always start with God and not with human reason or experience. Revelation always precedes experience. You go to the Scripture to find out who God is and you start with God’s revelation of Himself, and that is what sets the standards. Then you come along and utilize those standards. But God Himself is the standard. One of the classic examples that you run into with people is that four-letter word, fair. God is fair. What do you mean by fair? Where do you get your definition of fairness? What is the content of that word fair? So God is fair, and God is isolated into an abstract category and God has to meet that category. Well God wouldn’t let that happen because God is fair. Well who sets the standard? This is a radically different way of thinking about God. We’ve all fallen into that trap, it is a heritage from our Aristotilian, Platonic Greek heritage in western civilization to think in terms of these categorical values as autonomous, abstract ideas.
Illustration: If you saw someone down and out and suffering in the street, you would help them, wouldn’t you? I would say, yes. I don’t want them to think that somehow they on their own power can change their circumstances. They are in the gutter because they have rejected God, they are reaping the consequences of their own bad decisions. So leave them there in the gutter. I don’t want to come up with some sort of solution for their sin, making them think that somehow they can live in unhappiness and meaning and value in life apart from God. I’ll give them the gospel, talk to them, and things of that nature, which was the foundation of true, genuine Christian compassion—soup kitchens, missions that operated in the slum areas. But they always gave the gospel with the food. But the illustration is that if you saw someone down in the street, you’d help them, wouldn’t you? Well how can God sit back and look at the whole human race and all kinds of wars and everything and not help us? He must not care. But see, once again what happens? They are exporting to God their own value systems. Furthermore, they don’t understand the nature of freedom—freedom of choice means freedom to succeed and freedom to fail. For there to be true freedom you have to have freedom to fail. To have love, and God creates man to love Him, to have genuine love that is marked by obedience. We see that again and again in the New Testament: “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” So obedience is linked to love. So for there to be genuine love there has to be genuine freedom, and to have genuine freedom there will be freedom to fail and freedom to succeed. Real freedom in choice means that the more significant the choice the more radical the consequences. If you have a choice between worshipping God and not, and obeying God or not, then the consequences are radical. This is what we saw in
Another approach that people will raise is, What about the innocents? What about the little babies? What about birth defects, natural disasters? Once again, the question betrays a shallow and superficial view of evil. What we see in Scripture is that evil is something that was like a poison that penetrated every dimension of the universe, and that is the way God constructed reality. Not that God is the cause of that but because reality couldn’t be any other way. He is demonstrating that the creature cannot survive at all independently of the creator because his negative decisions affect everything, not just the immediate situation.
Sometimes people will ask why God had to visit that curse on the animals and the natural world. Actually, what we see here is more of a consequence. The word “curse” is only used two times in
When the unbeliever comes to evil he has three options in terms of coping. First of all, to deny the reality of the evil. This is done a couple of different ways. One is the irrational approach: it just doesn’t exist, it is an illusion, there is no real evil. Another way is one that plays out in personal life. Apparently Mary Baker Eddy had a lot of unhappiness in her early life and she was trying to escape personal suffering. Such people try to cope by denying that it is real. Or, the second option is to come up with saying good and evil are only conventions of language and culture. I can’t really deal with the fact that I have certain proclivities in my nature and temptation, it is so much easier to just say this is really okay. I’m really miserable if what I am doing is a sin and it is wrong. I have a struggle and a fight. But if I can say it is not really wrong then I can do away with that struggle and fight. So good and evil, then, in human viewpoint become merely conventions of language and culture. That makes it fluid and good becomes evil and evil, good. That is pure relativism.
The second major solution that you see in modern thought is the existential leap into the absurd. They know evil exists but they can’t explain it. There is no God so somehow the only way I can really survive suffering and misery is I have to give it some meaning. If you read the existentialist, they can’t get meaning from God, they can’t get meaning from some external absolute, they can only assign it from their own thinking. They generate the meaning. In real existentialism it is no real ultimate moral difference between pushing a woman in front of a car and helping her across the street. As long as you do something to validate your existence. It is the absurd. If I’m going to survive I’m just going to give it my own meaning. So I assign meaning, I define everything.
The third coping strategy is the one we find so dominant today: escapism, or let’s just anaesthetize the pain. They know there is evil there but they have no solution to it whatsoever. That is why all the unbeliever can do is cope. The believer has a solution; all the unbeliever can do is escape. That is why drugs are on the rise. Leave God out of the equation and you are left living a really miserable life. You can’t deal with the pain. Or, you get involved with just pleasure, sex, pornography, music and entertainment. Just immerse myself in this so that I don’t have to face reality as it is. There are all kinds of escapism, like immerse yourself in work so that you don’t have time to think about reality. Many things aren’t necessarily wrong but they are used to avoid reality.
The believer can handle problems. He can solve them. The Christian answer is not just coping. The basic problem-solving devices handle evil in his own life.
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036b-Cain: The Expansion of Unbelief; Gen. 4:1-16
This section deals with the expansion of unbelief and we begin to see how the evil or sin that comes into the human race in Genesis chapter three now begins to expand. Genesis chapter four shows the expansion of that sin and evil into the third divine institution, that is family. At the end of the previous section we saw that man had disobeyed God and fell into sin. Because Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he plunged the entire human race, for which he stood as a representative, into sin. So that the entire race now is totally depraved. That is, they are not as evil or as wicked as they can be but that is the orientation of the fallen human being because of the sin nature. They are oriented towards sin, they are born in a state of total depravity and spiritual death, and that is just what we see in Genesis chapter four, beginning in verse one.
In this section, 4:1-26, we see the consequences of sin and the outworking of evil in the human race and on the planet. Again we will see that just as with Adam’s sin there was a consequence on nature there is a consequence on nature for Cain’s murder of Abel. The is one point that we need to note, and that is that man’s sin doesn’t operate simply in isolation but it has a tremendous impact on all aspects of nature. So we see that just as sin affects nature we will also see that sin brings divine judgment on nature. We see a horrendous example of that when God brings this world-wide flood and all of nature is changed. And it is seen again at times in the outline on the curse on Israel, that if they are disobedient there is going to be famines in the land, lack of productivity, drought, and that man’s spiritual condition has an effect far beyond his own personal situation. The most extreme example of that is when we get into the book of Revelation and we start looking at what happens during the seven years of the Tribulation and all of the calamities and catastrophes that take place not only on the earth but in the heavens as a result of God’s judgment. So sin doesn’t simply affect the human race alone, but it reverberates throughout all of nature and all of the universe.
In this chapter what we are going to see as a result of the events of chapter three is the outworking and development of sin in the human race. So there is a contrast here between human viewpoint and divine viewpoint. The focus is on two individuals primarily, Cain and Abel, and so there is a contrast between the human viewpoint sin-based arrogance of Cain versus the divine viewpoint and positive volition of Abel. We see in this chapter a development of the result of human autonomy. Remember the basic orientation of the sin nature is arrogance, independence from God. This is displayed as it works itself out generationally through Cain and his murder of Abel and then through the descendants of Cain in chapter four. So this is the beginning of what the New Testament calls the cosmic system. This is something that Israel would be very conscious of as they were getting ready to move into Canaan. Remember the setting at the time of the writing of Genesis—Israel on the plains of Moab on the verge of going into the promised land, and Moses writes the Pentateuch in order to demonstrate for the nation why they have been called out by God, why they have been given this land, and what the basis for blessing and cursing will be once they are inside the land.
In the New Testament we get into this whole category of cosmic thinking—the world, the cosmos, which is the terminology the New Testament uses. The cosmic system really has to do with human viewpoint culture, the culture that arrogant man in rebellion against God develops in order to try to make life work. We have seen this under the phrase in Romans 1:18, “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.” This is exactly what happens as man wants to live independent from God. He begins to structure in his thought his own universe, his own ideas of what works, what doesn’t work. He wants to define reality apart from God. He is in rebellion against God, he has rejected what God has revealed, and he is structuring reality according to his own finite standard.
Now Israel is on the verge of going into the Canaanite culture, and this is a culture that is dominated by cities. Remember this was one of the problems in Numbers chapter 16. The original ten spies did not want to go into the land because there were giants in the land and they lived in walled cities. It was a culture that had developed its own music, art and industry, but it is a culture that is built on arrogance and antagonism toward God. In this chapter, Genesis four, we see the main themes that developed later on in Israel’s history, and that is will Israel maintain a steadfast position in relationship to the revelation of God, maintain her obedience to the law revealed at Sinai, continue to have a righteous sacrificial system based upon the revealed ritual at Sinai, and obedience to God?
When we think about the cosmic system there are two elements that predominate. Everything else can come under these two categories. The first is arrogance. Man is arrogant, he is self-absorbed, he is on a path of self-deification. That arrogance puts him in antagonism to God. He is hostile to God, His Word, His plan and His procedures. So man is setting up his own way of doing things. He wants to be the ultimate standard for all absolutes rather than bowing the need to God. He wants God, then, to conform Himself to man’s standards and man’s ideas.
What we see in this chapter is how the curse of sin and spiritual death is passed on physically to the descendants. We focus on two of the offspring of Adam and Eve. We know from Genesis chapter five that there were many other sons and daughters but we don’t know the birth order. We don’t know how many years transpired before Seth was born who was the replacement for Abel. There are many questions in the chapter that are left unanswered. The purpose of the chapter is not to answer all of our questions but to illustrate the consequences of sin by way of a contrast between one son who is obedient and one son who is disobedient. Cain and Abel are both born after the fall so they are both born spiritually dead. The only thing they have is volition, and we see that Cain demonstrates negative volition to God and to the revealed Word of God, and Abel is a picture of positive volition, he is positive to what God has revealed.
At the end of chapter three, after the fall, and after God outlines the consequences for sin, we read: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” That is just a cursory statement, it doesn’t say a whole lot. We have to infer certain things from it. If God is going to make clothing of skins it means He has to kill the animal; there is a blood sacrifice. We also infer from a number of other passages that there must have been some level of instruction there. We know that by the time we get to Genesis chapter six and Noah taking animals on the ark that God instructs Noah to take seven of every clean animal and two of every unclean animal. Where did Noah find out which was clean and which was unclean? We are not informed of when God revealed that information to Noah. But Noah apparently knew what was a clean animal and what was an unclean animal. There are sacrifices in Genesis chapter four. How did they know to bring a sacrifice? Where do they bring the sacrifice? What was the basis of the sacrifice? All of that information is left out of the text. We don’t know. We can only infer from certain other passages of Scripture. The text here doesn’t indicate anything about why Cain responds one way or why Abel is positive, it just shows the results of the unbelief of Cain versus the results of the belief of Abel. As we look at this one of the things we can develop from the text is a sort of picture of what people go through in unbelief, how unbelief responds to the truth. The focus is more on Cain and his response than it is on Abel.
As we go through this we can also see that Cain and Abel become archetypes of human viewpoint versus divine viewpoint. Cain is an archetype of the unbeliever, he is a picture of unrighteousness whereas Abel is a picture of righteousness. There are three key passages in the New Testament which give us some idea of what must have been going on in the background of Genesis chapter four. Cain is a picture of arrogance whereas Abel is a picture of genuine humility. Also, as we get into this text there is a bit of irony in the narrative. Eve, when she gives birth to Cain, thinks that he is the promised seed of the woman. She is thinking in terms of God’s promise in Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.” So she is thinking that Cain is the answer to God’s promise of deliverance. It is very likely that Satan also thought of Cain as the answer to that promise, so that would mean that Cain was a special target of Satan. That is played out in a sense. We can’t be sure about this but some of the terminology given in verse 7, which talks about sin lying at the door, is interesting. The Hebrew word that is translated “lying at the door” is rabatz. It is a cognate to an Akadian word which was a name for a demon. And there is a personification of sin in this passage: “sin is crouching at the door to control you.” So there is a hint there in the text that this may be some sort of demonic attack on Cain, which would make sense because if Eve thought that Cain was the promised seed then Satan certainly would and would seek to destroy that line. In fact, Cain ends up not being a believer at all.
Furthermore, we see in this chapter the development of the sin nature as it manifests itself in human history. It will produce a culture that is antagonistic and hostile to God. A culture involves a number of different things. We can think of culture in terms of art, literature, political structure, science and technology, and music. And as we go through the second half of Genesis four we will see that human viewpoint and the rebellion against God expressed by Cain works itself out in the subsequent generations in developing in all of these different areas. People think that all these areas—art, literature, etc.—are culturally neutral. But they are not. Anything that man does comes out of a framework of thought. You have a certain orientation to reality. How do you define reality? What is your view of ultimate reality? That then works itself out in terms of your art which is a portrayal of reality. Music is also a portrayal of reality. And how you see order and structure in the universe: is everything simply random? Or does it have order and meaning and purpose? Is there ultimate resolution or does it just go on in a random manner? Same thing with literature: what is expressed in literature. In literature you can teach values in a sort of back door fashion. It expresses the author’s view of reality. So culture is the backdrop here as human viewpoint begins to express itself in terms of the development of culture. That is the essence of what comes to be called in the Bible “worldliness” or cosmic thinking. It is not what you do, it is how you think, and how your thinking and your perception of reality works itself out in terms of its attitudes. And, of course, it involves ethics because as we see Cain rejects God and God’s plan and procedures, what God has revealed, and as he does so it works itself out in terms of his own ethics. What matters is what Cain wants, not what God says. All areas of culture are impacted by that basic orientation to ultimate reality which is God.
So in cosmic thinking, then, fallen, rebellious, negative volition seeks to reinterpret the world around it. When man is negative, in suppressing the truth in unrighteousness he has to have an alternative viewpoint. So he constructs an alternate view of reality, an alternate view of the world. This is something that we call world view. There are many different world views today that are all part of cosmic thinking. You can think of communism as one world view, existentialism as another world view, postmodernism as another, socialism as another. There are also world views that are religious. Islam produces one world view, Hinduism another, and within each of these world views there is an attempt to explain and structure all of reality. This is the orientation of any kind of human viewpoint negative volition, and in negative volition man seeks to redefine the world around him, to reconstruct his own ethics or value systems, to reconstruct his own norms and standards. Man redefines God and the terms for coming into the presence of God. He denies the reality of sin, the consequences of sin, the punishment and the responsibility for sin. All of this we see in Genesis chapter four.
The overall structure of this section. It begins in verse 1 with Eve making a statement: “I have acquired a man from the Lord.” Actually, that is a very difficult statement to interpret, to translate. In the Hebrew is the initial verb, “I have a acquired” which is the verb qanah in the qal perfect. It is a first person singular so it means “I have acquired or gotten,” and then the text just simply says, “I have gotten a man” [Heb. Ish, indicating a male], and then there is the difficult phrase et connected to the name Yahweh. The difficult thing is to translate et. In Hebrew you don’t have cases per se, case endings like you do in Greek. In Hebrew there is a direct object marker, and that is this preposition et. You also have a preposition, et, and that preposition means “with.” So there is a translation problem here. Is Eve making a statement, “I have acquired/gotten a man with the Lord,” and some translations will say that this should be “with the help of the Lord.” So that is an interpretation of the translation. On the other hand, there are a number of Hebrew scholars who argue that this is a direct object marker and what Eve is saying here is “I have gotten a man: the Lord.” What would she mean by that? It would be her understanding and interpretation of the Genesis 3:15 promise, that this seed would not be just human but would also be divine. This was later developed. We know that the savior is the God-Man, and so that is what she thinks she has in this first-born son, she thinks she has got the Messiah. That would make sense. So this section which ends in verse 16 begins with the idea that “I have acquired a man from the Lord,” and ends with “And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord.” So there is an expression of that antagonistic element of human viewpoint in Cain. There is an indication in this first verse of the positive volition of the parents to the Lord and, on the other hand, the antagonism and hostility of Cain to the Lord by verse 16.
The story itself develops on the basis of two major dialogues, the same kind of thing we saw in terms of narration in chapter three. There was dialogue between the serpent and the woman, and then there is brief narration, and then there is dialogue between Yahweh, the serpent, the man and the woman, in verses 14-19. This section also turns on dialogue. Verses 3-7 is the first dialogue where Cain brings the offering and God dialogues with him in vv. 6,7, and then in 9-16 is another dialogue where God is challenging Cain. The focus is clearly on the conflict between Cain and Abel. The narrative goes back and forth in the first few verses—Cain-Abel, Abel-Cain, Cain-Abel, Abel-Cain. The author structures it this way in order to focus our attention on the fact that this is the conflict between Cain and Abel and his sin against his brother. Furthermore, the noun “brother” occurs seven times in the narrative. The name “Abel” also occurs seven times, emphasizing the relationship between Cain and Abel, and then the name “Cain” occurs fourteen times in seventeen verses. Notice how there is always that seven, seven and fourteen, indicating that this is a complete narrative and very obvious that one person authored it; not like the documentary hypothesis of the liberals wanting to contend that there are different pieces that have been picked up over time and then edited and brought together from different authors. It shows the unity of the text. There are also a number of factors in this section that connect it back to the previous section. For example, the verb yada, which means to know, is used in 4:1 and 4:9, and reminds the reader that man now knows the difference between good and evil, which is picked up in 2:17; 3:5, 7. We see that Cain had to hide himself after his condemnation, v. 14, so that no one seeks vengeance on him, just as Adam and Isha had to hide themselves from God in Genesis chapter three. Cain brought an offering from the fruit of the ground, which is a reminder of the fruit the woman ate. God interrogates Cain in vv. 6, 10, just as He interrogated Adam and Isha back in chapter three. God used the same words to Cain He used with the woman. He told the woman her desire would be for the man, a desire to control, and in 4:7 sin has a desire to control Cain, and that is the same Hebrew word; it is used only one other time outside of these two chapters in the Old Testament. In both chapters God imposes a penalty for sin. So we could go on and on demonstrating the parallels between the two chapters, showing that there must be a unity of authorship.
As the chapter begins we see that God is going to continue to bless the race even though they are now in a state of sin. They are fallen but God is still going to bless them with offspring. Their task has not changed, it has been made difficult, but they are still to rule over the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, the beasts of the earth, and they are to rule over the planet. They are still in the image of God even though that image has been marred. So God blesses them with expansion and the birth of the two sons is viewed as divine blessing. Verse 1, “And Adam knew Eve his wife.” Te Hebrew is the qal perfect of yada and it means to know. The word has numerous connotations. It means to know, to learn, to gain knowledge; it is used as a euphemism for sexual relations, and it emphasis that there should be a level of knowledge between husband and wide. It indicates that sex is not something that is merely a physical act but is an extension of an intimate knowledgeable relationship between a husband and a wife. It is not something that is merely physical, but that there is an intellectual and emotional dimension to sex. Eve conceives and says, “I have acquired a man: Yahweh.” She is thinking at this point that this is the promised Messiah.
The naming of a child is typical in Genesis. Usually a child is named in relationship to some specific event or some character quality, and you could look at passages such as Genesis 5:29; 17:5; 41:51 and other passages where the naming of a child indicates something. Don’t think that Cain means to acquire or to gain something. Cain doesn’t mean that. The word “acquire” is different from the name Cain, which is simply a word play. Were there other sons between Cain and Abel? No one knows. Did a lot of time go by between the birth of Cain and that of Abel? No one knows. Abel is Hebel in the Hebrew, and it means breath, vanity, emptiness. Not a real positive connotation here.
Verse 2, “And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” There is an interesting thing taking place here. It looks like a family of just four, but there is a division of labor already. Abel’s responsibility has to do with the flocks. Cain is a tiller of the ground. Remember, man is not authorized to eat meat until after the flood, so why are they keeping flocks and herds? For leather, clothing, the wool, and also for sacrifices. So Abel has a job that is related to sacrifice, and we can connect that back to the instruction that Adam and his wife received from God when He made the tunics of skins for them. Abel’s job has to do with sacrifice and redemption from the curse, but Cain in contrast is a tiller on the ground. That is a reminder of God’s curse on the ground, that “in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life.” So there is a hint here of an ominous overtone: a hint of a reminder of the curse on the one hand and the redemption from the curse on the other hand.
This second half of verse two indicates that some time has elapsed. Enough time has gone by for them to have different occupations. We know from chapter five that Adam and Isha had other sons and daughters, so we don’t know how many there were in this family. Because of implications of Cain building a city at the end of chapter four and other things it is suggested that there were a number of children, that offspring were multiplying and that some time had gone by. But we can’t be sure. The implications are that the boys are at least old enough to have chosen occupations. The second thing that we could note is that since they are older, at the very least adolescent—18, 19, 20 years of age—it must be assumed that there has been a history of sacrifice. It must be assumed that of God gave instructions to Adam and Isha back in 3:21 for sacrifices that this is something the boys have observed all their life. They have watched Adam and Eve present those sacrifices on a regular basis to God. But certainly there was a protocol for bringing a sacrifice. That leaves us with certain unanswered questions, such as where did they learn about bringing a sacrifice? Obviously, the only thing we can surmise is from Genesis 3:21, and that this information was passed on by their father. This clearly would not be their first sacrifice, and they understood what would be expected. A third thing we could note from this is that both boys would have been taught the necessity of a blood sacrifice for first coming into the presence of God, on the basis of atonement. Fourth, we know this because the raising of animals was not for food so it must have been for sacrifices. So they had a clear understanding of the sacrificial system. The fifth implication that we see from this is that Cain and Abel, as did the other children of Adam and Eve, manifested different volitional choices in life.
Things become a little more negative in the second section, which deals with vv. 3-5 where we see the contrast between human viewpoint and divine viewpoint. There are two offerings made. V. 3, “And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.” The word here for offering, for both offerings, is the same. It is the Hebrew word minchah, and this has as its root meaning the idea of a gift, and it is used of the grain offering in the Levitical offerings. So it does not indicate in and of itself that there is something inherently wrong with this offering. What we must understand here is an implication from other passages in the Scriptures. Look at the contrast. Cain brought an offering from the fruit of the ground. All the test says is he brought the fruit, he doesn’t bring the best. Then in v. 4 we look at Abel who brought “of the firstlings of his flock.” This should be translated “he brought the fattest of the firstlings of his flock.” He brought the very best, so there is a contrast. Cain just brought a gift from the fruit, it may not have been the best fruit. Abel, on the other hand, brought the very best of the flock. Abel clearly is obedient to God’s standard. The fat was a principle that was incorporated into the Mosaic law in passages such as Exodus 13:2, 12; Leviticus 3:16; 22:17-25, where there is an emphasis that the fat portion belongs to God. So Abel’s sacrifice fits subsequent patterns for sacrifices, but Cain’s sacrifice seems to be a secondary sacrifice that he brings in contrast to the blood sacrifice of Abel. In the New Testament we have a couple of verses that give us a little more insight into Cain’s offering. Though Cain’s offering may have been legitimate as an offering we have an indication that it wasn’t simply his attitude, but it is suggested that his attitude produced the wrong kind of sacrifice. He wants to define what it takes to come into the presence of God. This is typical of human viewpoint. Human viewpoint wants to solve the problem on its own and wants to dictate to God what is acceptable: it’s good works; it’s ritual; we are going to come up with our own approach to God saying that there is one and only one way to him. So Abel is trusting in the revelation of God, Hebrews 11:4, “By faith [on the basis of the doctrine that had been revealed to him] Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” Here the emphasis is clearly on the quality of the sacrifice, not on the attitude of the one coming, which would indicate that Cain was disobedient in what he brought as a sacrifice. “… through which he obtained witness that he was righteous.” There we see that Abel has a positional righteousness: he is justified before God. “… God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaks,” i.e. we still have a testimony related to Abel’s righteousness. Then in Hebrews 12:24 there is another allusion to Abel, “And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better things than that of Abel.” Jesus’ sacrifice is seen as a picture of the sacrifice of Abel. Abel’s sacrifice portrayed that which would be accomplished on the cross, therefore it brings in the idea that this had something to do with redemption and with atonement. Abel was bringing an atoning sacrifice; Cain did not bring an atoning sacrifice. So in human viewpoint what we see is that the person on negative volition, the person on human viewpoint, seeks to approach God on his own terms and define the basis for that relationship with God on his own terms. Whereas divine viewpoint seeks to approach God on His terms and on hoiw God has described how that should take place. The result of this is that when man wants to get to God on his terms and God rejects it, man becomes angry. Man is hostile, jealous and bitter over that rejection. He turns angry toward God and this is what we see typically with unbelievers. There is a level of bitterness and anger directed towards God.
Genesis 4:4, “And the LORD had regard unto Abel and to his offering.” The Hebrew word for “regard” is sa’ah, and it means to look on something, and it comes to mean to look on something with favor, although in some cases it does mean to look on something with disfavor, depending on the context. The word comes to mean to look on something with respect, to pay attention to something, or to validate. So we could translate this, “And the Lord validated Abel and his offering.” V. 5, “But unto Cain and to his offering he had no validation.” The result is that Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. He became depressed. There is a connection between anger and depression. Anger is the result of not getting your own way; depression is the result of realizing that you are not going to get your own way, and after you have been angry for a while it deteriorates into depression. Cain goes through all this very quickly and he is angry at God.
At this point God confronts him with his sin, just as God has confronted Adam and Eve. Verse 6, “And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?” In the following verses we see another characteristic of human viewpoint antagonism to God: it rejects the divine warnings about sin. Human viewpoint says to God, it won’t really happen, it is not that serious, it is not that bad. It is the same as in the original fall. Eve did not think that the consequences of eating the fruit would be that serious. V. 7, “If thou doest well.” This is the Hebrew word yatab which is related to the noun tob for good—you do well. It has here a moral connotation. You can do well now that you know the difference between good and evil—you can do that which is pleasing to God. That is being subordinate to His plan and purposes. This is in contrast to sin. “…and if thou doest not well, sin is crouching at the door.” Here is the picture of the personification of sin. It is seeking to destroy like an animal. The word here for crouching at the door is the word rabatz, and this, as has already been mentioned, a cognate of an Akadian word for demon. Sin is like a demon at the door. And its desire (the same word as the woman’s desire over the man in Genesis 3:15) is a desire to control, to dominate you, but you must master it. The principle here is that even though we are a fallen creature and under sin the individual has the ability to master sin, to choose not to sin, on the basis of God’s provision. So Cain is told that even though there is this tremendous temptation right now, and resentment and reaction toward God, he does not have to yield to that temptation and he can master it.
Verse 8, “And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.” We don’t know hoe he killed him. Jewish legend says that he picked up a stone and hit Abel over the head with it. Other renditions say that Cain used the sacrificial knife. We are not told. All we know is that he murdered his brother. The point of this is that in human viewpoint arrogance Cain expresses antagonism towards what God has warned him about. He treats God’s warning lightly; he doesn’t take Him seriously. As a result he disobeys God and he murders his brother. God then confronts him with his sin.
Verse 9, “And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?” God knows there Abel is. He wants to point out to Cain that he has to face up to his responsibility. Just like his parents he refuses that. This is the next point: human viewpoint rejects responsibility for sin. The point of this story is, yes, you are your brother’s keeper. To the Jew, in Leviticus 19:18: You are to love your neighbor as yourself, and that is intensified in the New Testament. So there is a mutual responsibility here to take care of one another. Why? Because we are in the image of God. This is why murder is wrong, we are all created in the image of God despite that fact that we live in a fallen world. There are consequences for sin. In Jude 11 we are told, “Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.” The point of this verse is that there are consequences to sin, there are consequences to human viewpoint rebellion, and yet human viewpoint seeks to reject the idea of personal responsibility for sin and personal accountability.
The confrontation continues in vv. 10-14. “And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.” God pays attention to the victim; not the rights of the criminal but the rights of the victim. V.11, “And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand.” So there are consequences to Cain in relationship to his chosen vocation, because he was the tiller of the ground. Now he is cursed from the ground, he is no longer going to be able to have production from the ground because of his murder of his brother. V. 12, “When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.” Here is where we see the beginning of the nomad. What we see in evolution is the picture of man starting off, finally a human being has evolved, and then he collects with other human beings, and he is nomadic. They live by hunting and gathering. Eventually as time went by and thousands of years go by they decide to settle in specific locations and develop cities. So in evolution there is this idea of progress. But the picture in Scripture is they start off already having agricultural skills, already having an advanced mentality. And what you see in the hunter and gatherer, aborigine nomadic cultures is a devolution because of sin, not evolution. So this is just the complete opposite of what human viewpoint concepts of origins dictate. He is a vagrant and a wanderer because of sin. This is how you get the various different types of cave men, because they were different elements, different branches of the human race that were involved in rebellion against God and left the mainstream. They do not represent the mainstream. We notice one again that man’s sin has consequences on nature.
As a result of this we see that human viewpoint challenges the judgment of God, and it protests God’s judgment as being too harsh. V. 13, “And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me”—i.e. wide open to vengeance from anyone else in the family who wants to execute justice. And so God says that there is still common grace extended to Cain, and this is outlined in v. 15, “And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance [justice] shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.” God isn’t exercising revenge, He is exercising judgment or justice, and that is how this should be translated. The idea of sevenfold indicates its completeness.
Verse 16, “And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.” So he begins to go into the land where there is no one else and he is just a wanderer and a vagrant living off the land to the best that he can.
What we have seen as we have gone through this chapter is an indication of the response of human viewpoint versus divine viewpoint. First of all we saw that human viewpoint seeks to approach God on his own terms. He wants to define the sacrifice, define the ritual, what the norms and standards are. Then as he does that and God rejects that, then in his arrogance he becomes hostile, angry, jealous, and bitter over that rejection. Furthermore, in human viewpoint the arrogance rejects the warnings about sin, treats the sin lightly—it is not that serious, not that devastating—and then human viewpoint goes to rejecting responsibility for sin, and accountability for sin. Then when God lowers the boom it whines and cries out against God who is just not fair and is unjust. In the story of Cain and Abel we see a picture of what happens in the human race, a contras between the righteous seed of the woman and the unrighteous.
037b-Cain: Expansion of Civilization; Gen. 4:16-26
All Scripture is God-breathed and there are important lessons even in the genealogies.
Genesis 4:15, “And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.” Therefore vengeance will be taken upon the person who murders Cain. No one has the right to take a life, other than God. This is God’s warning that if someone does murder Cain God Himself will avenge that murder sevenfold. The key word that is used here for vengeance, to avenge, is the Hebrew word naqan, and when it is used where God is the subject then the idea is the execution of divine justice from the Supreme Court of heaven. This is the same words as used in “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord, I will repay.” When we look in the Psalms this word is used numerous times where there is a cry from the Psalmist to God to bring vengeance on someone’s enemies. But it is not vengeance in the sense of revenge, which is a sin pattern that comes from the sin nature where man wants to take justice into his own hands. This is a cry to God who is the source of justice. Remember that God’s righteousness is the absolute standard of His integrity and justice is the application of that standard towards His creatures. So this is a poor translation. It should be translated, “Therefore whoever kills Cain justice will be applied to him sevenfold.” In other words, there would be a sevenfold payment for that crime above and beyond Cain’s punishment. So in order to indicate that there was a special divine protection on Cain the Lord put a mark on him. There is a lot of discussion as to what this mark is. We don’t know, so speculation is not to be encouraged. All we can say is that there was some sort of physical indication on Cain that set him apart and indicated God’s protection upon him. The point of this is that God is teaching that He alone has the right to determine life or death.
In verse 17 there is a parallel with verse 1 of this chapter. In 4:1 we read, “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain.” And that is parallel to verse 17, “And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch.” Most Bibles put a paragraph division at verse 16 but the division should occur at verse 17. Verse 16 is the conclusion of the previous episode which states that Cain went out from the presence of Yahweh and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. There is something about that that is a bit of a reminder of a similar phrase back in chapter two verse eight, “And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden.” But notice there is the Hebrew preposition be there prior to the noun Eden, indicating that it is on the east side but it is in Eden. Now that man has been expelled from Eden they are outside the garden, and so this land of Nod which is a place of wandering is outside of the bounds of Eden on the east side of Eden.
As we get into this next section which extends from 17-26 the primary element here is to describe the descendents of Cain. So we have our first genealogy. There is a list here so we want to make a number of observations before we get into the text itself. First of all, we should note that there are a number of contrasts here between the line of Cain and the line of Adam through Seth given in chapter five. This doesn’t means, as some have inferred, that everyone in the line of Cain was an unbeliever, or that everyone in the line of Adam was a believer. When we get into Genesis chapter six and we deal with the sons of God who came in and took wives from the daughters of men we will look at various interpretations of that passage, and one view is that the sons of God were the descendents of Seth and the daughters of men were the descendents of Cain. There are a number of reasons why that is wrong but the population of the earth by then was somewhere between five and seven billion. Most people don’t realize how rapidly the population grew over this 1600-year period between Cain and Noah. So if you have a 1600-year period of people living coterminously through eight generations, then you are going to have a lot of people on the earth. Just think if everyone born since the year 1100 was still alive. We would have an enormous population. That was the situation in this antediluvian civilization. So it is absurd to think that the human race was divided into two groups: those who were the descendants of Cain—all unbelievers, and those who were the descendants of Seth—all believers, and then when we come down to the end though, everybody is an unbeliever except Noah and his family. There were only eight believers at the end of that period. So this is a ridiculous interpretation just on the face of it and it doesn’t treat the details of the text with the respect that they demand.
But the author, Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is drawing certain thematic contrasts and certain emphases between the two lines. The first of these is that in the line of Cain there is an emphasis on the development of human civilization. We will see that he has descendants who are the progenitors of dwelling in tents and animal husbandry. We’ll also see that he has in his line those who are the progenitors of music and the development of musical instruments as well as metallurgy and the development of weaponry. All of this comes from the line of Cain. There is an emphasis here on the development of culture and civilization. In contrast, in the line of Seth is on their spiritual focus. At the end of this chapter we have the comment after the birth of Seth’s son Enosh: “Then men began to call on the name of the Lord.” So there is an emphasis here. It is not that there is something wrong with the development of culture and civilization and technology but that it is developed for its own sake by the descendants of Cain. We know that the descendants on Set’s side had a tremendous amount of technology and culture and civilization on their own part. For example, when Noah and his sons get together they are going to build the ark and that demands a tremendous amount of technical skill. It demanded a certain amount of ability with animals in order to bring all those animals together in order to build all of the technology that was necessary to handle the enormous tonnage of excrement produced on a daily basis on the ark. They had to develop all kinds of technology on the ark in order to feed thousands of animals on a daily basis. So they were technologically advanced, but they weren’t into technology for technology’s sake. They put it under the priority of their relationship with God, and there is a tremendous distinction.
We can draw certain conclusions from this observation. First of all, we need to conclude that not all of these developments of technology or civilization are inherently wrong. It is when success, culture and technology becomes and end in themselves, or to promote man against God that it becomes evil. In contrast, divine viewpoint puts the emphasis not on human accomplishments but on the spiritual life. So the emphasis for Cain and his line is, Look at what we’ve accomplished, look at what we are able to develop. That is not even mentioned with the descendants of Seth, the emphasis is on their relationship with God. The second implication we can draw is that the accoutrements of civilization become a tool in the hands of fallen man to try to make life work apart from God. In other words, what we se in Cain and his descendants is that they are separated from God, they are trying to ameliorate the problems of the curse, living in a fallen world through technological development, instead of relationship with God. Man is always developing his own problem-solving devices in order to make life easier apart from God. This is not juxtaposing that. It is only when technology, civilization and culture becomes an end in itself, to make life work apart from God, that it becomes a problem. So these early technological achievements which we see here are presented in such a way as attempts to solve the problems of living in a fallen, cursed world apart from God. A third implication we can see is an application toward Israel. Remember Moses is writing this to explain to Israel why they are God’s chosen people and to reach them certain principles as they go into the land. They are going into a land where the people are not dissimilar to the descendants of Cain. The point of application would be that as the Israelites go into the land of Canaan they were not to supplant their own relationship with God with the cultural and technological refinements that they found in Canaan.
Another things that is emphasized in this narrative is how the unrighteous descendants of Cain modified the divine institutions. We see that in our own day. This is the orientation of the pagan mind, the fallen mind. It is to change the divine institutions in order to fit their own comfort zone. Remember at this time there were only three divine institutions in operation: human responsibility, marriage, and family. Cain is punished by God and he is going to be a wanderer, a nomad, wandering the face of the earth. But instead of doing that he shakes his fist at God and builds a city so that he can have a place to dwell. His descendant Lamech commits murder and treats it lightly. He uses it in a way to show off in front of his wives as if there is no accountability, no responsibility for his own actions. In the second divine institution, marriage, again Lamech is involved as he restructures marriage and introduces polygamy. So for the first time in history polygamy comes into play and it becomes a social problem for the next millennium at least. Then the third thing that is developed from this is the breakdown of the family. So in just these few brief verses that describe the genealogy of Cain we see the breakdown in divine institutions as pagan fallen man seeks to change the divine institutions. Cain’s descendants are marked by a desire to change the divine institutions, a disdain and disrespect for human life, and for technological and cultural achievements.
Another thing we need to note as we approach the genealogy is to understand the structure of these genealogies. At a basic level genealogies were written in the ancient world in order to celebrate advancement and the development of culture. Look at how far we have come; look at our progress; look at our development. But Cain’s genealogy has a certain ominous tone. It begins with a murderer and ends with a murderer. There is an ominous tone of calamity and judgment.
When we look at genealogies there are four technical terms that we need to understand. The first term is linear genealogy. One person gives birth to the next person, they give birth to the next person, and so on. The first seven under the Cainites is given in a linear way. Then the second term used is a segmented genealogy. In a segmented genealogy is when you have a father and then two or more of the children, where it branches out. This will come into play even more when we get into Genesis 10 & 11 where we have the table of nations. The next two terms are related There is an open genealogy and a closed genealogy. An open genealogy is when you have X gives birth to B. Then you might have B gives birth to H—obviously something is left out, three or four generations have been skipped. It is an open genealogy and there are several examples of open genealogies in the Scripture. For example, in Matthew chapter one where you have the genealogy of Christ presented from Abraham down to Joseph, and Matthew groups those individuals into three groups of fourteen. Fourteen represents two groups of seven. He is organizing them in order to make a point, and his theological point is the first of the seventh generation is Jesus Christ. The numeral seven indicates completion, but there are gaps in those genealogies. But there is one thing you don’t see in another open genealogy. Look at Genesis 4:17, “And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch.” Now skip down to verse 18, “And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech. And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.”
Now look at Genesis 5:3, “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: and the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: and all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos: and Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters: and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.”
Notice the difference between these two genealogies? Numbers. The first genealogy doesn’t have any numbers, it just says one person gave birth to another person. And so you can have in an open genealogy the insertion of several generations or gaps between the individuals. But in a closed genealogy you make the statement that A lived X years, and then he gave birth to B. Then he lives Y years. Then B lives X years and gives birth to C. Even if there are gaps, and we don’t think there are any, and there was a generation missed here and B lives X years and gives birth to D or E, he would still be 80 years of age when D is born, even if there were two other people in between. Once you put the numbers in there you can’t break the genealogy. Some will say there are gaps in other genealogies, but they are not closed genealogies, they don’t have the numbers there. There is a famous problem that occurs because there is one name that is left out of the Genesis eleven text and allegedly inserted in the Luke chapter three genealogy of Jesus. It is only one name. You don’t get 5000 years from one name. Furthermore, there are textual problems with that name in both the Hebrew text of the Old Testament and in the Greek text of Luke. The conclusion after studying the details on that is that there is no individual left out in that genealogy. There are no gaps.
As noted, Cain’s descendants attempt to make life work apart from God. This is the problem with human viewpoint, it always seeks to solve life’s problems apart from God. What we see here is that unbelievers can produce many good and helpful things for society and these achievements are not evil in themselves, but they have no spiritual value, they don’t contribute any to the glorification of God in the angelic conflict, and they don’t fit in with man’s mission as an image bearer of God and someone who was set over creation as a representative of God.
So we start in verse 17 and we see the beginning of this development when Cain had relations with his wife. And this is the same terminology as in verse 1. Literally, it is “Cain knew his wife,” it is the qal perfect of yada which is a Hebrew idiom for sexual intimacy. “And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch.” “Enoch in the Hebrew is Chanok, which is the same etymological root or cognate for hanukkah, and it means dedication. It has some significance in relationship to the action that occurs here. He was building a city: “and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.” The “he” here is left somewhat ambiguous in the Hebrew text, it probably refers to Cain. The word for “city” is the Hebrew word ir, and it also has the idea of a fortification. Early towns were usually fortifications, and so there is an ominous tone here that Cain is building this fortification because he knows he is in rebellion against God, he is supposed to be a nomad and a wanderer, but he is going to solve his problems on his own so he builds his own protection against God. This is what fallen man does, he tries to construct a view of life that ignores God. He wants to be comfortable, secure, free from judgment, think that he can get away with his actions and not have to face any consequences.
The question that always come up at this point is, Who did Cain marry? Cain married his sister. There were no other human beings. You start off with Adam and Eve, and according to Genesis 5:4 they had many sons and daughters. We don’t know how many they had but they had at least six, and we’ll use this as an extremely conservative number. That allows them to pair up into three couples, and they will then produce into the next generation. When Adam and Eve were created they had within their genetic makeup all genetic combinations. Remember they were only one step removed from perfect environment so there hasn’t been a dilution of the gene pool yet. You don’t get a commandment which prohibits marriage between close relatives until the Mosaic law. The reason is there is not a problem with it genetically. It is not until you get to a point where the gene pool has been diluted enough that the point is reached where there are going to be birth defects and other problems as a result marriage between people who are too closely related. So they married their sisters. To assume that people who lived 900 years only had six children is extremely conservative, but we will use that figure as we look at the development of these generations. So Cain’s wife was his sister and they went off and developed their own line apart from Adam and Eve and others.
In verse 18 we begin to look at these descendants. “And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.” Irad is from “city” [ir], and so some people seem to think that he was a town dweller. Others relate it etymologically to the semitic word for a wild donkey or for cane huts, and interesting connection because according to certain Canaanite mythologies the early gods that dwelt on the earth built cane huts. We are not sure what any of these names mean but they give a certain flavor of the time. If we look at the last two letters of Mehujael we see the name of God. Then his son is Methusael. So we can perhaps speculate because these two individuals had el in their name that they were perhaps believers. It cannot be assumed that everybody in each side was a believer or an unbeliever. Mehujael means either ecstatic of God, or perhaps God gives life. So his name recognizes some relationship to God. Methusael means a man of God. Methusael’s son is Lamech which means a conqueror.
Lamech, v. 19, has two wives. He is the one who begins polygamy. His first wife’s name is Ada, which means an ornament, indicating that she was quite attractive. The second wife is Zilla, which means a shadow or a shade. When we think of shadow or shade we think of something perhaps evil, but there is another value to these words and that is comfort, a place where you rest or refresh. So these two names suggest their physical beauty. These women give birth to two sons each. V. 20, “And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.” Here is the hint for the first time of a truly nomadic culture. V. 21, “And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.” V. 22, “And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.” Tubalcain is the progenitor of metallurgy, and he begins to develop both bronze and iron. Modern archaeology breaking down the history of man goes back to bronze age one and bronze age two, and iron age one and iron age two. That might reflect certain technological realities after the flood, but before the flood there was bronze and iron being developed from the very beginning. Apparently that technology is lost after the flood and it takes many generations before it is recovered.
Then Lamech commits a murder, and he does it in such a way that the idea is that he is impressing his wives as he has defeated this young warrior. V. 23, He puts together this taunt song. “And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.” The point that he is making is that he treats this murder so lightly. It is a trivial event to take the life of someone.
One last note as we go through this genealogy. If we were to take the time to break down the population growth and you start off with just six children in each generation—and remember each generation is living around 900 years—and they probably have five or six hundred years of fertility where they are producing children. If we recognize that we have people living concurrently then by the time of the fourth century the population on the earth would have been about 120,000. If we extrapolate that out to the time that the flood comes, and Noah’s flood occurs 1,656 years after the creation, then there is an earth’s population (with six children in each generation) of seven billion. That gives a totally new idea of what life was like on the earth before the flood. There was an enormous number of people on the earth and only eight had positive volition. Think about that when recalling what Jesus said: that when He returns it will be like it was in the days of Noah, i.e. characterized by extreme negative volition.
As we go through this it should be noted that it is really a polemic against pagan thought and pagan mythology in the ancient world. In the ancient near east it was standard to attribute all technological advancements and the development of civilization to the various gods and deities. For example, in the Ugaritic texts. Ugarit was a city to the north of Israel, and several decades ago they discovered a library there which gave a lot of insight into Canaanite culture at the time of the conquest. In the texts the discovery of iron was made by their god Koshar who was the divine artisan and blacksmith. In Cyprus was a god who invented the Lyre. It was the Greek god Pan who invented the flute. This is in contrast to the biblical account where it is human beings who are inventing these things. Remember that mythology is a perversion and a reversal of what actually happened. They have this faded and distorted memory of truth.
In verse 25 we come back to Adam. “And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” Seth is born when Cain is thirty or forty years of age. He was born after both Cain and Abel had both grown to maturity and Cain has murdered Abel. Obviously there is a continuation of having children throughout that time. “And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.” What we will see here is that these men who are calling on the name of the Lord—that is a bad translation. The Hebrew word is qara. In some cases it means to call or to summon, but it also means to announce and to proclaim, and in some cases it even has the idea of to preach—are they who began to announce or to proclaim the name of the Lord. The word there for “name” [shem] doesn’t simply means they are announcing what God’s name it, but name in the Scripture refers to someone’s attributes or their character. So what we find here is that at this generation, with the birth of Enos, then there is a positive volition to God and men began to proclaim the character of God. We see, then, this emphasis on worship, on proclaiming the attributes and character of God throughout the land.
Remember what is interesting about this whole period is that there is no human government. There is no establishment of a judicial system. God is still present; He is still dwelling in Eden, and God’s presence is with man. And as we saw with Cain and Abel it is God who is executing justice, and He is doing that through His angels. That is why He set the cherubs outside the garden of Eden and gave them a sword. The sword is always a picture of the execution of power and justice in Scripture.
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038b-The Doctrine of Civilizations
1) We can use the word “civilization” in two ways. We can talk about it with a capital C, or with a lower case c, as in western or eastern civilization, etc. We are talking about it with a capital C in a much broader sense in terms of the panorama of Scripture, so we will define a civilization as an advanced state of human society in which a level of art, science, industry and government have been reached. For our purposes we are talking about civilization in terms of a broad spectrum of time in human history. So a civilization will be defined as an advanced state of human society, that is, when man advances in his state of knowledge. This, of course, took place in the antediluvian [ante = before; diluvian = related to the English word “flood,” “deluge,” and means the flood] period. The civilization prior to the flood was a very advanced civilization.
2) The civilizations as we are using it begins with believers only. Each civilization in human history begins with believers only and terminates with a cataclysmic judgment which removes all the unbelievers from the planet. Then things start over again. There is a divine judgment in order to protect the human race and to preserve the human race from self-destruction.
3) Each civilization has its own characteristics related to the Adamic curse. There is a difference in environment which affects plant life and animal life and human beings.
4) There are three great civilizations and three cataclysmic judgments. The first civilization is the antediluvian civilization which began with two believers, Adam and Eve, and terminated with the flood. So the flood is the cataclysmic judgment that ended the first great civilization on planet earth. Then we have the postdiluvian civilization, the one in which we live, which began with eight believers who came off the ark, and will be terminated by the baptism of fire at the second advent when Jesus Christ returns. Only the believers survive the baptism of fire at the end of the Tribulation. The Millennial civilization begins with only believers, and once again there is a gradual deterioration and degeneracy until the end of the Millennial kingdom when there is the release of Satan who leads a revolt against God, the Gog and Magog revolution, and there is fire and brimstone from heaven that wipes out all of those unbelievers. The surviving believers go into the eternal state. These three civilizations emphasize the self-destructive tendency of mankind, and each one comes to a crisis point where the Supreme Court of heaven has to interfere in order to protect the human race from total self-destruction.
5) There is a pattern in each of these civilizations. This pattern is seen historically in Romans chapter one. Each civilization begins with believers only, and then as the civilization continues a degeneracy sets in. Romans 1:18ff. There is a gradual removal of common grace during this time and man goes through cycles of judgment as God gives man over to various degrees of degeneracy. As that degeneracy develops various human viewpoint thought forms kick in. So human viewpoint continues to build on its redefinition of reality. It starts off with the reduction of responsibility for sin. We saw that from Cain’s response: I am not my brother’s keeper. That is an assault of divine institution #1. All of this takes place as a result of self-absorption. There is a redefinition of reality and a reduction of responsibility. Once you reduce responsibility—I am not accountable to God. God is not in the picture—then the next stage is the arrogance skill of self-indulgence. If I am not accountable to anyone, if there is not a God to whom I am responsible, then I can begin to indulge in whatever my fantasies allow. Once reality is re-defined it leads to living in a fantasy world. There are no longer any absolutes. This leads to rationalizations and self-justifications. More and more sophisticated and complex stories are erected about origins, about ethics, about the source of law the source of absolutes, in order to justify living in this fantasy world, in order to justify the rejection of absolutes, in order to justify the degeneracy that is now becoming normal. That leads to the point where man begins to call bad good and good bad. There is a complete reversal of norms and standards. This is the arrogance skill of self-deception. Man at this point is doing exactly what is described in Romans 1:23, “And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” This leads to idolatry, worshipping elements of the creation, including self, and this is self-idolatry/self-deification. That takes place not only individually, but as it operates within a culture it takes place across the board.
Genesis 5:1 begins the next toledot, the history of the generations of Adam, and it runs through to 6:8 with, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” This section begins with “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” And then there is a reminder which relates to creation, “In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him.” So we are told that when God created man He created him in God’s likeness. Here we have the phrase bidmuth. The bi is the preposition and it should be translated “as”—“as his image.” The word dmuth means likeness. There is a shift that takes place here. V. 2, “Male and female created he them; and blessed them” is a direct reference back to Genesis 1:26-28. There the prepositions and nouns shift around. All we want to say at this point is that this is a reminder by God the Holy Spirit through Moses that it started off with perfect environment; “and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.” Adam there means mankind. So Genesis 5:1, 2 looks back to perfect environment. Then we are going to see what happened. Remember that there was the penalty of death, and so the key phrase that we are going to see in this chapter is “and he died,” over and over and over again.
Verse 3, “And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, according to his image; and called his name Seth.” Likeness is the word dmuth and image the word tselem. The first word that we find in Genesis 1:26 is that man is created, God says, “in our image,” be preposition bi plus the noun tselem, and it should be translated “as out image.” Man was to be created as God’s representative. He isn’t in the image of God, he is the image of God. Then the next phrase that is used is a word which comes from the word “likeness,” and it has the preposition ki which means according to, so we have “as out image and according to our likeness.” That is the phraseology and this is foundational to understanding the distinctiveness of mankind. Man has nephesh, which is roughly translated soul or breath, and the animals also are said to have nephesh. What makes the difference between the animals and man is that mankind is created as the image of God, according to His likeness. Then in Genesis 5:3 there is a slight reversal of these words. First, instead of “as our image” the preposition bi is now with dmuth. What happens is the prepositions switch on the nouns, so instead of “as out image” it is now “as his own likeness.” It is that Adam begot a son “as his own likeness” and “according to his image.” So we see this reversal of the prepositions with those nouns. The main emphasis here is simply that a change has taken place. It is ever so slight. Man is still created as God’s image and this is the reason given in Genesis chapter nine for capital punishment. The reason God delegates the right to capital punishment to the human race is because when somebody kills someone they have destroyed someone who is the image of God. Even though it may be distorted and corrupted because of sin man is still the image of God. The shift of the prepositions with the nouns here indicates that there has been a change, that instead of being identical to Adam as he was created his son is now as his likeness and according to his image. It is still in the image of God but it is distorted by sin and the sin nature.
From verse 3 down through the end of the chapter we are in a genealogy. Seth is born when Adam is 130 years old. He gives birth to Enos when he is 105 and was 912 years at his death, which is the year 1042. Then Enos was born in the year 235. His child is born when he is 90 years of age. He lives another 815 years for a total of 905 years, and he dies in the year 1140. Cainan is the fourth, he is born in the year 325. So we see that the generations of Adam, Seth, Enos and Cainan are all still alive. He gives birth to his son at seventy, lives another 840 years for a total of 910 years, dying in the year 1245. Then his son is Mahalaleel, one of the youngest. He is born in the year 395. He has his son at 65, he lives another 830 years until death and dies at 895 in the year 1290. There is only one son mentioned by name in each of these generations, but the text says that they had many other sons and daughters. Jared was born in the year 460. He gives birth to the son mentioned in the genealogy at 162. One would assume that by the year 162 he would have had a lot of children. So when Enoch is born to Jared at age 162, Enoch is probably not the first one. Jarod lives another 800 years until he dies in the year 1422 and he is 962.
Enoch is the special case here. He is born in the year 622, he gives birth to his son, Methuselah who is the oldest man in the Bible. But the oldest man in the Bible died before his father did because Enoch did not die. He lived another three hundred years and at the age of 365 the text says that he walked with God and he was not for God took him. God took him and they walked right on into Eden and into Paradise. The walking with God there is different from another phrase that is found in the Old Testament, “walking before God,” which has to do with a lifestyle. That is certainly present here. The idea of walking with God certainly indicated that he was following a super lifestyle as a believer in that dispensation, but it implies an intimacy with God that was far beyond the intimacy that anybody else had with God. Noah is the only other person mentioned. In Genesis 9:6 it is mentioned that Noah also walked with God and he found grace in God’s eyes. So Enoch stands out as a special believer. He was a prophet and during this time he prophesied about the second coming. One of the things that is always noticed throughout the Bible is that Noah and the flood of Noah always referred to in the New Testament in a context that is talking about the second coming. Enoch prophesied about the second coming and he goes to be with the Lord. It is believed that this time God is still physically on the earth with His headquarters in Eden. That hasn’t been destroyed yet and it is not destroyed until the flood.
Methuselah is born in 687. He has a son, Lamech, when he is 187 years of age. He lived another 782 years after the birth of Lamech and died at the age of 969 in the year 1656. Think about this. Adam lived into the life of Enoch. Adam didn’t die until the year 930; Enoch is born in 632, and is taken in 987, which is approximately 50 years after Adam died. Lamech is born in 874. At the age 182 his child, Noah, is mentioned. He lives another 595 years and dies at the age of 777 in the year 1651. Notice that Methuselah died in 1656, five years after his son Lamech. Methuselah dies in the same year as the flood. Noah is born in the year 1056. At the age of 500 he has had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. He does not die until about 2006.
It has already been pointed out that Adam lived until Lamech. The father of Noah was 56 years of age when Adam finally died. That was just a few years before Noah was born. These same names are mentioned again in two other genealogies in the Bible—1 Chronicles 1:1-4; Luke 3:36-38—which attest to the legitimacy of these names in this particular genealogy. In Noah’s 600th year the flood comes, i.e. 1656, right after Methuselah dies. In most of the Bible we don’t have many references to Enoch, but there are a couple of passages that are mentioned. For example, Jude 14, 15, “And Enoch also, the seventh [generation] from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” That is a prophecy about the second coming. It is interesting that the first person in the Bible to get raptured was known for prophesying about the second coming. The quote in Jude is from the apocryphal book of Enoch, but remember the Holy Spirit can quote from anything. When he quotes from it it makes that section of the book inerrant, but it doesn’t mean the book of Enoch is itself inerrant or Scriptural. Hebrews 11:5 also mentions Enoch: “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” This is parallel to the taking of Elijah. In 2 Kings chapter two we have the Hebrew verb laqach, meaning to take or to remove. “And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” Elijah and Enoch are the only two individuals in the Old Testament that do not die physically. Therefore it is often thought that it is those two individuals who will be the two witnesses who come back during the Tribulation period. Zechariah 4:14 mentions these two, “Then said he, These are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.” Revelation 11:7-12 mentions these two witnesses. Since Elijah and Enoch never died many people think that this refers to them. The Bible never specifies it as such but it is probably a likely conclusion to identify them as such.
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039b-Sons of God; Nephilim; Demonic Attack; Gen. 6:1-3
We now come to one of the more interesting episodes in Genesis. Genesis chapter six is the prelude to the flood episode in the Scriptures. This is the introduction to the flood, why there was a need for such a catastrophic world-wide judgment, and verses 1-8 is actually the conclusion of the third division of Genesis. Chapter five merely focuses on the overall details of what took place during this time genealogically from one generation to the next. Chapter six comes in and describes what is happening spiritually during this same period. It begins with an unusual episode which has generated a tremendous amount of controversy as to how to interpret it.
Verse 1, “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them.” This is the first part of the verse which extends down into v.2, but it should be correctly translated “Now it came about when mankind began to multiply on the face of the land.” The word translated “men” is actually the singular Hebrew noun adam. It is distinguished from Adam’s name because when you look at the last word in this verse this is a third person plural ending on a Hebrew verb, “born to them.” Obviously the “them” goes back to a noun which could only be the word adam, and therefore it is a collective noun, singular in form but it refers to a large number. The word for land is the Hebrew word adamah, it is different from eretz which is the word for earth and often translated land when it applies to the promised land, to the land of Israel. Then we have, “and daughters were born unto them.” So the emphasis here is not on sons but on daughters. Just a note of observation that we will need to keep in our minds as we go through this chapter, if we go back and examine the genealogy of Cain there is no mention of daughters. It doesn’t mean he didn’t have any, it is just that the author doesn’t mention them, they are not of significance. But in chapter five where we get into the genealogy of Seth there are nine mentions of “sons and daughters.” That is just a minor point but it is one of emphasis that will have a significant implication as we get into an interpretation of this passage.
Verse 2, “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.” This introduces us to the second great attack on the human race by demonic forces. The first was Satan’s attack in the garden. The third assault comes during the Tribulation when there will be three different attacks on the human race. There will be an attack in Revelation 9 under the command of a demon called Abaddon [Hebrew] or Apollyon [Greek] meaning destroyer or terminator. Then there will be a demon assault army that attacks from under the Euphrates river. Then there will be a third demon army that attacks in Revelation 12:7-17.
But this phrase “sons of God” is one that has generated a tremendous amount of debate and discussion in terms of just exactly what this word means. The word itself in the Hebrew is the phrase beni-ha-Elohim. The Hebrew word beni is the word for “son.” Here it is in the plural but it is also in the construct form, i.e. the noun is placed in construct and that means it is essentially a genitival relationship. The ha is a definite article preceding Elohim, the generic word for God. So it is “the sons of the God” but actually you don’t translate the definite article in this particular case, so it is simply “the sons of God.” The sons of God look upon the daughters of men and see that they are beautiful and they take wives for themselves. Who are these sons of God?
There are three interpretations that are offered for understanding this episode. The first looks at the terms “sons of God” and “daughters of men” and relates that to two classifications of human beings. The sons of God in this view stands for either the descendants in the Seth line or believers in general, and then they take “the daughters of men” to relate to descendants in the Cain line. So we can summarize it by saying this is the apostate view. It views the sons of God as believers and daughters of men as those who are unregenerate. The reason this view has some support is because of a misunderstanding of Hebrew. Proponents of this view will go to such phrases as “Israel, my son, my firstborn” in Exodus 4:22, and seek support from the phrase “sons of Yahweh” in Deuteronomy 14:1, and the phrase “children of God” in Deuteronomy 32:5, and many other phrases which focus on the idea of the Jews being sons of God. They would argue that we should not use ben-ha-Elohim here as a technical term for angels, and that there are many places where human beings are referred to as sons of God or sons of Yahweh and so this does not necessitate an angelic interpretation. . . .
[Some missing from the recording] In cases cited in Exodus and the Psalms the judge is a representative of God, he is viewed as a righteous judge representing God, but in Genesis 6 the sons of God are made by these same folks to represent the line of Cain, the reprobate rulers, rather than righteous rulers. So in order to get around this they try to make this a genitive of description, the sons of God being a class of people, but then they also want to use Elohim in a positive sense referring to God. So they want to do two different things with it at the same time, and that violate basic rules of hermeneutics.
There is a new view that is coming out that tries to merge this view with the angel interpretation. In other words, what they try to say is that it is talking about these as despotic rulers but they were demon possessed.
There are two basic problems that destroy the interpretations of the above. Neither of these positions addresses these two questions: So what if the believers and the unbelievers are intermarrying, how would that destroy the human race? How would that necessitate God destroying the entire human race? We live in a time today when there are all kinds of believers marrying unbelievers. Same thing with the problem of the despotic rulers. Why would it be necessary to wipe out all the human people in the human race if that is the problem. Then the other problem that neither one of these views addresses is the evidence that comes from the New Testament epistles of Peter and Jude. There is New Testament commentary.
The third view is the view that the term “sons of God” is a technical term for angels, and in this case fallen angels or demons who seduce these young women and married them and produced a genetically defiled offspring. The question that comes up is: How in the world can angels marry? What do you do with Matthew 22:30? “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” So the emphasis is that there is no marriage among the angels in heaven, according to Jesus. “They took wives for themselves” in Genesis 6 is clear Hebrew terminology for marriage; you can’t say that it is rape or simply seduction. It is clear from the language that there was an intermarriage going on between these sons of God and the daughters of men.
We have the term beni-ha-Elohim, or it is sometimes simply beni-Elohim, the definite article is left off in Job 38:7, and we find it in passages such as Job 1:6, “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.” Here Satan is clearly seen as one of the sons of God. So the term “sons of God” clearly includes both the elect and fallen angels. Notice that the sons of God come together and there is some sort of angelic convocation, regular assembly or council that includes all of the angels, even the fallen angels, and that this continued through the Old Testament period. Then again in Job 2:1, “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.” Then the third reference in Job, Job 38:7 which is talking about creation, “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” This term, “sons of God,” then, includes all of the angels, and at the time of the creation and the laying of the foundations of the earth all the sons of God were united together. In Psalm 89:7, “God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.” What we see in Scripture is that there is clear evidence of an angelic council that includes both the fallen angels as well as the elect angels.
It is the New Testament that gives clarification to this episode. Jude 6, 7, “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” This sheds light on Genesis 6.
Some observations: The phrase “who did not keep their own domain.” The word “domain” translates the Greek word ARCHE [a)rxh] which can mean “first” or “first principles” but it also means a domain or a sphere of influence or power. It can mean first in order or first in initial position in time. So it could be translated, “angels who did not keep their first position,” or, “angels who did not keep their own sphere of influence [or, power],” because of the verb. They abandoned something: “their proper abode.” The word translated “proper abode” is the Greek word OIKETERION [oi)khthrion] which means house or habitation, or dwelling place. So these are angels who did not keep their first position or their proper domain, their proper sphere of influence or power, but they abandoned their proper habitation, their correct habitation.
In verse 7 the word translated “darkness” is the Greek ZOPHOS [zofoj] which is not simply a place where there is darkness (that would be SKOTOS [skotoj]), this is a place that is associated with despair, depression, gloom, and misery. It is a deep, miserable, gloomy darkness where these angels are imprisoned. There is a comparison in the verse between the angels who did not keep there domain and Sodom and Gomorrah. The NASB translates, “ …in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality…” The problem with that phraseology in the English is that we lose sight of who the “who” the “they” the “these” refer to. This is where a knowledge of the original language clarifies because the pronouns are going to be either feminine, masculine, or neuter, and which they are is going to indicate which nouns they refer to. So we will break it down. “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them.” That is a feminine plural and refers to the cities; “…since they [feminine],” one again referring to the cities. The “they” here isn’t a separate pronoun, it is the third person plural ending on the noun “exhibited” that comes later on in the sentence; “…since they in the same way as these”—here is the comparison. In the same way as who? The cities? Or in the same way as the angels? The “these” here refers to the angels; it is a masculine plural pronoun. That means it can’t refer to the cities because that would entail a feminine plural pronoun. The comparison is that they, the cities, in the same way as the angels, indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh. So what we see here is a comparison between Sodom and Gomorrah and it is saying that they imitated a sin that occurred previously. If it doesn’t refer to that event then we have no idea what it would refer to.
Peter writes (2 Peter 2:4), “…For if God spared not the angels that sinned.” What does he means, “when they sinned”? Is he talking about the original sin? If he is then all the fallen angels would be in prison, and there would be no demonic assaults. So he can’t be speaking of the original fall of the angels: “…but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.” The place of judgment is not hell, which is what you have in the English. Actually, it is Tartarus which is a different compartment of Hades. In Greek mythology this was the place where the ancient demigods were punished. So in extra-biblical literature such as the book of Enoch, Tartarus is always said to be the place of judgment for fallen angels. It is a temporary place of judgment for these angels from Genesis 6 until their final trial comes. The are committed to pits of darkness. This is the same idea of darkness that is in Jude 6. The sin is connected in verse 5 to the time of Noah, “And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.” So vv.4, 5 connects the timing of this angelic sin to the time of the flood during Noah’s life.
The third passage is in 1 Peter 3:18-20, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also he went and made proclamation unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” Here Peter is going to move from the judgment of sin at the cross to show that God always judges sin. That word “judgment” is a key word for understanding the flood. The flood is always associated with judgment and salvation, so it is a picture in the New Testament of salvation. The words “were disobedient” can’t refer to the original angelic fall, it has to refer to another disobedience: “when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water”—NASB. When we put these three New Testament passages together with the Old Testament episode in Genesis 6 the only conclusion that we can come to is that the sons of God in Genesis 6:3 is a technical term describing fallen angels who in some way were able to take on a human body and were able to procreate with women that they had taken as wives.
The result of that union is described in verse 4 as Nephilim. This offspring would have been genetically distorted offspring, it would not have been pure humanity. This is the historical reality behind all those odd stories that we run into in various pagan mythologies.
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040b-Nephili
We have come to that part of Genesis six where we see the breakdown of not just a culture but a breakdown of a civilization, the antediluvian civilization.
Verse 3, “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” The implications of this verse are profound. You don’t see them in the English translation. Where we get into a problem is the word “strive.” It is a hapax legomenon, the Hebrew word yadon. Remember vowel points were inserted in the text late. Hebrew is a consonantal alphabet. There was a speculation that the root originally had to do with contention or striving, and so the original idea was that the word had to do with contentiousness or striving. However, current lexical scholarship recognizes that this word is not based in the previously thought word but is a cognate of an Akadian word and an Arabic word, both of which have the idea of remain, stay, or abide. What does that mean? Let’s retranslate: “The Yahweh said, My spirit will not abide, stay, remain, with man forever.” What would He be talking about? Remember that after the fall man was excluded from access to Eden. Eden was the dwelling of God. There was a garden planted eastward in Eden which is where God placed man as His representative to rule over the planet. When the fall came the only thing that happened was that God established cherubs around Eden with flaming swords, and swords in Scripture are a picture of military power and judicial power, the power of life over death. God established these cherubs around Eden to prevent man from coming into Eden. But there is no suggestion that God is no longer in Eden. In fact, there is a hint that God is still physically present on the earth in Genesis 5:24 where we read that Enoch walked with God, and he was not for God took him. Where did God take him? Probably not to heaven because, remember, no saints had access to heaven until the cross. They probably walked right into Eden. So the verb understanding here in Genesis 6:3 suggests that God is still directing in a very directive way, a very personal way, the judicial operation on the human race. God is still governing the planet, as it were, directly by His presence.
What does He mean by my spirit? One suggestion has been the “my spirit” here is simply a circumlocution for “my presence.” However, ruach for “spirit’ is never used in that way in the Old Testament. So it would be a reference to the Holy Spirit, even though it is a little more subtle than the reference in Genesis 1:2 where it talks about the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the deep. So apparently the Holy Spirit has an administrative function in administrating the divine rule over the planet during this antediluvian period. This explains why God delegates judicial authority to man after the flood. One of the perplexing things is that you have this civilization that arises with the birth of Cain where there are murders but there is no judiciary. You don’t have the delegation and judicial power until Genesis chapter nine. There is no judicial function from the fall to the flood. So who is governing things? The implication here is that God, specifically the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is the one who is operating here on the planet. This is why this is seen as one form of God’s theocratic kingdom evident on the earth, and God removes His presence from the earth at the time of the flood. Once He removes His presence there has to be some kind of judicial authority, so He then delegates that judicial authority to man. So this is a warning in verse 3.
“…for he is indeed flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” Here the word for “flesh” is the Hebrew word basar and it is an indication of mortal flesh. It is emphasizing the mortality of man. So God is giving man 120 years of warning. This is the principle of grace before judgment. God never brings harsh judgment without a warning and without giving grace ahead of time, giving an opportunity to respond to His overtures of evangelism and the teaching of the Word.
Verse 4, the specifics of what happens during these generations between Adam and Noah. “There were giants in the earth in those days.” The KJV translates “giants.” In one sense that is correct but it is misleading here. The Hebrew word is nephilim. This word is used one other place in the Scripture, Numbers 13:33, “And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” The context of Numbers 13 is that the twelve spies have gone into the land of Canaan in order to see how they are going to take the Canaanites. Their mission was not to see if they could but to just get the lay of the land, to go on a reconnaissance mission. Unfortunately they misunderstood their orders and they came back and began to complain that they couldn’t accomplish the task. They forgot that God had already promised them the land, that they weren’t there to see if they could do it, but were to just check things out to see how they were going to do it. They returned and gave a report, and ten of the spies are crying and moaning and saying it would be too difficult. The “giants” were described as the descendants of Anak who came down from the nephilim. Incidentally, the sons of Anak were eventually killed, except for a few remnants who head down to a city called Gath in Philistia and Goliath comes out of Gath.
The flood was about 2800 B.C. Abraham is called out of Ur of the Chaldees in approximately 2000 B.C. The Exodus occurs in 1446 B.C. So the initial conquest in Numbers 13 is taking place in about 1445-44 B.C. In 1444 B.C. they have a word that they use to describe giants—nephilim. That is what they are calling these giants that they see in Canaan. Remember that in 1445 B.C. Genesis hadn’t even been written yet. So this is their terminology for these giants. There are a couple of ways that we can handle this. One way is that this word was used to apply to these contemporary monsters of 1444 B.C. because it reminded them of the stories they had heard about what happened back in 2800 B.C. And so when Moses writes Genesis he is going to use terminology that is current with that generation. It is going to help them understand what these guys looked like before the flood. So he is using a contemporary term to describe something that nobody there had seen. The other way to look at it is that the term nephilim was a technical term for these monsters before the flood and the monsters in 1444 B.C. reminded them of the nephilim, and so they applied the term there. It is hard to tell which is the type and which is the prototype here. The term nephilim is a technical term for a half-demon, half-human. The word itself etymologically is probably related to two particular Hebrew words. The first is nephel, and that word would refer to a birth or miscarriage and so the idea here is that this is talking about this production of super-human monstrosities in this birth process. It could also be related, although this is more of a long shot, to the Hebrew noun pul, in which case it would have to do with might or strength. Most scholars go for the former, that it had to do with the fact that they were such monstrosities when they were born. That would be because they were not pure human, they were a mixed breed. So the term nephilim itself is not a term that has as its core semantic meaning a half-breed, half-demon, half-angel; it just refers to some sort of a monstrosity and could be applied to any monstrosity. Therefore it is applied to this production from the sons of God, the demons, and the daughters of men.
So we read: “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also afterwards.” There is the phrase we must pay attention to; “…when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” The “when the sons of God” modifies the days, so the phrase “and also afterwards” is going to tie in nephilim. They were monsters on the earth in those days and monsters on the earth in these days; he is writing to the Jews. The reason he adds this is to show that just as God took care of the giants, the monsters, in that antediluvian civilization, and wiped them all out through the flood, he would do the same thing when the Jews went into the land. Don’t worry! The battle is the Lord’s. Once you start interpreting Scripture in the light of the time in which it was written suddenly a lot of things make a lot of sense and become clear. “…the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” In that statement, what he is alluding to is the fact that in most ancient near eastern cultures, in fact in many cultures around the world, as they developed their various pantheons and mythologies, they had stories about gods who came to earth and raped or intermarried or just took human girlfriends, and had a product of half-human, half-god offspring. Those mythological stories are just a vague, distorted memory of what happened in Genesis 6 where these demons came to earth and through interbreeding with humans attempted to destroy the genetic purity of the human race.
Verse 5, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” All of this has a tremendous impact because it is man’s sinful gone awry. This emphasizes the fact that man is fallen. All human beings are corrupt by Adam’s original sin. This is what is referred to as the doctrine of total depravity.
Total depravity comes from the Latin word depravare [de is intensive; plus the root prevous which means crooked]. So it is the idea of being completely crooked or corrupt. Total depravity has been brought into theology and it has a history and a controversy. Some people don’t like it because they think that total depravity means that man is all bad, and it sounds as if man is as bad as he can be. Total depravity doesn’t mean man is as bad as he cane be. Actually, it means that man in all of his aspects—the total idea, his material and immaterial part—have been corrupted by Adam’s original sin, so that man can do nothing to gain or acquire God’s approval. Man can’t do anything to produce perfect righteousness. This is backed up by a number of scriptures. For example, Psalm 39:5, “Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity.” Isaiah 64:6, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” Ephesians 2:1, we were born “dead in trespasses and sins.” Historically we have many fine definitions of total depravity. For example, the Westminster Confession of Faith, Article six.
It is important to redefine the definition. We must say that man is born physically alive and spiritually dead. In spiritual death every aspect of man’s being, physically and immaterially, has been corrupted by sin, so that man on his own is unable to do anything to merit God’s approbation. An important point here is that in Calvinism among a lot of hyper-Calvinists, they want to intensify total depravity into what they call total inability. An example: “The Bible stresses the total inability of fallen man to respond to the things of God. He is not able to do so.” This is what the Calvinist refers to as total depravity. He defines it as “man can’t respond.” That is vague. Does that mean he can’t respond negatively or can’t respond positively? If he can’t respond positively he can’t respond negatively. It is too ambiguous in that definition. The problem is by putting it that way and saying man can’t do anything Godward. There is a vast difference between saying man can’t do anything Godward and man can’t do anything meritorious in God’s direction. That is an important distinction to bring out because this underlies the whole issue in understanding volition and faith, because the real battle is in understanding faith and where the merit is. Is the merit in the faith or is the merit in the object of the faith? If we say man can’t do anything includes exercising positive volition towards God, what we are saying is that positive volition towards God is meritorious. If positive volition towards God is meritorious and faith is meritorious then you have to end up making faith the gift in Ephesians 2:8, 9—God has to give you faith. And that doesn’t fit exegetically. In the Westminster Confession of Faith there is one line in particular that gives it away: “They receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith, which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.” Theology hangs together, and if you start off with total inability and define it in such a way that man can’t even have positive volition towards God, what you have imbedded in that is that you’ve made positive volition meritorious, and if that is meritorious you are going to make faith meritorious, and then faith becomes a gift, and God has to not only die on the cross for you but He also has to give you faith and give you the understanding. He has to give you everything and that makes man a robot, and volition is irrelevant. The Scriptures teach man has responsibility, which implies volition. Man doesn’t save man because of volition, He saves man because of what Christ did on the cross, and when man exercises faith, which is non-meritorious, then God makes that faith effective for salvation by imputing Christ’s perfect righteousness to the believer and saves them on the basis of that imputation, not because of their faith.
Genesis 6:5 is expressing the consequences of total depravity in the human race in the antediluvian civilization as it worked itself out in that time. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” It is a historical description, it is not a prescriptive statement about all of mankind everywhere because there is a contrast here with Noah.
Verse 6, “And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” This is a difficult verse to understand because there are two anthropopathisms and one anthropomorphism. Definitions: Anthropomorphism is language of accommodation that ascribes to God human physical characteristics which God does not actually possess in order to reveal and to explain His infinite essence, His policy and sovereign decisions in terms of human anatomy, so that the finite mind of man can comprehend these policies and plans. For example, the Scripture talks about the face of God, the eyes of God, the ears of God, and the arms of God. An anthropopathism has to do with emotion. This is, again, language of accommodation or a figure of speech that ascribes to God human passions, emotions, thoughts and attitudes which He does not actually possess, in order to reveal and explain His essence, His policy, His plans, and His sovereign decisions to the finite mind of man.
The first anthropopathism is “the LORD was sorry” [NKJV]. The verb here that is translated “sorry” does mean that in some contexts. It is the Hebrew word nacham. Here it is in the niphal stem which is the passive stem and it means to comfort, to be sorry, to sorrow, to be moved to pity, to have compassion. It also means to regret or be remorseful. The question is, is the Lord sorry that He made man? Did this surprise God? Remember, God is omniscient, he has known this from eternity past. We see a similar context in Exodus 32:14 where after the golden calf incident God wants to destroy the Jews. Moses prays and God changes His mind. The idea here is that prayer changes things, and Moses’ prayer was built on doctrine. God could easily have destroyed the people and Moses would have survived. Moses argued theologically from doctrine that the Lord should preserve the people, so the Lord did. It doesn’t mean the Lord changed. It is a figure of speech to express ways that we can understand what is going on here. In Numbers 23:19 we read, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent.” God is not literally changing His mind; He is not literally sorry or remorseful. This imagery is used because it communicates to us this sort of a change. It is showing that the Lord in His justice is condemning man for what he has done.
Then we come to another anthropopathism. “…it grieved him at his heart.” This is the Hebrew verb atzab in the hithpael stem. It is a verb of mental discomfort. The root meaning of the qal stem is to hurt, pain, grieve. The noun is the idea of toil. In the hithpael it means to vex. In the Hebrew-Aramaic lexicon we have the meaning to be deeply worried. Is God deeply worried? This is poetic imagery here to communicate the distress this brings to the justice of God. His righteousness has been violated and His justice must bring judgment upon man. So this kind of imagery is used here. Then we read that He was grieved where? In His heart. Does God have a heart? This is the Hebrew word leb. Heart is never used of a physical organ pumping blood through the body in the Old Testament, it is always used in a figurative sense to refer to something that is in the middle, something in the center of something, in the midst of something, the core of an ideas. The idea here is that in God’s essence, in His integrity, His righteousness has been violated so His justice must condemn man. And that is the issue in the flood. It is a picture of God’s judgment on sin. It is also a picture of God’s salvation.
Verse 7, “And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth [nacham] me that I have made them.” Everything but the fish. Cf. 1:26,27. Why is it that because of man’s sinful decision animals and nature are destroyed? We have to understand that there is a connection. Sin affects nature. The world that exists after the flood is vastly different from the world that existed before the flood.
The in contrast to these words of judgment we have salvation mentioned in verse 8, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” This is again an anthropomorphism. It is a picture of His omniscience. This is the first specific mention of the word grace in Genesis. It is going to be through Noah that God is going to deliver the human race. This is a picture of salvation and a picture of how there is only one way of salvation.
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041b-The Flood: Grace
Genesis 6:9 through 9:29 is the next toledot. In this series we are looking at things in two or three different ways. One way is by looking at the basics structure of Genesis in terms of the ten toledot sections. The word toledot is a Hebrew word from the root yalad, meaning to give birth. So it has the idea of generation or record and it is used as a structural marker in the book of Genesis in order to mark out different sections over the history of the book. The beginning of each toledot section could generally be paraphrased, “This is what happened to the descendants of …”
The first section of Genesis is the creation narrative in Gen. 1:1 to 2:3. The second section or the first toledot is 2:4 to 4:26, consisting of 72 verses. This is the period that covers the creation of man and the woman, the institutions of volition and marriage, as well as the fall, the curse, and the first murder. That whole section is covered in only 72 verses. The second toledot begins in 5:1 and extends down through 6:8, and this covers 40 verses. The vast majority of that is the genealogy of the descendants of Adam through Seth. We are in the third toledot, the records of the descendants of Noah, 6:9 to 9:29, which covers the flood episode. In the first eleven chapters of Genesis, which is really the introduction to the book—the book itself focuses on Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—this is the longest section, 89 verses devoted to Noah. That means that in terms of proportion this is not just some secondary story that just got inserted into the text. Under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit the writer is emphasizing what took place in Noah’s life. This will be emphasized when we come later on to look at how this is sued in Hebrews chapter eleven, verse seven: “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” What we see in Hebrews 11 is the spiritual/doctrinal application for the believer in the Church Age. This does not in any way take away from the historicity of Noah, but says that Noah is clearly an example, that it is by means of doctrine (what he believed), because of his trust in God’s revelation, he became a picture of salvation and deliverance. This is an important, critical episode in the Old Testament and cannot be skipped over. The fourth toledot comes up in 10:1 and goes down through 11:9, “This is what happened to the generations of Shem, Ham and Japheth.” That is also known as the table of nations. The fifth toledot gives the descent of Shem, 11:10-11:26, and that ends the introduction. Chapters 1:1 to 11:26 forms the first section of this book, the introduction.
Then we get into the major part of the book, and the first toledot is the toledot of Terah, Abraham’s father, and that is 11:27 to 25:11. That covers 377 verses, and so it can be seen that at this point the emphasis shifts. Everything up to that point is under 100 verses and now it jumps to 377. The seventh toledot is that of Ishmael, 25:12-18, so the descent of Ishmael is relatively insignificant by comparison. Then eighth toledot of Isaac is 25:19 to 35:29, 354 verses. The ninth toledot is that of Esau, 36:1 to 37:1, 43 verses. The final toledot is that of Jacob, which includes the 12 sons, especially Joseph, and that is covered 37:2 to 50:26, 414 verses.
If we just look at proportionality, we see that in the first section Noah gets the largest chunk of verses, and in the second section which deals with the patriarchs of Israel it is the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that have the lion’s share of the verses. So this tells us that Noah is not to be taken lightly. This is a very important section in the book of Genesis.
One of the ways that we look at the structure here is to see that the author puts it together in a literary form known as a chiasm. This is a way of structuring material so that what comes in the middle of the chiasm is emphasized. So here we are just going to get a brief outline and structure of Genesis 6:9-9:29. The main idea is the contrast between Noah’s righteousness and its consequences and the world’s corruption and its consequences. We see that volition has consequences. You make good decisions from a position of strength, trust in God, and there is blessing. If you make wrong decisions on the basis of negative volition and the result is cursing. That is the theme in Genesis: blessing and cursing.
The first part, 6:11-13, is God resolves to destroy the corrupt race. The emphasis is on the corruption of the human race. The Hebrew word for corruption there is used three times in that section. In the next section Noah builds an ark according to God’s specifications, 6:14-22. In the third paragraph the Lord commands the remnant—Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives, to enter the ark along with the animals—in 7:1-9. The fourth paragraph, 7:10-16, is the beginning of the flood, and in the fifth paragraph the flood prevails for 150 days and the mountains are covered by the waters, 7:17-24. Then we come to the center point: God remembers Noah in 8:1.
In 8:1b-5 we see the recession of the flood for 150 days and the mountains become visible, so we back out of this flood now, and from 8:1b there is a mirror reflection of what goes before. So you can’t come along and say this was cobbled together from two or three different sources. This shows that there is an integral unity in the text demonstrating that there was one author who put this together and it is a masterful literary construction. In 8:6-14 the earth dries out, and that mirrors 7:10-16 where the flood begins. Then God commands the remnant to leave the ark, 8:15-19, and this parallels 7:1-9 when God commanded the remnant to enter the ark. Next, Noah builds an altar according to God’s specifications, 8:20, and this is parallel to Noah building an ark according to God’s specifications. Then the final paragraph in 8:21, 22, the Lord resolves to not destroy mankind by water, and that parallels 6:11-13 where God resolves to destroy the corrupt race. The focal point of the Narrative is 8:1, God remembers Noah. That is what the author is drawing our attention to. Remember in Hebrew narrative God is always the hero. We tend to look at it in terms of individual human heroes, but in Hebrew narrative God is always the hero, not the individual human.
The key idea of this section is God’s grace which precedes judgment, His judgment on mankind, and His salvation or deliverance by grace. So the flood episode teaches grace, judgment, and salvation. Those are the doctrinal emphases in this section.
The first thing to point out in the introduction to the toledot is the principle of grace before judgment.
1) Before every divine judgment throughout human history God always gives mankind a period of grace in which to be saved. He does it in terms of nations, He does it in terms of individuals, He does it in our own personal spiritual lives. Before He lowers the boom in divine discipline He will precede that with grace to give us an opportunity to rebound, to confess our sins, to start getting back in fellowship ands walking by the Holy Spirit. At this particular time there was a 120-year period time of intense evangelism before the judgment of the flood. Actually, what happens throughout history is that God gives grace and man rejects it.
2) There never has been a time in history when mankind did not have the opportunity to believe in Christ. Whatever the dispensation was, if it was the antediluvian civilization there was a period of time there for them to respond to the gospel as it was in that dispensation. Remember, in the Old Testament period the gospel always anticipated deliverance, it looked forward to the promised seed of the woman, and that was the focal point of salvation. Just because we don’t know how the gospel got around, just because we don’t have historical records, doesn’t mean the gospel did not make its way to many different nations. In fact, from the little bit of evidence that we do have in the New Testament era we know that the gospel has made it to a lot of places.
3) God’s grace before judgment prior to the fall. God granted the human race 120 years of warning, according to Genesis 6:3—120 years of hearing Noah proclaim the gospel. And remember, Methuselah doesn’t die until just before the flood. So there were others in that line who were believers who were also proclaiming the gospel. Noah was not the only one, but all of the others were older and they would have died physically prior to the flood. And as Hebrews 11:7 points out, not only proclaimed the gospel verbally but the fact that he and his sons were building the ark was a visual statement of condemnation on that antediluvian civilization.
4) In the Old Testament the prophets warned the Jews about the approaching judgments of 722 B.C. when the Assyrians took out the northern kingdom of Israel, and they warned the southern kingdom about the judgment of Babylon coming in 586 B.C. In fact, 100 years earlier Isaiah was prophesying about the approaching of the Babylonian defeat.
5) Jesus warned the Jews in Matthew 24 about the coming judgment for rejecting Him as Messiah. They were warned about the Roman armies coming and destroying Jerusalem.
6) Every person has adequate testimony to the existence of God prior to death. Romans 1:20 says: “So that they are without excuse.” That tells us that every human being has common grace that presents clear evidence that God exists. His invisible attributes are made clear in the heavens, but man rejects that and suppresses the truth by means of unrighteousness.
7) In the Tribulation period the gospel will be proclaimed as never before in human history and there will be numerous warnings, grace even in the judgments.
One of the biggest problems that we have today is a challenge to the historicity of Noah. People today want to think of this as just another myth, and ancient legend. Yet, if we look at the Bible what we will see is that throughout the Old Testament and New Testament there is clear affirmation of the historical existence of Noah and the judgment of the flood. Isaiah 54:9, “For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.” God is giving a historical warning to Israel in Isaiah 54 and He is drawing an analogy to the judgment at the time of Noah. If Noah was not a historical incident then that would invalidate the analogy. Secondly, in God’s statement He is indicating that the flood was global, not some local flood that occurred down the Tigris-Euphrates drainage basin, neither was it a local flood that occurred when the Black Sea overflowed, a recent theory which has been set forth by a number of archaeologists. If you take the position that it was a local flood then eventually your whole system is going to collapse into some sort of accommodation with evolution. This must be taken as universal, otherwise you are destroying the historicity of the text and it affects numerous other doctrines.
Ezekiel 14:14, 20 also emphasize the historicity of Noah. “Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GOD” . . . . “Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.” These two passages treat Noah as a historical individual.
Then we get into the New Testament. Jesus compared the second coming and the characteristics of the earth’s civilizations at the time of the second coming to the way it was at the time of Noah, Matthew 24:37, “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Once again, if Noah isn’t a historically accurate figure then this becomes a meaningless statement. Luke 3:36, “Which was the son of Cainan, which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem, which was the son of Noah, which was the son of Lamech.” Noah is located in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Luke 17:26, a parallel passage to Matthew 24:27, “And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.” Hebrews 11:7, “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” The writer of Hebrews treats Noah as a historical individual and the flood as a historical event. Peter has two verses: 1 Peter 3:20, “Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.” At that point Peter is making a doctrinal application based on the historical veracity of the existence of Noah. 2 Peter 2:5, “And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.”
We can see from these events that the teachings of both the Old and New Testaments are grounded on certain historical events having taken place literally and actually. What we realize is that this runs counter to the assumptions of modern religious liberalism. For the last 300 years since the Enlightenment the first eleven chapters of Genesis have been under assault for their historical veracity. The idea of modern man is that you can have religious truth that is divorced from history. The Bible doesn’t need to be inerrant, they say, in fact there’s all kinds of historical, cultural and scientific errors but that doesn’t affect the truth, the spiritual truths that are there. And that is just garbage! The Bible, more than any other philosophy or religious system in the history of the world, has such a tight connection between the doctrines of its beliefs/the Scripture and the historical foundation, that if you destroy the historical validity of these doctrines the doctrines themselves are destroyed. You can’t have the doctrines without their historical situation. You can’t separate the doctrines of the Bible from the history of the Bible. This means you can’t have a biblical faith without having a historically, scientifically, biologically and philosophically inerrant Bible. You cannot have biblical faith without believing in biblical inerrancy. There has to be historical integrity. Everything in the Old Testament is based upon certain things having happened in the history of Israel, and the history of the world prior to the call of Abraham, and the same thing is true of the New Testament. In fact, Paul makes a point that if the resurrection didn’t take place as it is described in the Gospels—a physical, bodily, historical resurrection of Christ—then we are the most deceived of all people, and there is no Christianity without the resurrection, there is no Christianity if the Bible is not historically accurate. That is why it is so important to go into all of these historical issues and to show why the Bible is valid, why these assaults are not true. We live in an era when the Bible is constantly under attack by people who say that these things just aren’t true.
What we have to realize is that underneath all of this is the importance of the creator-creature distinction, and that really comes to play in the Noah narrative, because it is here that we see that God has the right to dictate terms to His creatures. He has the right to hold us accountable to behavioral standards. He will hold us accountable. Here we see that sin is abnormal and destructive and that the creature will eventually be judged, that God is a God who interferes in human history, and man, the rebellious creature, doesn’t want a God who is going to interfere in his life. The last thing that he wants is a God that is going to judge him on the basis of our behavior, the basis of positive or negative volition. That is because man ever since the fall wants to absolve himself from any accountability. On the other side here, we see the biblical view of salvation emphasized, that God as the creator does interfere in human history, but He interferes first of all with grace, He provides a solution to the problem, and He provides salvation. That is always the issue. God’s grace precedes judgment and He always gives mankind enough of an opportunity to respond.
The big issue that comes along here as we look at this whole narrative on the flood is the question: Is this a local flood or is this a universal flood? One of the things we should always listen for is how somebody interprets the flood. Once you start compromising with evolution at one point you will end up compromising at many points. It basically boils down to problems of interpretation, problems of hermeneutics—people just don’t want to take the Bible literally because it runs against some presupposition, some assumption that they have that science has given them accurate information about the age of the earth and the age of the universe. So our question will be approached from three different lines of evidence.
These are: Questions about the text itself; to look at particular words that are used in the text; the offer of three different arguments that are based on other grounds other than the specific words of the text.
1) The text itself. If the flood was local, why didn’t Noah have to build an ark in the first place? Modern man did not build a ship equivalent to the size of the ark until 1856. It was a huge ship and it had more than enough room for the animals and the humans on board. So if the flood was local he had 120 years to walk to the other side of the mountains and missed the flood altogether.
2) If the flood was local, why did God send the animals to the ark so they would escape death. There would have been other animals to reproduce that particular kind of those who were the ones that died. They could have migrated another 100 miles and they would have been out of danger.
3) If the flood was local, why was the ark big enough to hold all the kinds of land vertebrate animals that have ever existed. If only the local Mesopotamian animals were threatened the ark could have been much smaller.
4) If the flood was local, why would birds have been sent on board. They could have flown across to a nearby mountain range.
5) If the flood was local, how could the waters rise to a height of fifteen cubits (21-22 feet) about the mountains—Genesis 7:20. We have to remember that water seeks its own level and couldn’t rise to cover the local mountains and leave the rest of the world untouched.
6) If the flood was local, it would not have solved the problem of the corruption of the human race world-wide.
7) If the flood was local, people who did not happen to be living in the vicinity would not be affected by it. “As it was in the days of Noah.” If the flood was local then by analogy that would mean the Tribulation would also be partial. If the flood is reduced to a local situation it has implications for how we understand the Tribulation.
8) If the flood was local, God would have repeatedly broken His promise to never flood the entire earth again. To be consistent with that it must be a universal flood.
Particular words that are in the text. Genesis 6:11 says the earth was filled with violence—not just part of the earth nut all the earth, it is a universal problem. Genesis 6:12, all flesh was corrupted, not just those is a specific locale. Genesis 6:13, the end of all flesh. Genesis 6:17, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, everything that is on the earth shall perish. Genesis 6:19, of every living thing, of all flesh. This isn’t limited local terminology; it is universal terminology. Genesis 6:20, every creeping thing, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. Genesis 7:2, every clean animal by sevens. Genesis 7:4, every living thing that I have made. Genesis 7:8, everything that creeps on the ground. Genesis 7:11, all the fountains of the deep were opened, not just those in the area. Genesis 7:14, every beast, all the cattle, every creeping thing and every bird. So again and again and again the verbiage that is used emphasizes a universal flood.
But, the critics say, all doesn’t mean all, every doesn’t mean every. For example, “All the men of Judea went out to hear John the Baptist.” Does that mean all went out to hear him? Probably not, it is just the way we talk sometimes, but for the sake of argument let’s give them the benefit of the doubt this time. Let’s see if we can demonstrate a universal flood from other lines of reason. Genesis 7:19-20, “And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.” When we look at this the text says that the water was fifteen cubits higher than the mountains. If we look at the evidences explained in Genesis 7:11ff the ark lasted one year, from the time they went on the ark to the time the waters dried up. When we put together the depth of the water and the time it was that high it can only be concluded that this could not have been a local flood, it would have to be a global flood based on the evidence of the time and the depth. Furthermore, a second argument that could be used. When looking at the ark’s distinctive size, design and purpose, it doesn’t make sense that there was a vessel of that size, that would take that long to construct, to have a local flood.
2 Peter 3:4-6, “And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” Here Peter is characterizing the taunts of the skeptics at the end times. This is a perfect characterization of the uniformitarian doctrine of geology, that all things follow the same process of deterioration to day as they did a thousand, two thousand, one-hundred thousand years ago. “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.” Here we see the same word pairing that we see in Genesis 1:1, and the heavens and the earth is equivalent to the universe. Then there is a reference to Noah’s flood. In contrast, verse 7, “But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” So here in vv. 4-7 Peter makes it clear that the judgment that is coming is analogous to the water judgment that destroyed the antediluvian world, and he is clearly interpreting the events of Genesis 6-8 as a cosmic cataclysm, not just some small local flood.
In conclusion we need to ask why there was a flood at all. First of all we have to recognize that sin doesn’t just affect us in a sort of spiritual way. We have fallen prey to too much Greek thought, Greek philosophy that wants to separate the spiritual from the material. So we think that when we sin it just affects the spiritual realm. Sin affects nature. You can’t separate these two is if they are not interrelated and interconnected. Thus, just as sin brings divine judgment on nature and changes nature we also see throughout Scripture that nature is part of the way that God judges mankind, and nature itself is affected. For example, nature is part of the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah and nature is affected by Sodom and Gomorrah. The reason the Dead Sea is the Dead Sea and the reason for that bleak landscape around the Dead Sea is because of the judgment of fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. Then we see nature as part of the judgment on the Egyptians in the Exodus event, that nature brings this judgment on the Egyptians but also affected are animals that die as a result of that judgment. Nature is also included at the time that Christ was judged for our sins—an earthquake in Jerusalem and darkness on the earth. Then in the Tribulation we will see that nature is included in the judgments—the sun and moon are darkened, the oceans are turned to blood, water turns bitter, etc. Romans 8 makes it clear that there is a connection between the creation and God’s judgment, vv. 19ff. “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”
Why a flood:
1) There is a connection between man’s sin and its effect on nature. God uses nature to judge mankind.
2) It is a graphic visual aid of the necessity of cleansing and purification, just as there is a need for cleansing and purification at salvation. God had to cleanse and purify the world of its corruption.
3) Because of the invasion of the sons of God there is a need to start everything over.
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042b-Corruption and Construction; Gen. 6:9-22
Last time we did an overview of this section; now we get into the details. The last verses in the previous section was “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.” The word that is translated “favor” is the Hebrew word chen, and that is the word for grace. It is a Hebrew idiom that so-and-so found favor in someone’s eyes. It indicates that they are the recipient of that individual’s grace or kindness, and chen is one of several words used to indicate the idea of grace in the Old Testament. The contrast is that in Genesis 6:1-7 we have a picture of God’s disfavor with mankind as a whole because of the demonic infiltration to destroy the genetic purity of the human race, in order to prevent God from completing His plan of salvation and sending a savior, the Messiah, through the seed of the woman. It was an attempt by Satan and the fallen angels to destroy the seed of the woman and make it impossible to have truly human savior or Messiah. So the statement on Genesis 6:8 is really a statement of contrast—with all the rest that has gone on, “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”
We are reminded in 2 Peter 2:5 that Noah was not only a believer but he was an advancing believer. He was a “preacher of righteousness,” and this is an important concept because even the New Testament emphasizes this fact of righteousness in association with Noah. Whenever we run into this concept of righteousness in the Bible we have to ask an important question. Is this talking about positional righteousness or experiential righteousness? Is this talking about that which is imputed to man on the basis of Christ’s work on the cross, or is this talking about the practical righteousness and behavior that is found in an individual as a result of their learning the Word, trusting God, applying it in their lives, and growing to spiritual maturity? As we get into these verses of Genesis 7:9-12 we will see that the emphasis here is on Noah and his positional righteousness, not that he does not have experiential righteousness or capacity righteousness, but the emphasis is not on him in terms of his spiritual maturity but in terms of his reception of imputed righteousness. He is a “preacher of righteousness” which means he is proclaiming the doctrine of justification by faith alone. This is the most important thing for us to understand with relation to salvation, i.e. we are not saved, we do not receive God’s blessing because of anything that we do. Even after we are saved we are never blessed by God because of what we do. That would be works salvation, works growth. We receive blessing from God because of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.
The unbeliever is minus righteousness We know that all of our righteousness is as filthy rags, and at the point of faith alone in Christ alone when we trust Jesus Christ as our savior His perfect righteousness, divine righteousness, is imputed or credited to our account so that God never looks on our sin, he looks at us in terms of that perfect righteousness. The righteousness of God is His absolute standard and the justice of God is the application of that standard. So when the righteousness of God looks down and sees the His own righteousness that has been imputed to us then the justice of God is free to bless us either in salvation or in post-salvation blessing. This is what is happening in the life of Noah. Because he possesses the imputation of righteousness God is blessing him, and he and his family are the only ones who have that. They are the only one who are going to survive the flood.
Verse 9, “These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just [righteous] man and perfect [blameless] in his time, and Noah walked with God.” We have really two ideas here. The first is the idea of Noah’s positional righteousness and the second is the idea of his experiential righteousness. The one thing that causes Noah and his family to stand out isn’t simply his possession of righteousness. There were a number of other believers who were alive. What makes Noah and family stand out and the reason he is saved is because not only are they believers but there is no genetic corruption in that line from the infiltration of the “sons of God,” the demons of Genesis 6:3. “Noah was a righteous man.” This is the Hebrew word tsadiq, the standard word for righteousness. It means to be righteous, the meet the standard of God’s character. It is applied both to God and to man. When we look at the adjective tsadiq or the noun form, they are used only a few times, the adjective a couple of times in Genesis in relationship to Noah, and then the next time we run into the noun it is in reference to Abraham in Genesis 15:6, “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.” It is not always true, but most often it is, that if we want to understand how a word is used in the Old Testament then we look at how it is used the first three or four times in the Bible. This usually sets the parameters of its meaning.
Genesis 15:6 is the standard verse for Abraham’s statement of his salvation. Abraham is already saved at the point of Genesis 15 and has already received righteousness at this point, he is not an unbeliever. He believed Yahweh in reference to this passage, to this promise right here that his descendants would be like the stars of the heavens. Or, is it better to understand verse 6 as a parenthetical reminder that Abraham had already believed in the Lord, then we would have a perfect tense sense of the word. But the verb here for Abraham believed the Lord is in the Hebrew perfect tense. The Hebrew only has two tenses: a perfect tense and an imperfect tense. When we think of tense in English we think of time because that is integral to the English concept of tense, but in many languages time isn’t even a factor with tense, it is what grammarians call aspect: whether it is completed action or incomplete [ongoing] action. These can be past, present or future depending on the context. Many times the Hebrew perfect tense emphasizes completed action in the future. It is called a prophetic perfect, it is talking about an event that is going to happen in the future as though it is already complete. But there is also the use of the Hebrew perfect tense as something that has already happened in the past, and that is what we have here in Genesis 15:6. We should translate it, “And Abraham had already believed in Yahweh and it had been accounted to him for righteousness.” It is a reminder that at some point in the past Abraham had trusted God and received the imputation of righteousness, and because he had this righteousness God was blessing him now with the promises and blessings of the Abrahamic covenant. So the emphasis here is on positional righteousness, not experiential righteousness.
We see the use of the term “righteous” again used several times in Genesis 18 where there is a contrast between the righteous and the wicked—18:23, God has warned Abraham that He is going to bring punishment on Sodom because of their sinfulness: “And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked?” Lot is not living a righteous life but Lot is a believer and is therefore positionally righteous. Reading down through the rest of the chapter there is this contrast two or three times where the word “righteous” is used and it is a contrast with the wicked. There it becomes a synonym for those who are saved. So “righteous” there is that which is received at the point of salvation. The imputation is emphasized in two other passages in the New Testament. The first is in Romans 4:1-5, “What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.”
One other New Testament passage relating to Noah is in Hebrews 11:7, “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” What kind of righteousness are we talking about here? This is positional righteousness, justification righteousness, righteousness at salvation. So when we come to our passage in Genesis 6:9 which states that Noah was a righteous man we must understand this in terms of positional righteousness at salvation, that he had responded to the grace of God, and understood the gospel, that God would provide salvation through a future Messiah, the seed of the woman, and his faith alone was in Christ alone.
In Genesis 6:9 the phrase “blameless in his time” is again a word that emphasizes his positional righteousness, the Hebrew word tamim. It means to be complete, to be whole, to be blameless. It is a word that would mean free of blemish if used of a sacrificial animal. This it emphasizes integrity, something that has righteousness. It is used of God as perfect in Deuteronomy 32:4. Then we have the fact that not only is he positionally righteous but he is experientially righteous: “Noah walked with God,” just as Enoch walked with God. This is an expression of his spiritual life. This is what the writer of Hebrews talks about: it is by faith that Noah conducted his life; he did what God told him to do.
Verse 10, Noah became the father of three sons: “And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” He fathers these three sons after the warning of the flood. These sons are all born after he is 500 years of age, in that last 100 years, and these sons are going to be the three sons that will help him construct the ark and the three sons what will survive into the postdiluvian world.
Verses 11 & 12 give a description of the extent of the problem on the earth. “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” There is the standard. It is not corrupt in the sight of Noah or other people, it is corrupt in the sight of God. God has a righteous standard and that is then standard by which everything is to be evaluated. If you don’t have an external righteous standard then you really don’t have a standard at all. We are told here that the earth was corrupt, and the verb that is translated “corrupt” is the Hebrew verb shachath in the niphal stem, which is the passive voice of the qal. That is important here because in a passive construction the subject of the verb receives the action of the verb. The earth didn’t corrupt itself, the earth received the action of corruption. Once again, man is causing ecological disaster because of his sin. The sinfulness of man reeks havoc on the earth. The earth here refers to those who were on the earth. The earth “was filled,” and here again is the niphal which is the passive idea; “with violence,” and here is a word that ought to resonate with us a little bit—chamas. That is where the terrorist group Hamas gets its name. It means that which is ruined, spoiled, destroyed. It has the idea of violence and destruction. It is the cognate to the modern word used for the terrorist organization. Mankind has “corrupted their way,” emphasis on volitional responsibility. So now God has to do something to cleanse and purify the earth.
Verse 13, God gives grace to Noah. “And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” It is a picture of an extremely violent, self-centered, destructive society.
Verse 14, the redemption solution is given in the form of an ark. “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.” At this point we have to begin to look at the details of the ark itself and its construction. It was more like a barge, was rectangular, rode low in the water, and it was extremely stable. The word for ark is the Hebrew word tebah. It is only used of Noah’s boat and the basket that Moses was placed in when he floated on the Nile. So it is not a box like the ark of the covenant, it is a word for a floating vessel, a word that is describing something designed to float on the water. So Noah is to make himself a huge floating vessel. One of the criticisms of this that is heard is that no one in the ancient world ever made boats this large. But that is not true. They don’t find the evidence for it because they don’t want to admit the evidence is there. There is evidence if you go back far enough that there were civilizations that built extremely large boats but they lost the technology over time. What we discover here is that the antediluvian people had a tremendous technology and construction skills, and these were lost in the postdiluvian environment. We don’t know what gopher wood. It was apparently a very dense wood, a wood that would float and not be prone to any kind of corruption and that it would last a year. It was apparently a particular kind of wood that was fitted for the task. The word “rooms” is from the Hebrew word qen, and it literally means nests. Each animal had designated areas where they had nests or enclosures designed for each particular kind of animal. And the ark was to be covered inside and out with pitch. Some critics have said that according to the creationist viewpoint you don’t have oil formed until after the flood, but this word isn’t really pitch in terms of an oil-based or tar-based pitch. The Hebrew construction here is “You shall cover the ark,” and this is the Hebrew verb kaphar which is the word that is often translated “atonement”; “inside and out with kopher,” which is obviously a cognate of kaphar, and it has to do with some kind of water proofing. We don’t know what it is.
Verse 15, details of the construction. “And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits.” One of the questions that come along here is just how long a cubit is. The Babylonians had a royal cubit of about 19.8 inches. The Egyptians had a long cubit of a little more than 20.5 inches, and a shorter cubit of 17.5 inches. The Hebrews also had a long cubit that was 20.4 inches, and they had a common cubit of 17.5 inches. Most writers believe that the cubit here was approximately 18 inches in length. It could have been a little longer but we will operate on the conservative assumption, taking the shortest one, that this is a cubit of 17.5 inches. That tells us that the ark would have been 438 feet long, 72.9 feet wide, so it would be about 6 times longer than it was wide. It was 43.8 feet high.
Verse 16, “A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.” The ark had a ventilation system. There was a window, and most people picture this as some sort of window or vent or opening that was covered and that extended the entire length of the ark from front to rear.
Verse 17, “And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.” Everything that is on the earth shall perish, so this is not some limited, local flood.
Verse 18, the first use of the word berith, the word “covenant.” This is the first use of “covenant” but not the first covenant. There was an initial creation covenant between God and Adam in Genesis 1:26-28, a revision of that covenant in Genesis 3:14ff, and here God is establishing another covenant with Noah. So the idea of a covenant isn’t new but this is the first use of the word berith. “But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee.”
Verse 20, “Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive.” God will bring the animals. People ask how they got there from all over the earth. But we don’t know what the animal distribution was at that time, and there probably wasn’t even a division of the continents at that time. Continental drift was probably the result of the geologic upheaval of the flood, and so the animals could all come. And remember it is every kind, not every species.
Verse 22, “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.”
It is interesting that the flood is always used as an analogy to the coming judgment of the Tribulation and the coming of Jesus Christ at the second coming. In almost every New Testament passage that references the ark and the Noahic flood is used to teach something about the second coming of Christ and the judgment during the Tribulation period.
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043b-Personal Sense of Destiny; Inheritance; Heb 11:7
Hebrews 11:7, “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.”
This verse gives us a glimpse into Noah’s spiritual walk. Hebrews 11 gives a clue as to what our focus should be on in the midst of crisis, calamity, and difficulty. Noah lived in a time that none of us has ever lived in, has never faced the kind of devastating trauma that he faced. Nothing that we go through can compare with the kind of crisis in life that Noah went through. We live in a world with the threat of terrorism, with the threat of liberal political terrorism, with the threat of the Sodomite terrorists on the left, and various other terrorists on the left such as judicial terrorists in the courts. We need to realize as believers that our focus is not on what is happening here in this world. What drives us as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ is something greater. We have a personal sense of an eternal destiny which becomes the motivation for our living the Christian life today.
Noah became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. This word “inheritance” is only used with reference to Noah and Abraham in this particular passage. In Hebrews 11:7 Noah is focused on his inheritance, and then in 11:8 we are told that “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.” So these men lived their life in terms of present time, in terms of certain crises that they faced in life. And Abraham was being called by God to go somewhere, where he knew not, he was just following the Lord’s guidance, and his focus was on what the Lord would provide. This is emphasized with Abraham in verse 13, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were assured of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country.” In other words, they were living their present life in terms of a future promise and a future hope that they did not see in their temporal life.
In analyzing verse 11 the first thing we should not are the words “By faith.” This is the dative case of the noun PISTIS [pistij] which is the word for faith. Faith is the word for trust or reliance. As such this is called a noun of action because you are doing something—believing, relying on something. And faith itself in non-meritorious. That means there is no merit in faith, anybody can exercise faith. That is why in the Lord’s table eating the bread and drinking the cup is a perfect picture of faith and accepting or receiving as our savior because anybody can eat and anybody cane drink. The merit is not in the eating or drinking, the merit is in what eating and what drinking symbolizes. The merit is in what you believe, the object of faith. If someone is believing the wrong thing then it has no saving power at all. When you believe in Christ alone He is the perfect object and He performs all the work for our salvation on the cross. Faith is used in two senses in the Scripture. It is used in the active sense of trust and it is also used in the sense of the object of faith or what is believed. In other words, Bible doctrine, what you are trusting in.
When the writer of Hebrews says “By faith,” he is referring in context here back to what he introduces in verse one: “Now faith,” i.e. the biblical faith that we have, emphasizing content. But you can’t talk about content apart from the act of trusting it. The writer here is talking about the fact that each of these heroes in Hebrews 11 are trusting in something, but it is not faith in faith, it is faith in specific revelation from God to them related to specific tasks in their life. These reason for the emphasis on that is that some folks are not real paragons of spiritual living, as for example, in v. 32. “And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets.” From the book of Judges we know that some of those men were real losers for about 90 per cent of their spiritual lives, but they came through at key points in relationship to specific revelation that God gave them, and that gives great hope and confidence to the rest of us. We have a tendency to create icons out of these Old Testament heroes, that they somehow had greater spiritual life walks than we do and, of course, that is not true. The Scripture says that John the Baptist was the greatest of the Old Testament saints and that any church age believer has a spiritual life that is far superior to him. But the principle of the faith-rest drill is still foundational to both their spiritual life as well as our spiritual life. Sop Hebrews 11 is really talking about how these individuals utilize the faith-rest drill at key points, at keys times, at crisis points in their spiritual lives, and how that motivated and strengthened them in the midst of that crisis.
So in v. 7 we are told that it was by means of faith, i.e. the doctrine in his soul, trusting in that which God had revealed to him. The means that enabled Noah to live his spiritual life was belief in what God had revealed to him. By application what has God has revealed to us is the completed canon of Scripture. We have over 3000 promises in the Scripture that we can claim. This is the foundation for our spiritual life just as it was the foundation of the spiritual life of these men. We have something they didn’t have, and that is all the ministries of God the Holy Spirit to the believer. We were baptized by means of the Holy Spirit so that we are identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We have the ongoing operation of the filling of the Holy Spirit in terms of our sanctification and spiritual growth. And we are sealed by the Spirit.
The next phrase, “being warned by God,” is the aorist passive participle of the verb chrematizo [xrhmatizw], it is nominative masculine singular and it is anartharous which means it doesn’t have an article in the Greek. If it has an article it means it is adjectival; if it doesn’t have an article it means it is adverbial, which means you have to go find the main verb because the participles will all determine their action off the main verb. The main verb is found in the next sentence where it says, “he prepared an ark” – KATESKEUAZO [kateskeuazw] which is an aorist active indicative. Participles don’t have time, their time is related to the main verb, so an aorist participle and an aorist main verb means that the time of the participle precedes the action of the main verb. So first God warns him, then he prepared an ark. So it should be translated, “By faith Noah after he was warned by God about things not seen.” Noah had never before seen a flood and had no idea what it was. He had no idea of what rain was, it was a totally foreign concept to him and yet he was to build this huge boat.
This takes us back to understanding the concept of faith. Too often in modern thought we want to juxtapose faith with knowledge as if they are two different things. Yet, in the Bible faith is simply one way in which we know something to be true. In human viewpoint we want to limit knowledge to rationalism or empiricism—or the wackos on the new age trends want to get into mysticism because they think they can just generate truth out of their own inner being. W have faith versus knowledge, but really faith is one kind of knowledge based on revelation; that God has spoken and we get out knowledge from God’s information rather than rationalism, empiricism or mysticism. So Noah has a superior knowledge. Faith is a knowledge that is based on authority.
So Noah is expressing faith toward God and His revelation. God gave him specific prepositional revelation with regard to judgment which would come 120 years later. Noah had that time to preach the gospel and to build the ark. The next phrase translated “in reverence” or “with fear” is the Greek verb EULABEOMAI [e)ulabeomai], an aorist passive participle, so here we have another participle modifying the main verb of how it was built. So before he built he was warned by God, and then he builds in a certain manner. This is an adverbial participle of manner and the verb itself means to show reverent regard for something, or respect. It reminds us of the verse in Proverbs which says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” and in that sense fear is respect. We have to realize that God is the ultimate authority in life and so we have to put Him and His revelation first. So what we are told here is that this is the manner in which he built. He is building the ark out of respect for God’s revelation. He is not treating God’s Word lightly, which is what so many Christians do. They are just too busy to make it to Bible class and they will never make it to spiritual maturity. The main verb here is KATESKEUAZO, it is the aorist active indicative of the verb and the aorist tense is simply the past tense form of the verb, and here it is used in a consummative or culminative sense. It summarizes the action in terms of its conclusion. The word KATESKEUAZO doesn’t simply mean prepare, although that is part of the meaning, but it has a better sense in the idea of bringing a structure into building or constructing or creating. So this should be translated, “By means of faith [the doctrine, the belief in God’s revelation] Noah, after he was warned by God about things not yet seen, out of respect he constructed an ark for the salvation of his household.” This tells us his attitude: respect for the authority of God and the revelation of God. It caused him to do something. So often in human viewpoint people think of faith as some sort of passive mystical thing, but faith has two elements. We talk about the faith-rest drill and that usually in and of itself emphasizes the passive idea, that we are trusting in something. But there is an active sense. We are trusting in a specific prepositional revelation from God, and in the midst of that revelation He may also be telling us to do certain things. He may be telling us to relax: “Be anxious for nothing.” We are passive in the sense of trust but active in the sense of I am not going to worry. On the other hand we have the two examples here of Noah and Abraham where they were to positively do something. Noah was to build an ark; Abraham was to take a trip. In other words, trusting God wasn’t just sitting with their hands folded saying they were going to trust God, it was actively engaging in the course of action God said to do, despite the fact that their reason, their background, their empirical knowledge may indicate that there was something better, something easier, etc.
The word translated “ark” is the Greek word KIBOTOS [kibwtoj] and it refers to either a sea-faring vessel or a box like a chest. In the first meaning it refers to the ark Noah built. There are two different words in the Hebrew for the ark of Noah, the basket in the bulrushes that Moses was placed in and the ark of the covenant. But in the Greek, as in English, the same word is utilized. It has the first meaning here that it was a boat. He got into a ship-building operation and he is building a sea-faring vessel under the guidance of the Lord Jesus Christ who gave him the blueprints for the ark.
Then we are told that this was for the purpose of the salvation of his household: the preposition EIS [e)ij] plus the accusative of SOTERIA [swthria] which means deliverance here, not soul salvation or eternal salvation, but deliverance from this particular cataclysm.
Then we have, “by which he condemned the world” NASB. The Greek indicates it should be “through which,” DIA [dia] plus the genitive of the relative pronoun HOS [o(j], and the relative pronoun refers back to his faith. “Ark,” KIBOTOS [kibwtoj], is a feminine noun, so that means it is by which, the construction of the ark, the ark itself condemned the world. The Greek verb here for condemnation is KATAKRINO [katakrinw]—an intensified form of the verb KRINO [krinw] which means to judge or condemn—which means to pronounce a sentence after determination of guilt. This is what happens in a courtroom after the jury comes back with a guilty verdict and the judge pronounces the sentence. So the ark itself pronounced the sentence, it was a visual sentence on the people of the antediluvian period that they would drown in the flood; “the world,” the cosmic system of the antediluvian age.
The final statement, “and [he] became an heir of the righteousness which is by faith.” This is the important thing to understand as to here this verse is going. “He became” is the aorist middle indicative of GINOMAI [ginwmai], meaning he became something that he was not before. Previously he was not an heir in this sense. When we look back at this verse syntactically we have the first verb “he prepared an ark,” then, “and became an heir.” Those are viewed as happening simultaneously. So heirship is subsequent to the righteousness which is according to faith. To chart this out: At salvation Noah becomes righteous, just as in Genesis 15:6 where Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness—the imputation at salvation based on faith—and afterward there was blessing. We see the same parallel here. There is an imputation of righteousness in Noah, he was seen by God to be the only one righteous in his generation, and as a result of that there is subsequent blessing which is categorized here as his inheritance. In life we have two categories of inheritance: contingency blessings in time and contingency blessings for eternity. Contingency blessings in time are the various blessings God has for us between the time of our salvation and the time we are absent from the body and face to face with the Lord. Contingency blessings in eternity have to do with our rewards and long-term inheritance. The way we should understand Hebrews 11:7 is that Noah has the righteousness which is according to faith, and that is always going to give every believer a certain inheritance. But there is an additional inheritance, those contingency blessings either in time or in eternity that only become ours when we trust God and apply His revelation to our lives and grow to spiritual maturity. And so Noah becomes and heir of the righteousness he already had according to faith but also because he trusts God and acts on God’s promise.
The doctrine of inheritance
What drives Noah and Abraham is their vision, their clear focus on what God is doing in their life, where God is taking them in their life. It is their sense of eternal destiny that drives their daily decisions in time. And that is the same thing that should be driving us. We have an inheritance that is contingent upon the decisions that we make in time, and that is related to our own spiritual growth.
1) The word is the noun KLERONOMOS [klhronomoj] which means an inheritance, a possession, or a property. In many cases the best way to understand this is as a possession, something that we have. An inheritance is related to a reward. Salvation is a gift, not a reward. There are four sense in which this is true. First, we have a possession and inheritance which is a birthright. This is something that one gains by virtue of their sonship—Galatians 4:30; Hebrews 1:4. The second aspect is that it is property received as gift in contrast to reward—Hebrews 1:14; 6:12. The third is a different kind of inheritance, property received on condition of obedience to certain conditions—1 Peter 3:9. The first two categories were unconditional, a birthright that everyone would receive by virtue of sonship and property received as a gift in contrast to reward; but the third is property received on condition of obedience to certain conditions. Fourth, it is a reward based on meeting certain conditions and following certain activities. So it is apparent from its uses that there are two categories of inheritance. One will be common to every believer and the second will be that which is distinct based on fulfilling the conditions of spiritual growth. Certain blessings are not distributed because we don’t have the capacity to handle them, and these are those contingent blessings.
2) We have a clear statement in Scripture that Christ is the heir of all things—Hebrews 1:2. Is that in relationship to His humanity or to His deity? That is in relationship to His humanity in hypostatic union. His heirship is related to what He accomplished in the strategic victory on the cross, ending with His ascension into heaven. In His deity He was always in authority over creatures but in His humanity He was elevated over the angels by virtue of His strategic victory on the cross and God’s acceptance of that, and He is elevated to the right hand of God the Father, and He is placed in authority over all the angels, principalities and powers in the universe. As a Man He is elevated to that position.
3) Christ’s inheritance is based on His successful completion of His strategic victory on the cross. It is only after that that He is elevated in authority over the angels, and it is only after that that He is seated at the right hand of God the Father. Hebrews 1:4, “Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” “Being made” is the aorist middle participle of GINOMAI [ginomai], and that is important to understand. GINOMAI means to become something you were not before. It is an anartharous participle which means it is adverbial and has a causal sense here: “Because he had become so much better than the angels…” “Sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high,” refers to His humanity. Deity doesn’t sit. He was already better than the angels in His deity so this has to be focusing on the inheritance He qualified for in His humanity. “…as he has inherited a more excellent name than they.” This is a post-resurrection inheritance.
4) How does He qualify for this inheritance? Christ’s character in His humanity was developed through learning obedience through the things He suffered—Hebrews 2:10. “For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” There we have the verb, translated “to perfect,” TELEIOO [teleiow] which means to bring to completion or, bring to maturity. The Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity, in hypostatic union, is matured. He went through the same process of growth to spiritual maturity that you and I go through, and He went through it through suffering. This is the key to understanding his advance. This is also stated in Hebrews 5:8, “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.” This is not talking about the suffering on the cross, this is talking about living in a fallen world, living with fallen creatures from the moment He was born, up to the point of the cross. The suffering here wasn’t disciplinary suffering as it is with us. He didn’t learn obedience because He was disobedient, He learned obedience and was obedient. You don’t have to be disobedient to learn obedience. So Jesus advanced spiritually through learning doctrine, living under the filling of the Holy Spirit, and producing capacity righteousness. This is experiential righteousness which becomes the strength of character in any individual. He goes through the same process as we do. He learns doctrine, He has to learn to handle the situations in life, and He grows and matures. He was tested in all points as we are, yet without sin.
5) Christ’s character is defined in terms of the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22, 23; Ephesians 5:9. It is the result of the walk in the light and the walk by means of the Spirit.
6) His impeccability: He never sinned. He was tested in all points as we are, yet without sin. So His impeccability qualified Him to go to the cross as our redeemer.
7) Beyond that, His spiritual growth and maturity qualifies Him for his inheritance. Psalm 2:8, “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” Hebrews 1:2, “Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things.”
8) Our inheritance is based on adoption and sonship. This is the first category of inheritance, it is a positional truth inheritance, Galatians 3:29; 4:1; Romans 8:16-17. If we follow Him in the same pattern of suffering, i.e. if we handle the difficulties in our life by means of the filling of the Spirit and application of doctrine, then we will qualify for inheritance just as He qualified for an inheritance. That inheritance has to do with His future reign in the Millennial kingdom. Our qualification for inheritance has to do with the same thing: to be qualified to rule and reign with Him in the Millennial kingdom.
9) There are two classifications of inheritance: being an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ.
10) The condition for being a joint heir with Christ is suffering with Him—the normal process of living in a fallen world with fallen people, where there is temptation and testing, and where we take the path of application under the filling of the Holy Spirit.
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044b-Inheritance, II
11) Heirship of God (what every believer has in common) is based on the grace promise of the Abrahamic covenant. Galatians 3:29, “And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.” We are children of Abraham by faith. We are not of the physical seed but we have followed him in faith so we are his spiritual seed. Therefore we are heirs according to promise, i.e. by virtue of our position in Christ. This is the same thing that is stated in Romans 4:13, 14, “For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect.” If inheritance comes through physical generation then faith is made void, it doesn’t count. In other words, it doesn’t matter what you believe just as long as you are a Jew, and that makes the promise of no effect.
12) Heirship demands eternal life because the son must have the same life as the father. We must have eternal life because the inheritance is eternal. This is seen in Titus 3:5-7, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
13) Heirship means to share the destiny of Christ. He has an eternal destiny and we share it in His election. That is part of what it means to be predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, Romans 8:29; Ephesians 1:11, “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance.” That is the aorist passive indicative of KLERONOMEO [klhronomew] our verb for inheritance; 1 Peter 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.” The words “living hope” and “inheritance” both relate to our personal sense of eternal destiny.
14) Inheritance, then, is both a present reality and a future possession, 1 Peter 1:4,5; Ephesians 1:11-14, “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.” So the sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit secures us in the family of God, in Christ, but it emphasizes the present possession of a future reality. That future reality is defined as an inheritance.
15) Heirship means eternal security, an inheritance that is undefiled, Ephesians 1:13, 14; 1 Peter 1:4, 5, “To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” The “through faith” there is a reference to faith at salvation.
16) The sealing of God the Holy Spirit, then, is the down payment on our inheritance. That is related to all of the ministries of the Holy Spirit to the believer at salvation, Ephesians 1:14; Galatians 4:6.
17) The common inheritance of all believers includes a resurrection body, eternal life, no more sorrow, no more tears, no more pain, the old things have passed away, eternity in heaven, no more sin nature.
Distinctions in the inheritance
1) What is the problem? The problem is that there are some passages which speak of inheritance as a permanent possession based on faith alone in Christ alone, but there are other passages which clearly speak of inheritance as an acquisition or a reward. If inheritance means eternity in heaven then in these passages it is clear that some people can never be saved and other would lose their salvation. We see this in two passages. Ephesians 5:5, “For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” If inheritance there is talking about what we all possess and is equivalent to the idea of eternal life and salvation, then it is making the statement that an immoral person or someone who is covetous doesn’t have an inheritance. Colossians 3:24, “Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance,” That verse states clearly that it is a reward, not a gift.
2) The only way to deal with this is to recognize that there are two categories of inheritance. The first category is inheritance of salvation, Ephesians 1:14, and those are all the blessings related to being a member of the royal family of God, adoption in the family of God. That is the inheritance that comes from sonship. Category two of inheritance is the inheritance of the kingdom, Ephesians 5:5; 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10; Galatians 4:18-20. Romans 8:17, “If children heirs also of God,” the first category; “fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, in order that we also may be glorified with him,” the second category. Galatians 4:7, “Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a [mature] son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”
3) Just as Christ inherits the kingdom, Psalm 2:8,9, due to His loyalty and faithful obedience to God the Father (along with Hebrews 1:8), so will the joint heirs with Christ. That is the pattern. Jesus inherits as a result of His faithful obedience to God; so will the joint heirs with Christ because of their faithful obedience to God.
4) Thus the kingdom has been promised to those who love God, and not all believers love God. A lot of believers emote, they have sentimental feelings, but that is not how the Bible expresses love. Love to God is expressed in the Bible as obedience to God—John 14:21-24, “ … Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings …” So the kingdom is promised top those who love God. Loving God is related to learning His Word, making that a priority, following it consistently, following the pattern of the Lord Jesus Christ in His spiritual growth. The negative illustration is Esau. Esau is the physical son, the firstborn in terms of chronology, the firstborn of the twins born to Isaac. Esau sells his birthright—Hebrews 12:16, “Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” Esau is a picture of the failure believer, the believer who has all of this potential in Christ and gives it up for the pleasures of the world, gives it up to feed the lust of his sin nature. This is a commentary on that fact that he did not have any sense of his spiritual destiny. He sold his own birthright for a single meal.
A believer can follow the pattern of Esau and be a failure in the Christian life. This comes by negative volition, and negative volition is not defined as hostility to the truth; negative volition is defined as apathy to the truth. Apathy to the truth is demonstrated by not making it a priority, by letting other things in life invade the believer’s time to take in doctrine. No matter what it is, no matter how important it may be when you look around at how much time you spent in the last week studying the Word and letting the Word dominate your thinking, and you realize you were just overwhelmed by all the pressures of work, family life and everything else, then you are following the path of Esau. Negative volition doesn’t mean you are hostile, it means that you are putting your emphasis on something other than the Word, and other than the message. Many, many people have gone to sound, doctrinal churches for years and years and have deluded themselves into thinking they are positive. Then a major crisis comes along in their life and all of a sudden they put the emphasis on the man rather than the message, they put their emphasis on their emotions, they put their emphasis on how they feel, on their family or their friends, and what that demonstrates is that for years there has been a spiritual erosion in their life because they became complacent and apathetic.
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045b-The Flood; Universality; The Ark; Gen. 6-7
The issue we are looking at is whether the flood was universal or local. There is no need for the ark of this size to be built if it is just a local flood. If Noah has a 100-year warning of the flood, why not just move if it is local? Furthermore, if it was a local flood why would he need to build an ark the size described in the Scriptures, which is roughly 450 feet by 75 feet? According to all the biblical information this would not have been the kind of vessel that would be built to handle a local flood.
Genesis 7:1, “And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.” The emphasis in this verse is on the character of Noah. He is righteous, and as we have seen this righteousness was positional righteousness by virtue of his faith in Christ as presented in the Old Testament. His inheritance that is related to this in Hebrews 11:7 is related to his spiritual growth which qualifies him for his inheritance. It has been emphasized that we as believers receive imputed righteousness from God at the instant of salvation, but it is what we do with our spiritual life that is the basis for our inheritance in terms of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ.
Genesis 7:2, 3, “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.” What we have here is two categories of animals, clean and unclean. Since Moses does not take time to define how we know which is which here we can assume that it follows the categorization that is laid out in Deuteronomy chapter fourteen for the Jews in the Mosaic law. There we have a clear definition of what was clean and what was unclean. What we are dealing with here is clean and unclean kinds, and a kind is not a species. This is a mistake that is often made by people who critique the Bible. The purpose here is to keep the offspring alive on the face of the earth. Well if it is not a world-wide, universal cataclysm that is going to destroy everything else, why would you need to take anything on the ark? What this tells us is that every animal that we see today goes back to the animals that were on the ark.
Verse 4, “For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.” Note the terms that indicate universality. So God is going to get them all on the ark a week before the rains begin to fall and before the flood begins.
Verse 5, “And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.” This is the faith-rest drill. Notice that the faith-rest drill isn’t sitting back and trusting God and waiting for something to happen. He trusts God and he gets on the ark. There is a passive aspect to the faith-rest drill and there is an active aspect. If the Bible is telling us to do something, such as pray without ceasing, then we not only trust God and claim the promise but we keep praying. Noah trusts God to deliver him and he builds the ark; he trusts God to provide for him and he gets in the ark. He does according to everything that God had commanded him. This is the act of obedience.
Starting in verse 6 we get the chronology of the flood. This, again, demonstrates that this couldn’t be just some little local flood. They enter the ark seven days before the flood begins. “And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.” There is some discussion about what kind of calendar was being used but it really doesn’t matter. The chronology here is based on Noah’s birthday. And in verse 7 there is repetition again” “And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.” This is repeated from 6:18 and is repeated again in 7:13. Whenever we find that much repetition God the Holy Spirit is doing it for emphatic reasons. Just eight of them entered the ark because of the water of the flood.
Verse 9, “There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.” There is something supernatural going on here because God brought these animals to Noah. Questions have been asked as to how certain animals arrived there, and how they crossed the sea, etc. First of all, we have to realize that the land masses weren’t the same as they are today. The earth looked vastly different. In fact, there may not have even been a division of the land mass between the western hemisphere and the eastern hemisphere. That separation and the continental drift probably occurred during the time that the earth was covered by the flood waters, if not immediately afterward. Secondly, we have to realize that the operational terms here is kinds, and that all that was needed was a kind to get on the ark. It is probable that God just supernaturally moved these animals to the ark because of just the massive problem of handling all of those animals.
Verses 10, 11, “And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up [burst open], and the windows of heaven were opened.” The phrase “all the fountains of the deep burst open” tells us a lot. Where did all of this water come from? We saw back in Genesis 1&2 that the hydrospheres in the early earth were quite different from what they are today. Somewhere out beyond the atmosphere there was this vast collection of water. We don’t know how that was collected, whether it was solid, whether it was frozen, whether it was ice crystals, whether it was just outside the earth’s atmosphere—something like Venus where there is a complete cloud cover on the planet—or whether it was further out. But somewhere out surrounding the planet there was this vast amount of water. Then there were these underground channels on the earth. There was no rain on the earth during that time. In Genesis chapter two we are told that the earth was watered by a mist. So apparently there were these underground channels and caverns where water was cycled underground, and that was how the earth was watered. What happened at the flood is these underground channels burst open. This was not just happening in one place but all over the earth.
Verse 12, “And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.” All of the water that came on to the earth was then absorbed and now fills up the various ocean basins of the earth. But there was a different system before the flood. Notice that first the fountains of the deep burst open, then the flood gates of the sky are opened. That would make sense when there were all these tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of volcanoes erupting simultaneously, throwing enormous amounts of volcanic ash into the upper atmosphere which then provides a mechanism for water vapor to condense on and precipitate out on to the earth. So it is in the right order. If the writer had reversed it, it wouldn’t fit the scientific scenario.
Verses13, 14, “In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; they, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.” This goes back to day one, we have repetition. Every beast after his kind are the wild animals; all the cattle after their kind are the domesticated animals.
Verse 15, “And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.” So this excludes fish.
Verse 16, “And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.” It is God who closes and seals the door. It is God who protects us in salvation. This is a type of our eternal security. God put Noah in the ark, sealed him in, and supernaturally protects and secures him through this event.
Verse 17, “And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.” What we have here is a description of a rapid rise. Remember the ark is more than forty feet high and is heavily loaded.
Verse 19, “And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.” The verb that is translated “prevailed” is the Hebrew word gabar which is related to the word for a mighty man or warrior. It means to prevail or to rise or to exercise power. The mountains of the antediluvian world were not as high as the mountains we have today. For example, Ararat is over 17,000 feet high; Everest is over 29,000 feet high. There is not enough water on the earth today to cover them with the ocean basins as deep as they are today and the mountains as high as they are. However, if everything was leveled then water would cover the entire earth to a depth of 10,000 feet. There is an interesting scenario in Psalm 104:5-9, “Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever. Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away. They go up by the mountains [this should read ‘the mountains went up’]; they go down by the valleys [should read ‘the valleys went down’] unto the place which thou hast founded for them. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth.” These verses are talking about the flood, not creation. If they were talking about creation then God setting a boundary was violated at the flood. It is at the flood that the boundary is set when God promises that there will no longer be a flood. So the Hebrew in verse 8 should be translated, “The mountains went up” and the valleys went down,” indicating that at the time of the flood there were these massive geologic pressures that push up the mountains as well as create the deep valleys into which the oceans and the water would flow at the end of the flood.
Verse 20, “Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.” Fifteen cubits is 22 feet, which is apparently the draught of the ark. This would allow the ark to pass over all of the land and not become grounded.
Verses 21-23, “And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.” Same terminology that we have in Genesis 2, neshamah. Life is related to breathing. “And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.”
Verse 24, the next chronological notation. “And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.” So there was a period of 110 days of rising water and forty days where it was stable. This is approximately five months. This is when the ark rests but it is another six or seven months before they can come out of the ark. So this tells us that this is when there was all of the geologic upheaval going on underneath the water.
Genesis 8:1, ““And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged.” This doesn’t mean God forgot Noah, it is simply a figure of speech, an anthropomorphism, indicating that God now turns His attention to Noah.
Verses 2, 3, “The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained; and the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.” Then in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month the ark comes to rest on Mount Ararat.
Verse 14, “And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried.” They were on the ark for a little over a year. So this is not some little local flood episode or none of it makes sense. It becomes totally absurd if we don’t take it literally.
Review
1) Using the principle of a plain, literal hermeneutic this passage can only refer to a universal flood.
2) Expressions involving the universality of the flood and its effects, such as “all” and “every” and words of that nature, occur more than 30 times in Genesis 6-9.
3) A forty-day rain would be impossible under current meteorological conditions.
4) The term of the flood in the Hebrew is mabbul, and is used exclusively of Noah’s flood, never of any other event in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word sheteph, which is the word for a local flood, is not used anywhere regarding Noah’s flood. Mabbul is used in Genesis 6-11 and in Psalm 29:10.
5) The construction, outfitting and stocking of the ark would be unnecessary for a local flood. Why not just move?
6) All the mountains “under the whole heaven” were inundated and under at least fifteen cubits of water. This indicates a world-wide event.
7) The mountains are all covered, and the word there is kasah which means to overwhelm, to conceal, to cover, and it is used sometimes of putting on clothes. Genesis 7:19 says all of the mountains were concealed.
8) The text uses a double superlative: all the high mountains under all the heavens. That is not a local idea.
9) In a local flood the animals could escape or be taken to another area.
10) In verse 21: you have to save some to preserve the gene pool of each kind. In verses 10 every man dies in accordance with the purpose of the flood. In a local flood most people would escape.
11) All that possessed the breath of the spirit of life died.
12) No local flood would continue to rise for 150 days. And as soon as it stops raining the water starts to go down. But what we have here is that the water keeps going up.
13) Even after the waters begin to abate and the ark grounded on the highest of the mountains, Ararat, it is another two and a half months before the tops of other mountains could be seen. That wouldn’t be true in a local flood.
14) Even after four months of receding flood waters the dove sent out by Noah could find no dry land on which to land.
15) It is an entire year or a little more before enough land had been exposed to permit the occupants to leave the ark.
16) The New Testament uses a unique term, KATAKLUSMOS [kataklusomj] to describe the flood, not the usual Greek word for flood. So neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament use local flood terminology to describe Noah’s flood.
17) New cosmological and meteorological conditions come into existence after the flood. There are now sharply defined seasons, according to Genesis 8:22. There is now a rainbow that is a promise that God will not cause this kind of flood again. But if this kind of flood is a local flood then God breaks His promise about every spring
18) Man’s longevity began a long, slow decline immediately after the flood.
19) Later biblical writers accept the idea that this was a universal flood, both Old Testament writers as well as Jesus, and New Testament writers accept this as a world-wide flood. If it is not, then that impugns the veracity of a lot of Scripture.
20) The Lord Jesus Christ accepted the historicity and universality of the world-wide flood, even making it the climactic sign and type of the coming world-wide judgment at the end of the Tribulation when He returns. Matthew 24:37-39; Luke 17:27, 27.
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046b-The Noahic Covenant; Gen. 6:18; 8:1, 20-9:17
There are four principles we should note about what we have studied so far.
1) God provided a way of salvation prior to judgment. He announces the judgment but He also provides a way of salvation. This counters all the arguments from unbelievers that God is just too harsh. God provides a perfect way of salvation that deals with all the problems and if it is rejected then there will be judgment.
2) God’s salvation is determined by Him alone. Man doesn’t decide what the basis of salvation is. God is exclusive in the way He deals with salvation, there is only one way of salvation. There is only one ark; there is only one door on the ark; and there is only one way of eternal salvation and that is through Jesus Christ who said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
3) God is capable of delivering us in any set of circumstances. There is no set of circumstances in one’s life that is more powerful than the grace of God.
4) The issue in the post-salvation life is to apply the doctrine we know to advance in the Christian life. In the Old Testament the spiritual life operated on the basis of the faith-rest drill, applying the promises and principles of the Old Testament to the spiritual life. But in the Church Age there is the additional dynamic of living under the filling of the Holy Spirit, that our spiritual growth is based on the ability to apply doctrine while we are walking in the Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who produces spiritual growth, and as we persevere in the midst of testing then God the Holy Spirit uses that doctrine that we are applying to develop spiritual growth and spiritual maturity.
Genesis 8:1, “And God remembered Noah…” The word for remember is the Hebrew word zakar, and this is a word that is used specifically in covenant context. This is a covenant context as introduced in Genesis 6:18 where God said, “But with thee will I establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee.” This word zakar in some cases has the idea of recall, bringing something to mind again. But here it is used in the sense of a figure of speech, when it is applied to God. It is language that is used in a covenant context to emphasize God’s application of the covenant provisions. This is what is called an anthropopathism where we attribute to God aspects of human emotion or action which He does not actually possess in order to communicate God’s plan, purposes and policies in terms of a human frame of reference. God neither learns nor forgets. God knows all the knowable; for all eternity He has known all the knowable. He doesn’t forget anything and He doesn’t learn anything; His knowledge neither increases nor diminishes. So it can’t be that zakar has a literal meaning. When it says that God remembered Noah this is simply to indicate God’s application of His previous covenant promises to mankind. There are similar uses of this phrase “remembrance” in passages such as Exodus 2:24; Numbers 10:5 when God remembers Israel in the midst of some crisis.
Genesis 8:19, “Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, according to their families, went forth out of the ark.” Some English translations may have “kind” instead of “family” but the word translated “kind,” indicating the different categories of animal life in Genesis chapter one, was the Hebrew word min. Here we have a different Hebrew word altogether. This is the word mishpachah, and this refers to a family, a clan, or an extended family. This is going to be a key word when we get into the table of nations in Genesis chapters 10 and 11 which describe the descendants of Noah’s sons. So the shift in words tells us that from the ark descended all of the various families of animal life on the earth today. There may have been something different, some different developments within a kind prior to the flood. This may explain some fossils that we have and don’t see anything comparable on the earth today. But what Noah took on the ark was not two of every species, or not two over every unclean species and seven of every clean, but he took two of every kind. And the bibilcal kind is much broader than a species, somewhere between what we call a family or a genus.
In verses 20-22 we see Noah’s action after he gets off the ark. This is an act of gratitude to God as God has delivered him. Here we see Noah functioning as the family or the patriarchal priest. This was the operation of the priesthood up until God calls out Israel and establishes the Aaronic or Levitical priesthood which is a unique priesthood to Israel. “And Noah built an altar unto the LORD [Yahweh].” This use of the tetragrammaton would have resonated with the Jewish readers. This is the Yahweh who has delivered them from slavery in Egypt. “…and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” Here we have the reason for the taking of seven pairs of clean animals—three groups of male-female, and then one extra. That extra one was for a sacrifice. This is the context for the establishment of a covenant. “And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart [Heb. the Lord spoke to his heart], I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.” This is a fascinating commentary on Noah and his extended family. First of all, we see the Lord smelled the soothing aroma. This, again, is an anthropomorphism. God doesn’t smell, but it pictures a policy of God’s acceptance of the sacrifice. With reference to “curse the ground” there are two Hebrew words for curse: qalal and arar. Arar is the strong word for curse and is the word that we find in Genesis chapter three when God curses the ground as a result of sin. So the ground is already cursed because of sin. But qalal is the lighter word and can refer to treating something in a light manner or an irresponsible manner. For example, when God says to Abraham in Genesis 12 that “those who curse you [qalal],” i.e. those who treat lightly, those who have a disrespect, “I will curse strongly [arar].” So when the Lord accepts Noah’s offering He is propitiated, He is satisfied, and Noah is functioning as a priest with this offering. This is a type of Christ who is the propitiation for all mankind. God’s righteousness and justice are satisfied. In this case God’s righteousness and justice is satisfied and He says, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man.” Then He says, “…for the intent of man’s heart.” The word isn’t actually “intent,” or as in some translations “imaginations.” One of four words used in the Old Testament for creation is yatsar. This is a noun based on yatsar and it means to frame something or structure something. It comes to mean a meditation or thought, something that is generated from the leb (heart, which here indicates the soul, the inner immaterial part of man), something formed or generated from the soul of man. This verse is paralleled by Jeremiah 17:9 which says that the heart is more deceitful than all things and desperately sick. This refers to the doctrine of the fall of man and man’s total depravity. It is interesting because earlier Noah finds grace in the eyes of God, and Noah is “a righteous man.” Put this together. If Noah is a righteous man in the last chapter and here it is considered that the formation of his thought is evil from his youth, how do we put that together? The righteousness that is spoken of earlier can’t be intrinsic to Noah. It has to be extrinsic, and that means it comes from an outside source. It is not righteousness generated by Noah, it is righteousness that is imputed to Noah. That is, at the instant of faith alone in Christ alone. That is the basis of our salvation. The basis of God’s blessing to us is not what we do intrinsically, it is the righteousness that is imputed to us at salvation.
Verse 22, “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” This is the first time we have a mention of cold and heat, winter and summer. This is because that water canopy, in whatever form it was, collapsed it radically changed the meteorological conditions on the earth. Now there are extreme temperatures.
Genesis chapter nine is the location of the next covenant, the Noahic covenant. Genesis 6:18 mentions this: “But with thee will I establish my covenant.” This is the Hebrew word berith, the word for covenant. A covenant basically means for us the idea of a legal contract. The very first mention of the word berith in Scripture is in Genesis 6:18. Normally, the verb you have with covenant in this passage is translated to “establish.” This is the Hebrew word which is the hiphil stem (causative) of kun which means to stand or to arise, and in the hiphil it means to cause to stand or to establish. Sometimes it is taken, when people read “I will establish my covenant with you,” as “I am going to inaugurate.” But that is not what it means, though it looks that way in the English. The word actually means to confirm a preexisting covenant. What covenant already existed? God established a covenant we call the Edenic covenant, Genesis 1:26-28. It doesn’t use the word “Edenic” there but in Hosea 6:7 we have, “But they like Adam [not mankind] have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me.” Even though the word “covenant’s isn’t used in Genesis chapter one Hosea makes it clear that when Adam sinned he transgressed a covenant. So there was some kind of covenant established.
Genesis 1:26-28, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” These are the key words or elements that we find.
Genesis 9:1, “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” This is the start of the Noahic covenant. Where did we hear that language before? Back in Genesis chapter one. If you have the same language in a covenant in Genesis 6 that you have in a statement in Genesis 1, even though Genesis 1 doesn’t say it is a covenant, it is a covenant.
Verse 2, “And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.” What is the difference? Man was to have dominion over the animals in Genesis 1:27, 27, but now what you have is a status of fear between the animals and man. There was no element of fear in Genesis one. What happened between Genesis one and Genesis nine? The fall. Because of the fall there was a curse placed upon man and upon creation and upon the animals.
Verse 3, “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.” That is a reference back to Genesis 1:29.
Verses 4-6, “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” For the first time they are able to eat flesh. Note in verse six the basis for capital punishment. Is it to discourage people from committing murder? No. The reason is because “in the image of God made he man.” Murder is an act of blasphemy against God because it is the destruction of an image bearer. In Genesis chapter nine there is reference to image terminology just as there was in Genesis chapter one. Note that all of the key terms in Genesis 1:26-28 are repeated in the Noahic covenant. So when God says in Genesis 6:18 that He will establish His covenant with Noah, what He is saying is that He is going to reestablish or confirm a preexisting contract with Noah—the Edenic covenant was modified because of the fall in Genesis 3 and at that point we call it the Adamic covenant because there was a curse placed upon man and creation. Then it is further defined and revised in Genesis 9, and there it is the Noahic covenant. The Noahic covenant has a number of characteristics which we will look at next time.
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047b-Noahic Covenant; Dispensation of Human Gov’t;
Gen. 9:1-17
One thing that is confusing to some people is where reference is made to something called covenant theology. Covenant theology does not have anything to do with the biblical covenants, it is a form of replacement theology. There are, generally speaking, two overall systems of theology: replacement theology and dispensationalism. In replacement theology what is being replaced is Israel. In replacement theology Israel failed when they rejected Jesus as their Messiah, and so they are out. God is no longer going to fulfill any of his promises to Israel, they no longer matter, they are no longer significant, they are not God’s people any more, God doesn’t have a future for Israel, they’ve lost the land, lost all then promises, it is over with and they have been replaced by the Church. This is prevalent in two systems of prophecy called amillennialism which teaches there is no literal millennium, and post-millennialism which teaches the Jesus Christ comes back at the end of the Millennium. Replacement theology is manifest in Roman Catholic theology and in Protestant theology—Lutheran theology, Presbyterian theology for the most part, Methodist, etc. Only dispensationalism realizes that God temporarily set aside Israel and that during this age He is working through a unique group of people called the Church. The Church will be raptured to be with the Lord in the air at the end of the present age and then the last seven years of Israel will come to pass in what is called the time of Jacob’s trouble or the Tribulation. This ends with the second coming of Christ. In covenant theology is not on the biblical covenants—the Noahic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the land covenant, the Davidic covenant, the New covenant—they have two, sometimes three, theological covenants. These theological covenants aren’t mentioned anywhere in the Bible, but in their theological system they have deduced these covenants and they use this as the overall interpretive umbrella for understanding the Bible. In covenant theology you have two, sometimes three covenants, the covenant of works, the covenant of redemption, and sometimes a third called the covenant of grace, depending on the system. But these are never mentioned in the Bible. They are not biblical covenants at all, they are simply theological deductions that are then superimposed back on the Scripture to give an interpretive framework for Scripture.
Observations about the word “covenant”
1) In Genesis 6:18 we have this first mention of the word “covenant.” And in this passage God says, “I will establish my covenant with you.” That is very important terminology because normally what you find in the Hebrew is the verb which means to cut. And usually the idiom is to cut a covenant, and where that comes from is that in the ancient world in order establish a covenant its sealing was an animal sacrifice, and the animal’s throat was cut. We see the picture on the Abrahamic covenant where God has Abraham brings the animals, cut them in half, and lay them on the altars on each side. He causes a deep sleep to come upon Abraham and then God Himself passes between these animals, showing that He is binding Himself to this covenant unconditionally. Abraham is not part of it; it is not a conditional covenant based on Abraham, God is saying He is doing this on His own. So there is this idiom of cutting a covenant. That is not the language we find here. What we find here is the hiphil stem of the Hebrew verb qum, which means to set in place or to establish. In the hiphil stem it means to cause to be in place and it has the idea here of confirming something that is already in existence. When we look at this verse in the English, “I will establish,” it future tense. It makes it look as if God is going to do something in the future, that he is going to begin this, inaugurate this, that this is something new. But the use of this word has the idea that God is going to reestablish something that is already in existence. What covenant is that? The word “covenant” has never been mentioned before but there is a reference in Hosea 6:7 which says that Adam violated a covenant. All this is important because we realize that the God of the Bible deals with men on the basis of legal contracts. He binds Himself to specifically articulated legal conditions. In Genesis chapter nine we have the same verbiage as Genesis 1:27, 28, so that means it must have been a covenant. The ends with the fall and there is a revision in 3:14-19 when God talks about the impact that the fall has had on relations in creation. We call that revision the Adamic covenant. Then man fails again and there is the judgment of God at the universal flood, and God reestablishes that covenant is what we call the Noahic covenant. The first covenant has been traditionally called the Edenic covenant, but there is preference for calling it the creation covenant because it is God establishing the way He is going to interact with man and man’s responsibilities at the every beginning. A covenant implies that there are responsibilities on the part of man as a covenant partner. That is what is seen played out all through Genesis. The Noahic covenant is still in effect as indicated by the presence of the rainbow. Whenever we see a rainbow we know that that covenant is still in effect.
2) A covenant is essentially a legal contract. That implies several things. First, there are two parties involved. There is God who is the party of the first part, and man or a group of men, who are parties of the second part. This implies that for there to be a legal contract that both parties are persons. You can’t have a covenant between a thing or an impersonal force or a non-person. So this implies that the God who gives this covenant or contract is a personal entity, an individual. The Bible clearly implies that there is a Person out there who is capable of relationships. Secondly, a covenant or contract implies that the person who establishes the contract is able to guarantee what he promises in the contract. He is able to control the situation and circumstances and all of the details of history to be able to fulfill what He, God, has promised. That tells us things about God’s character. It implies that one who makes this contract is sovereign; He is ultimately in charge. It relates to His immutability. If God is not immutable, if He is going to change His mind tomorrow, then is that contract any good? It implies His love. One of the key words that we find over and over in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word chesed, a word that is a little difficult to translate into English, but it is usually translated “loving kindness.” But it means much more than that, it has to do with loyalty, faithfulness. It is love that is faithful to a free, established contract. God honors His obligations even when we don’t.
3) The giving of a covenant is the expression of God’s grace to fallen man and provides the guidelines for the relationship.
4) The very fact that God enters into a covenant with us shows that man’s relationship with God is always based on immutable legal principles that are articulated in specific written regulations. That has implications for understanding the inerrancy of the Bible. This is the old covenant and the new covenant. God writes down and signs the contract. The terms aren’t going to change, they are inviolable.
The parties involved in the Noahic covenant are God as party of the first part, and as party of the second part is Noah and his family, and all of the animals. Verse 9, “And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you.” Every single person on the planet is a descendant of Noah, so that means that God enters into this contract with Noah and with every single individual. Then verse 10, “And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.” Notice He doesn’t mention the fish of the sea. The implication is uncertain but it is interesting. Verse 11, “And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.”
The provisions in the Noahic covenant
1) There is the mandate to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth, vv. 1, 7. This is the same command that was given to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:26-28, but one thing that is not repeated here is the concept of subduing the earth. It is implied by another stipulation at the end of verse 2 where it says “they are given into your hand.” The hand is where your power is, so this is an idiom that implies power over them, but that is different from the kind of ruling and subduing that is mentioned in Genesis 1:26-28. That ruling and subduing is related to man as God’s representative. That changed because of the fall, so man loses a certain amount of authority and ability to ultimately rule and exercise dominion over the planet, and this will not ultimately be fulfilled until the second Adam comes at the second coming.
2) God says, “The fear of you will be on all the animals.” In the original mandates in the creation and Adamic covenants this was no so. Man was still ruling over the animals and there was some level of affinity between man and the animals. But now there is universal fear in the animal kingdom toward man.
3) God says all the animals, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, “are given into your hand.” This is an idiom for power and strength. It may even be abused power and strength, it is not the same concept of ruling with authority, with prestige, with respect, with responsibility; this can be irresponsible, tyrannical oppression. So it is an idiom for being placed under power.
4) There is an authorization to eat meat. Up to this time man did not eat meat. Verse 3, “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.” This really undercuts the whole vegetarian argument.
5) There is a prohibition of eating blood. Verse 4, “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.”
6) Death is required of every beast or man who takes a human life in a prohibited manner. This is the authorization for capital punishment. There are valid ways and reasons to take another human life; there are wrong ways and reasons to take another human life. But God clearly authorizes the taking of human life under certain conditions and following certain regulations. Verse 5, “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.” The Hebrew word here, repeated three times, is darash, means to ask, to enquire, investigate, search. What that verb demonstrates is that God is going to search out the requirement that He has placed upon man to execute justice in these manners. That is how serious God takes this capital punishment provision. He is going to investigate to make sure man is doing this. Verse 6, “Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” The Hebrew word for “shed” is shaphak, which means literally to pour something out, or to spill something, or to shed something.
7) This covenant is made with Noah, all of his descendants, and the animals that came off the ark.
8) God promises to never again destroy the world in the same way. He will destroy it through fire at the end of the Millennium, but He is never again going to destroy the world through a watery world-wide cataclysm. This again, is proof of a world-wide flood. If it had been a local flood, then every time there is a local flood God would be breaking His promise.
9) The sign of the promise is the rainbow. The rainbow has special significance in Scripture. One of these is that it is a reminder of God’s presence. If we look at the first chapter of Ezekiel and verse 28 there is the appearance of a rainbow around the throne of God, the same as is seen in Isaiah chapter six and Revelation 4:3. So what we see is that God created a lot of meteorological circumstances on the earth whereby we would be reminded of who He is and His presence every time we see a rainbow. It is His personal signature in the clouds that he will never again destroy the earth by water.
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048b-Doctrine of Capital Punishment, I; Gen. 9:1-17
Verse 6, “Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” That has historically been understood as the verse which under girds the institution of human government, so this begins the next dispensation and it brings into focus the fourth divine institution. The first divine institution was the institution of human responsibility, that man is accountable for his actions. This implies volition: that man can choose to obey or disobey God; that man can be held responsible for his decisions and ultimately he is responsible to God. God is the authority in the first divine institution. The second divine institution was marriage, which is for believer and unbeliever alike. The laws of marriage is for one man and one woman. The third is the institution of family. This is what breaks down when you have Adam and Steve trying to get married, you have the breakdown of the family, the breakdown of the whole structure for raising children and teaching them how they should obey God and the whole concept of authority, because the very structure in such a home violates the authority of God. This is why marriage is a factor because if the sanctity of marriage as defined in the Bible is not maintained it breaks down families and it breaks down society. These first three divine institutions are for the human race, given before there was ever sin, and they are for the purpose of perpetuating the human race, for perpetuating values and teaching within the structure of a family; they provide stability in a culture. A fourth divine institution is introduced here in Genesis 9, and that is the institution of human government. And the most serious decision a governing body, whether it is within a small family, whether it is tribal, a clan, whatever the governing structure is, there is a basis for some form of authority that makes judicial decisions. The most extreme of these is the decision to take the life of a human being because he has committed some criminal act and has thereby forfeited his right to live. So in these two or three verses in Genesis 9 there is the basis in the Scriptures for the establishment of the judicial function in the human race, and that is the foundation for human government. There is one more divine institution established in Genesis 10, and that is the divine institution of nations and tribal distinctions of groups.
Capital punishment is first authorized and mandated in Genesis chapter nine and it becomes the foundation for the institution of human government. This is an issue that is controversial for some, and there are a lot of people who just don’t understand it. We will begin to look at this in terms of the problem it presents to us in the 21st century in our culture. Supreme Court Justice Marshall wrote that “the death penalty is no more effective a deterrent than life imprisonment. It is also evident that the burden of capital punishment falls upon the poor, the ignorant and the underprivileged members of society.” In that one quote we really crystallize what the anti-capital punishment is. First of all, that it is not a deterrent, and secondly that it is not applied evenly or fairly or judicially. The first statement presumes an argument that is often put forth in American discussions on capital punishment, and that is the fact that the reason for capital punishment is that it is a deterrent. But that is not the argument, the reason, the rationale for capital punishment that is given in the Scriptures. So if you are going to get into an argument or discussion on this, argue from a biblical basis, don’t get sucked into a non-biblical rationale in arguing. Second, he points out that there is a methodological flaw in its application. The conclusion from that is that if we are not doing it right, don’t do it. That is false reasoning, because there are many things in life that we don’t do right but that doesn’t mean we stop doing them. Just because a principle is not fairly applied doesn’t mean you do away with the principle. It means you have to revamp your application, but it doesn’t mean you go back and do away with the principle. But this quotation in a nutshell is the anti-capital punishment argument.
Just by way of introduction in terms of the history, the United States has executed over 800 people since 1976 when the legitimacy of the death penalty was reestablished. That is not very many people. That is as of December 2002 and at that time over 3700 men and women were on death rows in various states across the country. If only 800 people have been executed since 1976, think about that in terms of a deterrent argument. You don’t have much of a chance of being executed on that basis. So it can’t really operate as much of a deterrent if it is not applied very frequently.
The second thing in terms of the current situation is that the United Nations has passed a resolution calling for all nations that continue to execute to restrict the number of offences for which the death penalty may be imposed, and to suspend executions with a view toward abolishing the death penalty. So there is international pressure on nations that still utilize the death penalty. We will see in Genesis 10 that the United Nations is just another attempt of man which has gone on since the tower of Babel to reverse the impact of the curse of the tower of Babel and to create an international organization that goes against the fifth divine institution. We see problems with this today. For example, after 9/11 when terrorists were identified in different countries such as Germany and France they would extradite them to the US because the US practices the death penalty. And there is a problem with this in the US, as when some murderer escapes to Canada the Canadian government won’t extradite him back to the US unless there are assurances that the murderer will not be executed. So there are other nations dictating policy to the US out of their arrogant rebellion against the Word of God.
In the US prior to 1972, 5707 had been legally executed for capital crimes in the 20th century. That does not seem a large number, and certainly not a deterrent. One wonders how many people were convicted of homicide during that same period of time. In 1972 the US Supreme Court handed down landmark decision by a five to four vote ruling that the death penalty statutes in Georgia and Texas violated the eighth amendment by involving cruel and unusual punishment. The key issue for some of the Justices was that among those eligible for the death penalty only a few were chosen and the standard was not consistent or clear. In other words, there was not a pair application principle. During the next three years 35 states rewrote their capital punishment laws to conform to the Supreme Court decision, and then on July 2, 1976, by a seven to two vote, the Supreme Court declared capital punishment acceptable and legitimate. In 1977 executions resumed and there was an expectation that there would be numerous executions, but there were not. As this developed in 1987 the Supreme Court handed down another five to four decision ruling that racial bias in imposing the death penalty was really insufficient grounds for challenging the constitutionality of capital punishment laws. Statistics do demonstrate that blacks are much more likely to be convicted and sentenced to death than whites, especially when the victim is white and the murderer is black. Those least likely to be convicted are blacks when the victims are blacks. But the Supreme Court ruled that despite the fact that there were disparities and an unequal application of the law, that did not change the nature of the law. That is the principle. Just because a law is not applied fairly or evenly doesn’t mean you throw out the law, it means you change the way it is applied.
There have been various forms of execution utilized in this country: hanging, public hanging, was a common form of execution through the 19th century. If there is going to be a penalty that is to act as a deterrent, people have to see it. We live in a society that is so distanced from life and death that most people can’t handle death and they can’t handle birth. Generations ago many were born and died in the same bed, and the whole family saw both. Now we have these sterilized injections that nobody witnesses, and it is a painless death, and this is supposed to be a punishment. The idea is that it is a penal death, it is a punishment, not something that is supposed to be easy or sanitized. Execution switched to electrocution, introduced in 1888, and then there was the gas chamber introduced in 1924. By 1983 nine states decided to use lethal injections and this has brought various mixed reactions. In 1981 the American Medical Association passed a resolution stating that a physician as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution. They viewed it as being inconsistent with their Hippocratic oath.
In England as recently as 1800 there were over 200 crimes that were considered capital offences. That is important historically because when the American Constitution was written in 1789 and the Bill of Rights was adopted, the eighth amendment prohibited the use of cruel and unusual punishment. Let’s look at that as a historical document. You have to interpret it in terms of the intent of the writers and in terms of the times in which it was written. It was not mean to be a “living document” despite what people say. If that kind of interpretive rationale to your taxes you’ll go to jail; or if to the Bible you’ll go to hell. You can’t come along and say something mean that to one generation but it means something else to this generation. It has to be what the authors intended, so you have to define cruel and unusual punishment in light of the times when the Constitution was written. In England at that time there were 200 crimes that were capital offences but by the 20th century Britain has outlawed the death penalty. Between 1970 and 1980 six western European countries outlawed the death penalty. By 1980 world-wide 20 countries had outlawed the death penalty for all crime, but since then many more have abolished the death penalty. By 1992 the number of countries and territories that retained the death penalty had been reduced to only 106. So it can be seen that the move is against the death penalty.
What are the arguments that are usually advanced against using the death penalty? First of all, there is the one we usually hear from our kids: everyone else is stopping it. Everyone else is stopping it; we should too. According to Amnesty International the reason it should be stopped is because governments all over the world are eliminating the death penalty. But governments all over the world do not have a Judeo-Christian foundation for their judicial system. We do. The answer to this objection is simple. Everyone isn’t stopping it, though many are. The ones who do are doing it because they bought into an anti-biblical world view.
A second argument that is used against capital punishment is that it neither deters violence nor makes society safer. This is really a form of a truism—something that is commonly accepted to be true but it is not—that violence can’t stop violence. We have to use violence to stop violence in a fallen world. Remember that when Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane in order to prevent being taken or assaulted prior to the time, knowing that He needed to go to the cross, He told the disciples to bring along a couple of swords. There is a time to fight and a time not to fight, and a time to protect yourself. He knew that if there was violence toward Him that would prevent Him from going to the cross that it needed to be stopped by violence. The rationale that is normally presented here comes from statistical evidence. For example, you will hear that records from 1967-68 states that states that did not have a death penalty had a lower first degree murder rate than states that did have a death penalty. Other studies from 1920 to 1955, Michigan, which was the first state to abolish the death penalty, had a lower homicide rate than either Ohio or Indiana, and they both had the death penalty. Others will point to a study where Missouri abolished the death penalty from 1917 to 1919. Prior to the abolition of the death penalty and after its reinstatement the number of homicides rose steadily, but during the period when there was no death penalty homicides steadily decreased. The problem with this is that you can’t really analyze an unknown. The unknown: how many people didn’t commit a murder because they didn’t want to die? There is no statistical way to measure that, so you cannot prove whether it is a deterrent or not because you never can measure how many people didn’t commit a murder. So the idea that it isn’t a deterrent isn’t a provable argument. Furthermore, you don’t know what other factors might be at play in the culture at that time. You can point to a lot of different periods in states histories and in US history where you have a rise in the homicide rate and a decline in the homicide rate, it doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not there is a change in the death penalty law. These things just fluctuate. It cannot be known what it would have been like in a state like Michigan if they had had the death penalty, you can’t prove the negative. Furthermore, in the US criminals know that they aren’t likely to be executed. That is one factor. Remember the number of people who have been executed is relatively small compared to the number of people charged or who have been found guilty of first degree murder.
A second reason you can’t go to the deterrent argument is that in murders of passion thought and reason aren’t the issue. In a murder of passion there is not thought of what the deterrent is, there is more concern about not getting caught as opposed to not having to pay the full penalty. And a third point, which has already been mentioned, is that there is no way to measure how many people do not commit a murder because of the possibility of the death penalty. So the conclusion is that it is impossible to demonstrate that the death penalty doesn’t deter.
Nevertheless, deterrent isn’t the biblical argument. The biblical argument is given in verse 6, and that is: “Whoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.” Why is there capital punishment, according to God? Because it is a theological statement: you have destroyed a person who is created in the image and likeness of God. This is so serious in God’s eyes that it means a murderer has forfeited the right to live. It doesn’t mean that it isn’t a deterrent; it may be a deterrent, but that is not why God said to do it. It is not vengeance, it is simply that the person has forfeited the right to live.
Another argument that is used against capital punishment is that it is discriminatory. There is a presuppositional problem here, and that is that people in our society think that discrimination is wrong in and of itself. But we make a discrimination every time we make a decision for one thing or another. Discrimination in and of itself is not wrong, but they flash this idea that it is discriminatory so therefore it is wrong. It is not true. God is going to discriminate at the great white throne judgment. People who trust Christ get saved; people who don’t are going to the lake of fire. Every time a judge makes a decision in a courtroom he discriminates. But, of course, what they are saying is it is not equally applied, and there are some statistics that indicate that there are serious problems with the way the death penalty is applied. A recent study of death sentences in Philadelphia found that African-American defendants were almost four times more likely to receive the death penalty than were people of other ethnic origins who committed similar crimes. Over 80% of people executed since 1976 were convicted of killing white victims, although people of color make up more than half of all homicide victims. That is not a fair or balanced application of the law. Furthermore, a defendant who can afford to pay his or her own attorney is much less likely to be sentenced to die. Ninety-five percent of all people on death row could not afford to pay their own attorneys. These are inequities in the system. Furthermore, from 1930-1957 in the US more than half of the executions for murder involved non-whites, and in the south more twice as many blacks as white were executed. That is an inequity in the system. Of all people legally executed in the US between 1930 and 1980 about 53.3% were black, even though US population during that period was only 10% black. So there are a lot of problems with the way in which the death penalty is applied, but it doesn’t mean you don’t apply it. Remember, God in His omniscience, when He established this principle in Genesis 6, knew that man would not apply it fairly. Nevertheless, He delegated that responsibility to the human race.
Another complaint is that it is used to silence political opposition. That would not apply to the US but it certainly would apply in some countries. Once again, this is a problem of methodology, it is not a problem of morality.
There is the complaint that it is irreversible. Juries make mistakes. Sometimes the wrong evidence is brought forth. Sometimes more evidence is discovered down the line. Once again, God in His omniscience knew that man was fallible and would make wrong decisions. Nevertheless, he delegated the responsibility to man. It is not an option, it is a responsibility for man to govern well and to govern wisely, even though he will make mistakes.
Another objection is that the death penalty isn’t a solution. The argument is that it just creates more victims, it doesn’t really solve anything, it just perpetuates a cycle of violence, and “if we truly believe that killing is wrong we must abolish the death penalty.” That is a direct quote from the Amnesty International web site. What is wrong with that statement? Killing isn’t by definition wrong. In the ten commandments it doesn’t say “Thou shalt not kill,” it says, “Thou shalt not murder.” There are many times when the taking of human life is legitimate and authorized in Scripture. Don’t make an absolute of a wrong principle and then try to force everything to fit it. That is what is happening there, there is this presupposition that killing and violence is inherently and always wrong, therefore don’t keep perpetuating it. Furthermore, that argument says it just creates more victims. In this sense the victims are the family of those who are executed, the family of the criminal. He created them as victims as well as the person he murdered. It is not the punishment that is making them victims and, furthermore, it is questionable that the family should be called victims. They are simply not victims in the same sense that the person murdered is a victim. We have to put our emphasis on the victim of the crime, and their family, and not on the criminal and his family.
The objection that it is just vengeance. But it is not about vengeance, it is about justice. Vengeance has to do with an unauthorized individual settling a score; justice has to do with the legally established authorities dealing with a criminal act. We must realize that justice can be retributive without being vengeful; they are not the same thing. Then we must realize that because some victims are vengeance-motivated doesn’t mean the death penalty is vengeance based. In any society those who cannot keep the laws should be punished because they don’t obey the law.
The underlying issue goes back to the debate that has been going on for the last 150 years: Is incarceration for punishment or for rehabilitation? If you believe that man is inherently good, then you are going to want to rehabilitate because they are “rehabilitatable.” It’s not his fault, it is society’s fault! He grew up in poverty; he was abused when he was a child; it is not his fault he grew up to be a mass-murderer! But the Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things.” We are corrupt sinners, and that it takes discipline to restrain the sin nature, and when any individual is at a point where they are no longer capable of restraining their sin nature to the point that it becomes destructive to society, then they need to be removed from society just as you would cut out a malignant cancer. That is what the death penalty is all about. It is looking to what is best for society and not what is best for the criminal.
A further objection that is raised against capital punishment is that it is cruel and unusual punishment. What is claimed here is that by definition the death punishment is cruel and unusual. But the founding fathers didn’t understand it that way, did they? They clearly authorized the death penalty, and they utilized means of execution that we no longer think are acceptable. What happens it that those who are against the capital punishment usually argue that any kind of punishment is cruel and unusual. They just don’t want any kind of punishment at all. They argue that “cruel” means deliberately causing pain or injury. Also they would say that the emotional grief caused by simply arresting this “poor” criminal is cruel. The problem is that we get into redefining what is cruel and unusual in terms of our culture. The answer to this is that the executions that are actually carried out in this country for capital crimes is not unusual, and since the criminal is not tortured the penalty is not cruel.
When we come to the Bible it doesn’t define what kind of death penalty, the methodology; it doesn’t set up a specific form of government, it just lays down the principle: that man has the prerogatives to police himself. That means that he has to adjudicate criminal actions and to deal with them in an appropriate manner. And because of the rationale that is given in Genesis chapter nine is that man is in the image of God we have to recognize that, in our first principle, capital punishment is first and foremost an issue of theology. If anything has to do with taking a life then ultimately it must be understood in terms of a theological framework. It has to do with the value of human life and why God created man, and so capital punishment, then, becomes an issue of theology. In fact, all ethics, all moral judgments, are ultimately determined by a person’s theology. So if you are a believer then you have to go back to the Bible and let the Bible define your understanding of any issue. You can’t let society define it; you can’t let the inappropriate or inequitable application of a principle define it. You have to start with an absolute and then you work your applications out from that absolute. It is a matter of theology because whoever determines what life is, when it begins and ends, what its parameters are, is the one who determines the basis for taking life in a just manner.
We have to recognize that capital punishment was not a part of the first two dispensations—of perfect environment between creation and the fall, or the dispensation of human conscience between the fall and the flood. But God sees fit to establish it here in Genesis 9.
Capital punishment is as much a part of the Noahic covenant as the promise to not flood the earth again and the authorization to eat meat. If any part of this contract is still in effect the whole contract is still in effect. This is going to be different when we get to the Mosaic law. The way that many Christians argue for capital punishment is to go to the Mosaic law, but the Mosaic law was a temporary law code and it was only for the nation Israel. The Noahic covenant is for every nation on the planet and it is still in effect. The Mosaic law code ended at the cross.
The authorization for capital punishment comes from God and not from man. This isn’t something that was generated by the creature. This authorization is a mandate, not an option; it is not based on pragmatics, such as a deterrent effect, but on an absolute: man is in the image of God. Thus the authorization for capital punishment provides the basis for human government. The Noahic covenant legitimizes capital punishment for only murder, but this does not restrict its application in other areas. It does imply certain things: that if there is going to be a system to adjudicate and determine guilt there needs to be a system for the objective evaluation of evidence.
The Mosaic law provides a divinely authored government constitution showing that capital punishment may be applied in other areas: Murder was a capital crime, Exodus 21:12; Numbers 25:26-31. Sabbath violation, Exodus 35:2. Cursing parents, because he had failed to learn authority orientation. That would lead to a breakdown of authority in society and lead to, criminality, Leviticus 20:9. Adultery, because it breaks down the second divine institution of marriage, and that would lead to the destruction of society, Leviticus 20:10. Incest, breaks down the family, Leviticus 20; Sodomy, Leviticus 20:13, 15, 16. False prophecy, idolatry, incorrigible juvenile rebellion, Deuteronomy 21:8-21. Rape, Deuteronomy 22:25. Kidnapping, Exodus 21:6.
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049b-Doc of Capital Punishment, II; Gen. 9:1-17
Something that is crucial for this study is that the Mosaic covenant is viewed as a legal document. It is an integrated whole, you can’t separate it, you can’t go into it and take out certain provisions and apply them and not others. It is a whole document. Either the whole thing is in effect or it is not in effect. It was a legal constitution for the theocracy of Israel, a form of government where God functions as the executive branch. In the Mosaic law God serves as the King, and there is a bureaucracy which was the priests and the Levites who carried out the various functions of collecting taxes which were called tithes. Tithes were ten per cent taxes, and there were three different kinds of incomes taxes that were levied for the nation to provide for widows and orphans and various other facets such taking care of the livelihood for logistical needs of the priests and Levites. In the Mosaic law there were three different elements in the law code. Part of it was civil and criminal law. The other part of the law code had to do with ritual. They were all part of the same document. In the criminal law there were various crimes that demanded capital punishment—murder, Sabbath violation, cursing of parents, adultery, incest, sodomy, false prophecy, idolatry, incorrigible juvenile rebellion, rape, animals that killed humans, kidnapping, aliens of foreigners who intruded into a sacred place. All of these required the death penalty under the Mosaic law.
Who wrote the Mosaic law? God wrote the Mosaic law. Therefore what we must say is that as a law code it is perfect; it is not imperfect. It defines from God’s perspective what freedom is. We don’t define what freedom is by going out and looking at cultural institutions. We don’t start from the bottom up, we start from divine revelation and then deduct our ideas of freedom from our study of the Word of God. So the Mosaic law is a perfect law code, but that doesn’t mean that every nation needs to take the Mosaic law and make it their constitution. There are elements of the Mosaic law that are specifically oriented to Israel because Israel is God’s firstborn son in the Old Testament, God’s chosen nation. No other nation has the same relationship to God as the Jews had because they are God’s chosen people, so you can’t take the Mosaic law and then take that over as a constitution or governing document for some other country. But it does provide a model and a basis and shows where there is a legitimacy in crime and punishment. One of the fascinating aspects of the Mosaic law is that there was no incarceration for criminal activity. Criminal incarceration comes out of paganism, it didn’t come out of the Bible. Furthermore, there is not the dismemberment penalties such as there is in Islam. These are the barbarities from paganism. There was a system where there was forfeiture of life or of becoming a slave to pay off and give remuneration for a crime, one way or the other.
What we see here is that the death penalty applied to a number of different categories that we certainly in our “enlightened” society we would not use. We are so “enlightened,” but this is God’s light, and God’s light is superior to our light and in His light capital punishment applies to numerous areas that we would not apply it to. Probably part of this, involving cursing of parents, incest, sodomy, adultery, has to do with protecting the nation from losing the divine institutions of marriage and family. Once they are gone the nation is going to fragment and implode—which is what is happening in our nation today.
The Old Testament model was called lex talionis, the law of retaliation. This is a Latin term that was used in Roman law, but the concept of a law of retaliation goes back as far as the laws of Lipit Ishtar around 1850 B. C. and the code of Hammurabi around 1750 B. C. In the law of retaliation the idea was that the penalty should not exceed the crime, and it was designed to protect the guilty from the excessive vengeance of the innocent so that they would not be over penalized for the crime. The other aspect that is important to understand in the law of lex talionis is that it doesn’t necessarily mandate the harshest penalty allowed by law. It would leave it up to the judge because there may be ameliorating circumstances, some factors involved that would mean a lessening of the penalty. We see this in one example in the Old Testament when David commits adultery (a capital crime) with Bathsheba, and then conspires with Joab to have her husband Uriah the Hittite put in a position in battle so that he would be killed. So David is guilty of two capital crimes, yet God commutes the sentence. God can do that because He is the ultimate Judge and has the right to do that. But the implication is that there are circumstances where a human judge can do that as well under certain circumstances, but it should be used sparingly. God did commute the death penalty for David, but David had to go through a four-fold penalty of divine discipline: the baby born to Bathsheba died, then he had two of his children commit incest, Absalom then murdered his brother who committed incest with his sister, and then Absalom later led the nation in revolt against his father David. So the whole family implodes and it brought not only heartache to David because of what he saw take place in his own family but it also brought heartache to the nation because of the Absalom revolt. So the Old Testament model for lex talionis established the principle that the penalty must not exceed the crime.
There are three passages in the Old Testament that explain the principle of lex talionis. The first is in Exodus 21:24, 25. The context of this passage deals with the two men who are involved in a fight in the midst of which a woman is hurt so that she gives birth prematurely, yet, as the passage says, no harm follows. What this is saying is that as a result of the fight the child is born prematurely and then doesn’t die. The question is whether the woman suffers physical harm afterwards or physical harm to the child after it was born, in which case there would be punishment as well. Then the principle is laid down, “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” This was never taken literally. It was taken literally in Islam so that there is this dismemberment factor in their laws, but this is not how Israel practiced or ever understood this. It is simply a metaphor for saying that remuneration would be made in kind. In the Mosaic law there are various financial figures that are assigned to different crimes. There was to be financial restitution for what was lost. It was never understood in a literal fashion other than the phrase life for life. The way that is interpreted is from clear passages that tell us that if someone committed a specific crime they were to die. That explains that one phrase in a literal way, but the other phrases were understood as simply a metaphor for a payment in kind and to the same degree.
The second passage that emphasizes lex talionis is Leviticus 24:20, “Fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.” This is not talking about the fact that if you cause an accident and it is your fault, and somebody breaks their leg, that they get to come over and break your leg. It means that if you cause a certain damage to them there would be a financial cost assigned to that and there would be financial remuneration. There is the same terminology in Deuteronomy 19:19, “Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you. And those which remain shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth commit no more any such evil among you. And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” So life for life was the only one that was taken literally and understood to be applied literally.
Summary
1) So the law of lex talionis was designed to prevent excessive retaliation or vengeance from the offended party. The penalty must not exceed the crime.
2) Life for life was the only part of the phrase that was ever taken or understood in a literal fashion. The other was just a metaphor to indicate that punishment must be to the same degree as the crime.
3) In the Mosaic law some form of financial remuneration was set for all other injuries and criminal acts. There was no dismemberment or anything like that, it was never understood as such. The main idea was that repayment would be in terms of equal value.
What happens by the time we get into the New Testament period is the Pharisees had distorted the law. During the period of the Babylonian captivity the Jews realized that it was such a painful period in the nation’s history because had removed them from the land that when they came back to the land they sort of scratched their heads and said, “What can we do to prevent this kind of divine discipline again?” They had broken God’s law and that was the reason for them to be taken out of the land so they had to be sure they never broke God’s law. They said the way to do that was to look at the 613 commandments in the Mosaic law, and around each one of those commandments they created a series of commandments to build a fence around that commandment to make sure that if we break one of the other commandments then we certainly won’t break the main commandment. So they created these traditions and secondary laws. Then they came along after that and said they needed to make sure they didn’t break any of those laws and they built a fence around each one of those laws. What they had was a whole array of traditions and laws that were set up and ultimately designed to prevent people from breaking the Mosaic law. But they took on a legalistic, superficial aspect to them and they lost the spirit of the law and any concept or understanding of grace. So that when it comes to the law of retaliation the Pharisees had distorted that law to the idea that it required a corresponding punishment and that they were to seek the highest form of retaliation. This bred in the Pharisaic interpretation an atmosphere of personal vengeance and retaliation. By the time that Jesus came on the scene the Pharisees were using the Mosaic law as a justification for personal vengeance. As has been pointed out, capital punishment is not a matter of vengeance, it is a matter of justice.
Lex talionis represents the maximum punishment. This allows for grace on the part of the judiciary to lower the penalty. That grace should be used sparingly but it recognizes the validity of extenuating circumstances. That concept had been lost by the Pharisees.
Jesus did not change the standards in the sermon on the mount. There are those who believe that Matthew chapter five is a new ethic, a new standard for the Christian life; that the purpose of Matthew five is to replace the Mosaic with a new standard. However, we have to realize that in Matthew 5:17 Jesus said, “Do not think that I came to abolish the law or the prophets: I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.” He is not changing what the law says. We have to understand that whatever Jesus is saying it is not in contrast to the Mosaic law. If the Mosaic law teaches capital punishment then Jesus is not coming along and providing an ethic in the sermon on the mount that would do away with it. What He is dealing with in Matthew 5 & 6 is an interpretation of the law—His interpretation in contrast to the interpretation of the scribes and Pharisees. This is seen in Matthew 5:20 where Jesus says, “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
What Jesus is doing in the sermon on the mount is answering the question: What kind of righteousness is required to enter the kingdom? The Pharisees through their system of laws that they had established through the Mishna and later the Talmud—the fences they had set up around the 613 commandments of the Torah—they were establishing their interpretation of righteousness in the Mosaic law. This was what was required to have salvation, what was required to get into the kingdom. But Jesus interprets the Mosaic law from God’s divine viewpoint in contrast to what the Pharisees have been saying all along. The Pharisees had perverted the law of Moses into a system of righteousness based on works and thus they had destroyed a system of freedom and substituted a system of slavery to a works oriented righteousness.
We have to remember that Jesus did not come to abolish the law, He came to fulfill the law; so whatever He is saying it is not a contrast to the law. Matthew 5:21, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not murder; and whosoever shall murder shall be in danger of the judgment.” That is what the Pharisees taught. Jesus gives His interpretation and He says that the righteousness isn’t just an external righteousness and don’t commit murder, it goes deeper than that and has to do with the underlying mental attitude. If you have a mental attitude sin of arrogance and hostility to somebody else, that is violating the law of loving your neighbor as yourself. It is a sin and you are just as guilty of violating the law. Matthew 5:38, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” That is what the Old Testament taught; now Jesus is going to apply it. Verse 39, “But I say unto you, That ye resist not an evil person: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” A lot of people quote that out of context. They use it to support pacifism, as an argument against capital punishment, and if they followed the argument out to its logical conclusion there wouldn’t be a judicial system. But look carefully at this verse. If someone is going to hit you on your right cheek he is going to have to back-hand you to hit you on your right cheek (most people are right-handed). They are not going to be hitting you with a left hook. The idiom for this indicates that this is a personal insult. When you slap somebody with the back of your hand it is an insult, an affront. So this is not talking about literally slapping somebody. It is an idiom for being offended, being insulted by somebody. What Jesus is saying here is that if someone insults you don’t take offence, don’t make an issue out of it; deal with them in grace and generosity. Just because they have done something wrong doesn’t justify you in prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law.
Then in verse 43, “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” This is talking about personal relationships, it is not talking about what takes place at a national level, what takes place in terms of judicial penalties for criminal activity. It is dealing with how you exercise love for your neighbor.
Jesus did not negate capital punishment for the woman taken in adultery. The principle there is that the Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus, they are not going through the principle of correct legal action. They don’t have two witnesses, they have set the whole situation up, and the purpose is not to try to execute the law in a fair and judicious manner but they are attempting to trap Jesus and in the process they are going to trap this particular woman and they really have no concern for her whatsoever.
Romans 13:3, 4 establishes the legitimacy of capital punishment as well as the military in its establishment of judicial authority. “For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain [for nothing]: for he is the minister of God, a revenger [word based on dikh, for righteousness; it executes justice, not revenge] to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” Paul is writing in the context of the worst emperor ever to rule in Rome. Nero is abusing authority left and right. Yet Paul establishes the principle that there is no authority except from God. Even bad authorities are appointed by God. Even if the person in office is not worthy of respect, even if they abuse respect, the office is established by God and is due respect because of the office. That has application in marriage. A husband may be a loser but he is in the office of being in authority over the family. Even if he is a failure the wife has to treat him with respect because of the office he holds in the family.
Exodus 20:13, “Thou shalt not murder.” This is the Hebrew word for premeditated murder, not the word for killing in self-defense, not the word for protecting one’s country or home, and it is not the word for killing in military service or in a judicial manner. So there is no basis in Scripture to argue against capital punishment. Capital punishment was established by God as a means of controlling criminality and protecting society from people who can no longer control their sin natures. And when they reach a certain level of instability and lack of control they forfeit their right to life.
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050b-The Prophecy of Noah’s Three Sons; Gen. 9:18-29
We come to one of the most bizarre episodes in the Scriptures and one that raises a lot of questions, some of which we don’t know the answer to. The first two verses, 18 & 19, give us an introduction to this conclusion, the epilogue of the fourth toledot in verses 18-29. “And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.” We already know who the sons of Noah are, according to Genesis 5:32; 6:10; 7:13, and they are always listed in this order—Shem, Ham and Japheth. We don’t know if that is the birth order or if it is the priority. The suspicion is that it is the priority, not the age. Shem is in priority because he is the one who is blessed by the Lord because of his righteousness and positive volition. Shem is the father of the Semites. Noah just had these three sons and they are all born after he is 500 years of age. These three are believers and it is from these and their wives that the whole earth is populated. There is a shift here now from the focus on Noah and what God is doing in Noah, which has been the focus from 6:9 down through 9:17, to what happens with his three sons. This section functions as a transition from the ark episode to what happens to mankind after the flood. Is mankind going to be any better than he was before the flood? After the destruction of the earth through a world-wide flood you would think they would have a major positive volition towards God. But as we will see there is just as much a problem with sin and corruption after the flood as there was before the flood. So as we look at this we have to ask the question: Why is the author reminding us of who Shem, Ham and Japheth are? And it is because of the last sentence in verse 18, “and Ham was the father of Canaan.” This is the shift. Twice we are going to be told in this section that Ham is the father of Canaan. So what is the emphasis? The emphasis is on Canaan, the youngest of Ham’s sons. Ham has three sons, according to 10:6, and they are Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan. We will see that these are the ancestors of various nations. Mizraim is Egypt and Canaan, of course, is the Canaanites. These two grandsons of Noah play a vital role in the history of Israel, but the focus isn’t on the other sons, it is on Canaan.
As we get into this, this seems like some of those tawdry sexual episodes here. There are hints of sexual misconduct, of moral turpitude, and we need to ask why this is here. Why do we have this odd little story with this cursing and blessing statement given at this particular point in Genesis. It is because there is an emphasis here on Canaan. Twice in this section, in verse 18 and again in verse 22, we are told that Ham is the father of Canaan, and then after the episode where Noah gets drunk and lies naked in his tent—considered disgraceful—and Ham is ridiculing and disrespectful of his father. There are a lot of overtones there that we will look at, but when Noah wakes up and realizes that he has been treated in a shameful manner by Ham it is not Ham who he curses, it is Canaan who he curses. This section is not just some odd little episode put in here, it is setting the stage for what is going to happen in chapters 10 & 11, and ultimately what is going to happen in chapter 12. What the Holy Spirit is showing in the narrative is that things aren’t any better after the flood than they were before the flood, despite the fact that there has been this incredible world-wide judgment. There is still the same problem: man’s heart is deceitful and wicked above all things, and that it only takes a generation and the human race is as decadent and perverted as it was before the flood. And this plays itself out in the subsequent generations, specifically through the descendants of Ham. It then becomes necessary as we go through Genesis 10 and 11 and get to the episode of the tower of Babel that mankind is not positive, mankind is in rebellion against God, and God must, in order to execute His plan of salvation, focus on one segment of the human race. And all of this from this point through chapter 11 sets the stage for God calling out Abraham and working specifically through Abraham and his descendants in order to bring in the Messiah. So these chapters are a devastating critique of what happens in the human race. And if you are reading this when it was first written, who are you? You are a Jew. Remember, Moses wrote during the time of the wandering in the wilderness and he wrote it to provide a foundation—specifically Genesis, which was written as an introduction to the five books of the Pentateuch. We have to look at the Pentateuch as one literary structure and Genesis is the historical prelude to the Exodus. By the time Moses writes the law—the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament—the Jews are in the plains of Moab and are on the verge of invading Canaan. They are given orders by God to annihilate the entire population, man, woman, and child, including all of their animals. God is going to wipe out the Canaanite civilization, completely remove it from the face of the earth, right down to their livestock. One of the reasons He is doing that is to show the Jews that they don’t require anything that is the result of the pagan civilization of the Canaanites. All of this goes back to what happens in Genesis 9:18-29. If you were a Jew sitting outside the land of Canaan reading this episode with Noah you would be seeing the foreshadowing of what was going to happen to the Canaanites in their ancestor Canaan. So this begins to set up the human race and what will take place during the period subsequent to the flood.
So the final episode sets a rather ominous tone for what is going to come up. Here all of a sudden we have Noah who is isolated because of his righteousness. He receives grace from God, he receives grace in the eyes of the Lord back in chapter 6, and all of a sudden in chapter 9 he is pictured as a fall-down drunk and involved in some sort of morally reprehensible episode. All of a sudden we are getting a different picture here of Noah than what we have had up to this point. So we need to ask what is going on here. Verses 18 & 19 introduce us to the shift from Noah to the sons, and this is what this is about—the descendants and how the descendants of Noah are just as corrupt morally due to the indwelling sin nature as the generations preceding the flood.
“These are the three sons of Noah: and from these three the whole earth was populated.” The Hebrew verb here is naphatz and it means to scatter or to disperse, and it is not a niphal which is a passive form, it is a qal, which means it is supposed to be understood as an active voice. So what we have here is “the whole earth is dispersed.” The author is using that terminology to take us back to Genesis 1, this is what is happening to the heavens and the earth. So the whole earth becomes dispersed from these three. This is the emphasis, that it is only these three who come off the ark, and their wives, that are then the progenitors of all of these people that are described in Genesis 10 and 11. They will be the ones to populate the entire earth, and what we see in this episode is that the virtues and vices of Noah’s sons are going to be played out across the centuries in their descendants.
This really plays into a very contemporary argument that we have today. When we talk to people dealing with any kind of a problem from homosexuality to alcoholism and we get this nature versus nurture argument: nature being, well they are just born that way, it is their genetic predisposition, there’s a homosexual gene or there is an alcohol gene, etc., so how can you hold them accountable for something that is their nature, it is just the way they are born; the nurture argument being, well this is the product of their environment. The Bible comes down on both sides. There is a nature aspect, there is a genetic predisposition. Canaan and his inclinations toward sexual perversion and deviancy is the ancestor to the Canaanites, and they display his genetic predisposition. But even though there are genetic predispositions that we all have to certain sins we are still responsible. We can still say no. We don’t have to yield to those predispositions. The emphasis is still on volitional responsibility.
The event that causes all of this is then described in vv. 20-23, and it is described in somewhat abbreviated terms. It raises more questions than it answers actually. Verse 20, “And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard.” The first word that appears in the Hebrew text is the word that is translated “began,” the Hebrew verb chalal. This indicates the first time ever something is done. It also indicates the first time in a series—it may have been done before but now the series is starting over again. The reason for pointing that out is because as we get into this episode where Noah plants a vineyard and he obviously harvests the grape which is then made in to wine, a lot of time goes by. A lot of things aren’t said here. All it says is that he plants a vineyard and then he drinks the wine. It skips over a lot of details. Furthermore, we are not told when this happened. Obviously it didn’t happen right after he came off the ark; it took a while. Noah lived another 350 years after the flood.
Noah understands what is going on here. He just drinks too much wine and gets drunk. He goes into his tent and becomes uncovered in his tent. There is an important thing to notice before we go any further. What the author is showing us is the continued corruption of the human heart through indwelling sin. There is a parallel between what is said and the vocabulary that is used in this episode and that concerning the fall of Adam. First of all, there is a parallel between Adam and Noah in that they shared the same profession: they are workers of the soil. Adam was told that after fall the soil is going to bring forth thorns and thistles, and so there would be antagonism from the soil. And Noah is a worker of the soil, v. 20. Second, both episodes use the language of cursing and blessing. There is cursing and blessing here in vv. 24-28 and there is cursing and blessing in 3:14-17. Third, both episodes talk about the shame of nakedness. Prior to the fall the man and the woman are naked and are not ashamed, but as soon as the fall occurs they are ashamed and they run and hide and try to cover up their nakedness. Here there is the shame of Noah when he is drunk and he is lying naked in his tent. Fourth, Adam’s sin causes strife in the family: Cain murders Abel. In this situation, Noah’s transgression results in strife between the members of the family and there is conflict and family division. Furthermore, there are a number of Hebrew words that are used in both episodes. The tree of knowledge in the garden is said to be in the midst of the garden. Then we read that Noah, v. 21, is in the middle of his tent. The woman in Genesis chapter 3 saw the fruit, that it was good; Ham comes in and sees the nakedness of his father. The brothers don’t see the nakedness of their father; they look the other way. Adam and Eve knew they were naked, Genesis 3:7; Noah awakens after his drunken stupor and he knows what his son, Ham, had done to him. God asks Adam and Eve who told them they were naked; Ham comes out after seeing his father and told his brothers about his father’s nakedness. It can be seen that there is an intentional parallelism because of vocabulary and instances between both the Noah episode and the fall of Adam. The point is to show that the corruption that Adam created continues despite the judgment of the flood.
Verse 22, “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without.” That seems to be the thrust of what the text says is the problem. There is a certain amount of innuendo here when it says, v. 21, he became uncovered in his tent. In Leviticus chapters 18-20 the terminology “becoming uncovered” is often used as a euphemism for sexual perversion. This was a problem with the Canaanites. It is also used a couple of times in Genesis in a non-pejorative or non-critical manner. It appears that all Noah is guilty of here is getting drunk, stripping his clothes off, and lying there naked. In the ancient world nakedness was still clearly associated with the shame of sin, and that continues through many of the near eastern cultures, so it was considered immodest and immoral to show much flesh. Ham is emphasized as the father of Canaan. Ham is the one who is guilty of the act but it is his descendants through Canaan that is the issue. Ham sees the nakedness of his father and goes outside and tells his two brothers. There is a lot of guesswork as to what exactly Ham is guilty of. One view is that Ham wasn’t guilty of anything and that is was actually Canaan who went in and committed the infraction; but that is not what the text says. Secondly, the phrase “saw the nakedness of his father” is taken by some to be a euphemism for some sort of sexual sin. There is certainly a negative sexual innuendo there. The Talmud took the view that Ham castrated Noah in an attempt to destroy his power. Others think that there was a sexual sin with Noah’s wife, that Ham went in and committed incest. Others think there was some sort of homosexual act involves, that this is really a euphemism for sexual deviancy as it is used in Leviticus 18-20. Another reason some come to that conclusion is because of the wording in v. 24, that “Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him.” But the verbiage “had done to him” doesn’t mean that he had performed some sort of physical act, it can simply be that he had treated him with disrespect; and this is what is actually said in the text. The behavior that is contrasted in the passage itself is that Ham goes in and sees his father’s nakedness and come out and ridicules him to his brothers, but his brothers take a garment, go into the room backward so they don’t look upon their father’s nakedness, and they cover their father. What is contrasted here is the attitude of respect, the attitude of the two brothers who are honoring their father and who have a sense of propriety, versus the other son who treats his father in a disrespectful and inappropriate manner.
Verse 25, “And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” He uses the word arur here, which is the stronger of two words used in Hebrew for curse. It is only used one time before this, in Genesis 3:15. Canaan’s descendants will be the worst of slaves. It is important to notice that he is not cursing Ham. It is Canaan who gets the curse. Ham receives neither blessing nor curse. Shem receives blessing and Japheth receives blessing. All of the other descendants of Ham include all of the Asian people, the African blacks, and most of the Oceanic islanders. Shem produces, most notably the Jews, some other groups, and Japheth produces the Indo-European races. Some people a couple of hundred years ago tried to say that this curse on Canaan was really a curse on black Africans and they used that to try to justify slavery; but they miss the point of the passage. The point of the passage has to do with Canaan and beginning to give justification for why the Jews have a right to go into the land of Canaan, to take it for themselves, and why God is justified in giving orders to destroy all of the Canaanites. So we have to keep our focus on the overall context of this episode in Genesis and in the overall Pentateuch.
Verse 26, “And he said, Blessed be the LORD [Yahweh] God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.” Shem is positive to God, he emphasizes his own spiritual life, and he has a life of righteousness. So the blessing goes to Shem, and “Canaan shall be his slave”; and this is what happens in the conquest of Canaan.
Verse 27, “God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.” There is a blessing for Japheth and he is going to dwell in the tents of Shem. This is what happens eventually in history: the spiritual blessing going through the Jews in the Old Testament, and then there is a shift in the Church Age with the emphasis on the Gentiles. That plays itself in that God enlarges Japheth and Japheth is the father of Indo-European countries: Greeks, Romans, etc. The Greeks come to dwell in the tents of Shem in the Church Age when there is a shift from the Jewish emphasis to a Gentile emphasis. Once we get into the book of Acts we notice that all three of these representative groups are evidenced. There is the Ethiopian eunuch, the descendant of Ham, who is saved. There is Cornelius the Roman centurion, the Japhethite who is saved, and then there are the disciples who are all Semites.
This sets the stage for human history and as we get into chapters 10 and 11 and the descendants of these three we will see that this blessing and cursing of the three sons in chapter 9 sets a pattern and a framework for all of human history. There is blessing here for Japheth and there is no blessing at all for the Hamitic races. Historically there have only been a few times when the Hamitic races have ever defeated the Japhethic races, and in the few times they have defeated them militarily it has been for a very short period and then the Japhethic races come out on top. This is the pattern of history. It doesn’t mean that there is any Arian superiority or anything of that nature, it is how God has planned to work out history.
Verses 28-29, the conclusion to this toledot section: “And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.”
Conclusion: What have we seen in this section?
1) It emphasizes judgment salvation: that there is judgment for sin but God provides deliverance. This is the primary spiritual lesson of the Noahic flood.
2) Grace precedes judgment. God gave grace to Noah and there were 120 years of a proclamation of the gospel before there was a judgment. This principle is true both personally and nationally.
3) The flood judgment foreshadows the future judgment of the earth. The flood is used in the New Testament as a type of the final judgment on the earth, which will be by fire.
4) It is also used to foreshadow the Rapture. Just as God delivered the eight from the tribulation of the flood, so God will deliver the Church from the seven-year Tribulation that is yet future.
5) It is also used in the New Testament as a type or picture of salvation and eternal security. The believer in the ark was saved from the devastation of God’s judgment in the same way that believers who are in Christ are secure from eternal condemnation.
6) In 1 Peter 3:17, 18 there is a parallel of baptism with Noah that is drawn: the baptism with the Holy Spirit, indicating that those who were identified with Noah were saved just as those who are identified with Christ in the baptism of the Holy Spirit will also be saved.
7) This foreshadows Israel’s history in terms of their righteousness under the law in contrast to the unrighteousness of the pagans and the Canaanites.
8) It further foreshadows history in that Ham’s descendants, specifically Egypt and Babylon, will enslave Israel; but ultimately the greatest descendant of Shem, the Lord Jesus Christ, will bring them, as well as all nations, into subjugation during the Millennial kingdom—Psalm 87; Isaiah 19:19-25; 66:19-20.
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051b-Noah’s Vineyard: The Doctrine of Drinking; Gen. 9:18-29
We all know that there are a lot of Christians who have problems with other Christians who partake of alcoholic beverages. Other Christians have problems with those who don’t. So we need to perceive what the Scripture says about the subject of drinking and alcoholic beverage. The Bible talks about the legitimate use of wine. There are two terms that are used in the Scripture. One is yayin for wine, and the other is the Hebrew word shakar which is the word for barley beer and is the one usually translated “strong drink offering,” and that is a misnomer for us because in our culture we think of strong drink as a distilled beverage. In biblical times they didn’t know how to distill beverages.
The legitimate uses of wine
We have to understand that wine is a part of creation. It is viewed as something that God has provided to man. It is used in the Scripture to picture joy, that God gave wine for the joy of man’s heart. But we are to handle wine like anything else in God’s creation, according to the instructions that God gives. There are dangers to anything in life. Anything can be distorted and warped out of perspective. Anything that is a detail of life can become a focus of our search for happiness, that somehow we think that if we have success, if we have money and the things that money can buy, if we have alcohol, if we have drugs, that will solve our problems and bring happiness, stability, and dull the pain of suffering in life. Anything can be misused and abused. We have to recognize also that in the Old Testament wine and alcoholic beverages were a central part of worship and celebration during certain feasts of Israel. Something that always blows the legalist mind is that in the Old Testament there were wine offerings and there were beer offerings to God.
We have an example from Abraham and Melchizedek. After Abraham defeats the enemies of Sodom he goes back to Salem and brings the spoil to Melchizedek, and Melchizedek brings out oil and wine. We are told that he was a priest of God most high. This was just a meal of fellowship. The word for wine is the Hebrew word yayin, and this refers to an intoxicating beverage was usually made from grapes. Wine was also a part of the perpetual daily sacrifice in the Mosaic law. Every day there was a sacrifice in the morning and again in the evening. These were sin offerings and are described in Exodus 29:39-41. “The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even: and with the one lamb a tenth deal of flour mingled with the fourth part of an hin of beaten oil; and the fourth part of an hin of wine for a drink offering. And the other lamb thou shalt offer at even, and shalt do thereto according to the meat offering of the morning, and according to the drink offering thereof, for a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD.” This was poured out on the fire as a burnt offering to the Lord. We know that wine was also part of the grain offering in Leviticus 23:13, “And the grain offering thereof shall be two tenth deals of fine flour mingled with oil, an offering made by fire unto the LORD for a sweet savour: and the drink offering thereof shall be of wine, the fourth part of an hin.” Once again we see wine as part of the offering to the Lord. It was also included in other offerings. In Numbers 15:7, 10, “And for a drink offering thou shalt offer the third part of an hin of wine, for a sweet savour unto the LORD… And thou shalt bring for a drink offering half an hin of wine, for an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD.” Numbers 18:12, 27, “All the best of the oil, and all the best of the wine, and of the wheat, the firstfruits of them which they shall offer unto the LORD, them have I given thee …. And this your heave offering shall be reckoned unto you, as though it were the corn of the threshingfloor, and as the fulness of the winepress.”
This led to a conclusion in Israel. Wine was specifically stated to be a sign of divine blessing to Israel, Deuteronomy 7:13, “And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.” There were all kinds and types of physical, visible blessings for Israel in the Lord Testament and one of those was wine production. Deuteronomy 11:14, “That I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.” Deuteronomy 14:3, “And thou shalt eat before the LORD thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the LORD thy God always.” Wine was also part of the annual feast called the feast of booths, also known as the feast of tabernacles, as described in Deuteronomy 16:13, “Thou shalt observe the feast of tabernacles seven days, after that thou hast gathered in thy corn and thy wine. And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates.” Notice the emphasis on family, that the family would celebrate together. The feast of tabernacles pictures the Millennial kingdom, and many times the use of wine is a picture of the joy that will be ours during that Millennial kingdom. This is seen in passages such as Psalm 104:14, 15, “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.” So wine here is seen as part of God’s logistical grace for mankind. All of this is to show that the Bible emphasizes a legitimate use for alcoholic beverages. In fact, the loss of the grape crop, the loss of wine, was considered a sign of divine judgment on the nation. Deuteronomy 28:39, “Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them.” Deuteronomy 28 is at the end of the book where there are two chapters outlining the blessings and cursings for Israel for obedience and disobedience to the law. In this section of chapter 28 Moses is giving the list of cursings, the judgments that God will bring on the nation if they are disobedient. Isaiah refers to this in 5:2, “And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.” Remember the prophets were men who functioned as much as a prosecuting attorney representing the Lord. They explained to the people that the reason they were going through a certain amount of discipline, of catastrophe, of military defeat, economic downturn, is because they are violating the Mosaic law. God uses the production of grapes and wine as an image or illustration of what He is doing with Israel. One would not expect that if the use of alcoholic beverages is inherently wrong or evil that God would be using that as an image for the spiritual production of Israel.
Wine not only is used to represent spiritual production in the and, or used as discipline on the land, but it is also used in Scripture of a fellowship that we will have with God in the Messianic kingdom. When the kingdom comes there will be the use of wine—Isaiah 25:6, “And the LORD of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain [Temple mount]; a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, and refined, aged wine.” [NASB] The Hebrew word for aged wine here is shemer, an interesting word because it refers to the dregs or that which comes up out of the bottom of the wine. So that would be the oldest wine in the cask. By figure of speech it came not to speak of the dregs of the wine, which for us is something negative, but it came to refer to that which is the oldest and the finest. So wine is clearly a part of the Messianic kingdom.
Then we have a legitimate use in medicine as wine was used in the Old Testament. Proverbs 31:6, “Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.” The idea here is not of someone who is on his death bed but someone who is down, someone who is feeling defeated in life, someone whose life is a hardship. Give them wine, not to get drunk but just to lift their spirits a little bit. Medicinally it is used also in the New Testament in 1 Timothy 5:23. Wine was rarely ever taken in full strength in Greek culture. The Greeks thought that it was the sign of a barbarian to drink wine in full strength. They would usually mix it in about a one to two ratio of wine to water, so that it wasn’t as strong as the wine that we produce today. Nevertheless it was still an alcoholic beverage.
When the Lord came during the first advent He frequently went to parties. He was ridiculed and criticized for going to those dinners and parties by the Pharisees. Matthew 11:19, “The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.” The accusation by the Pharisees and the legalistic crowd was that Jesus came eating and drinking. Then they called Him a glutton and a drunkard. Obviously He was going to these parties and was eating, so they took that and exaggerated it and said He was a glutton. In order for them to call Him a drunkard He would have to be having a glass of wine as well at the party. So the Lord was obviously not abstaining. This is also in contrast to John the Baptist who did not eat and drink. He had a restricted diet and he abstained from alcohol. There is nothing wrong with making a decision in life to abstain from alcoholic beverage.
All of this is to show simply the point that the Bible recognizes in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that there is a legitimate use of alcoholic beverage. But the Bible also warns against the use of alcoholic beverage, that there is an illegitimate use, and that if this can be a problem for the individual then abstinence is a good choice. In both the Old and New Testaments intemperance or drunkenness or the misuse of alcoholic beverage is condemned. Remember the issue is balance and moderation in all things. The Scripture condemns excess in almost every area of life, and the same is true of the use of alcoholic beverages. In the Old Testament Levitical priests were not to partake of alcoholic beverages, Leviticus 10:9; Ezekiel 44:21. The Nazarites, a special group of individuals who took a particular vow of separation unto God, Numbers 6:3; Judges 13:4, 7, 14, also were not to even drink grape juice. Then there was another group called the Rechabites, and they were descendants of their forefather Jonadab, mentioned in 2 Kings 10:15-27. He was a sort of a precursor to the Pharisees, you might say, and he had a strict guideline for life, part of which was abstinence from alcohol. All of his descendants abstained completely from the use of alcohol. They are mentioned in Jeremiah 35 and in those verses Jeremiah is not advocating or validating their tradition. What he is doing in that chapter is saying they were faithful to their fathers, even though they were not even Jews, and he was saying that in contrast the Jews were not faithful to their fathers. So in principle he is not validating their abstinence from alcohol but is using their ancestor as an example in contrast to the Israelites unfaithfulness to their heavenly father.
Another example of abstinence in the Old Testament is Daniel and his friends in Daniel 1:8-16. They would not drink the wine of the Chaldeans. That was a decision they made but it was not something that was imposed by the Mosaic law.
The Bible clearly prohibits the abuse and misuse and overuse of alcohol and drunkenness. Proverbs 20:1, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” In Proverbs there is the contrast between the wise believer who is operating on divine viewpoint and the fool who is operating on human viewpoint. Wine is a mocker, it causes someone who has a seared conscience to violate their norms and standards. It distorts the thinking process, the conscience and good judgment. When a person drinks he can easily lose his inhibitions and easily rationalize sin. Furthermore, Proverbs talks about the fact that leaders should refrain from wine, especially id there is any possibility that they might be called upon to make hard decisions, Proverbs 31:4, 5. In the New Testament when we come to the qualifications for leaders—pastors and deacons—they are not prohibited from drinking alcoholic beverage. 1 Timothy 3 tells us they are simply not to be addicted to wine.
Concluding principle on the use of alcoholic beverages
1) The Bible gives no encouragement and no excuse for excessive drinking. What happens in any kind of legalistic situation is that when a person who has had that kind of background is confronted with grace and those legalistic constraints are removed there is a tendency to excess.
2) While drinking in moderation is permitted there are many believers who cannot do so. Many simply can’t handle it.
3) For the believer who cannot or will not drink in moderation he needs to avoid the use of alcohol completely, except perhaps in medicine.
4) When in doubt abstain.
5) Applying the law of love, which we get from doubtful things in 1 Corinthians 8-10, in certain circumstances we need to just avoid wine.
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052b-The Table of Nations; Japheth; Gen. 10:1-4
In the episode of the last part of Genesis chapter nine Noah plants a vineyard, v. 20. He drinks the wine and he gets drunk. There have been many people who have taught that what happened here was something that surprised Noah. But that is an attempt to try to justify a more positive view of Noah. Every time we look at Old Testament characters that are listed in the New Testament we need to realize that the Old Testament gives both good and bad, and throughout the book of Genesis we see these characters start off good and end up revealing a certain corruption in their character. This is not just to denigrate them but the writer is making a point that this is the result of sin, and that sin corrupts everyone. So Noah is presented here as getting involved in the sin of drunkenness. But the focus isn’t on Noah, it is really on Canaan. This is emphasized by the fact that twice the writer says “Ham the father of Canaan.” Then the curse on Canaan in v. 25 drives our attention on what is happening in relationship to this curse on Canaan.
The phrase that Noah uncovered himself indicates what the key issue is in this whole thing. The allegation is that it was some kind of sexual sin, that Ham commits toward Noah, because it says that Noah awoke and knew what his younger son had done to him. But the point is that the verb used in v. 21 is the hithpael stem of the verb which means to uncover or to lay bare. The hithpael stem is a reflexive stem, so this is accurately translated he “uncovered himself.” Then in v. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father. The phrase “saw the nakedness” expresses Ham’s action. The phrase in the Hebrew comprises the verb to see in the perfect tense, indicating past action [he saw], and nakedness is what he saw. In Leviticus chapters eighteen and twenty there are numerous statements describing the sexual sins and perversions of the Canaanites. In all of those passages there is a different phrase. In Genesis there is the phrase to look upon or to see and a phrase in Leviticus 18:19 is a parallelism. Some people say that this shows that seeing the nakedness is the same as uncovering the nakedness. No it is not. The key controlling thought in the Leviticus passages is different and has to do with sexual perversion. So it is an extremely weak argument to say that to see the nakedness implies some sort of sexual sin. We have to remember that nakedness in the ancient world represented a loss of human dignity and to look upon someone in such a state of vulnerability was a sign of a lack of respect, a lack of personal dignity, and they had the person in a position where they lacked protection and were vulnerable. It was considered and extreme cultural sin to do that. What Ham did shows a moral flaw, and so this represents the first stage in the process of abandoning the moral code that has been stated in the Noahic covenant. It is already breaking down. Ham’s lack of respect for his father represents the first stage in this abandonment. What happens is that Noah in his perceptiveness of what is going on with his sons recognizes that Ham’s problem is already evident in the behavior of his son, Canaan, and he prophesies that this will lead to a complete breakdown of sexual morality among the descendants of Canaan. So he pronounces a curse upon Canaan, that because of his lack of self-discipline in this area of sexual sin it will lead to servitude of those people. Eventually the Canaanites were also related to the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians who are all destroyed by others. The Canaanites were wiped out by the Jews, the Phoenicans eventually disappear from history, and the Carthaginians are also wiped out by Rome. So it is ultimately fulfilled that Canaan goes into servitude to his brethren.
The blessing is on Shem and the blessing is related to their spiritual environment, and this works itself out in the descendants of Shem which will be given in chapters 10 and 11 and culminates in Abraham. It is through Abraham that God will call out a new people and through whom the Messiah will come. So the spiritual blessing is through Shem who is positive to doctrine, positive to the Lord, and it is specifically stated again that Canaan will be his servant. Then in verse 27 is the blessing, “God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.” The Hebrew word for “enlarge”—it is a play on words—means to expand. Throughout history you see this expansion and exploration of Japhethic tribes. The expanded north into Russia and then westward, but eventually the new world was expanded and settled by descendants of Japheth, and then they have gone out under the British and then the Americans and many of the Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries, and established colonies and basically controlled most of the commerce on the face of the earth. The idea that Japheth may dwell in the tents of Shem is the fact that most Japheth’s descendants are going to come under the umbrella, as it were, of Christianity and Judaism; that most of western civilization is going to be influenced by Judeo-Christian values. This is the idea of dwelling in the tents of Shem, “and Canaan shall be his servant.”
In that curse you have the recognition that the human race and the history of the human race is going to follow upon the three different paths related to their progenitors. Every time we run into the names of the sons of Noah they are listed in this order: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And this is what we discover in Genesis chapter 10, verse one.
Summary
1) The oracle of Noah is a capsule of ancient history. It gives us a three-pronged approach to understanding human history in terms of these three sons of Noah.
2) The oracle emphasizes certain characteristics of the three branches of the human race in relation to cursing and blessing.
3) We see that Shem had positive volition toward God. His blessing is in the spiritual dimension and this is fulfilled ultimately in the person of Christ.
4) The descendants of Japheth share in that blessing and their promised geographical expansion.
Verse 1, “Now these are the generations [record of, toledot] of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.” This introduces chapter ten extending down 11:9. This is the section that gives us the summary of what happens to the three sons of Noah.
That brings us to the table of nations. This is called technically the table of nations and describes all of the nations and their sources, where they came from in terms of the descendants of Noah after the flood.
The table of nations
1) The table is foundational to understand Israel’s past and future. We have to understand the framework of this table that has to do with the foundation of Israel. Between the events of chapter nine and the events of chapter twelve we have these two genealogically heavy chapters. What is their purpose? Their purpose is to show the need for God calling out Abraham as the father of a distinct people. So the table of nations is a very brief run-down to show why that has to happen: that there is a continued corruption and the Gentiles as a whole fail to obey God, fail to follow and apply the Noahic covenant, and therefore God is going to quit working through the human race as a whole and is going to work primarily through the descendants of Abraham. The purpose for the table is to show various blood ties, various treaty relationships and alliances, and other connections between the people who existed at the time that Moses is writing this. When Moses writes the Pentateuch all of these peoples had been developed and Israel was getting ready to go into the land. The basic purpose of giving the table of nations was to give Israel an understanding of how they fit into the rest of humanity. This not only affects their past historical situation but will all affect their future condition and ultimately their final estate, because it is terminology from this table of nations that is used again and again and again that is used to define certain people groups.
2) The second thing we realize from a study of the table of nations is that the Mid-East conflict is primarily theological and has its roots in these nations. We often want to pin the Arab-Israeli conflict in Isaac and Ishmael. It also goes back to Isaac’s sons, Jacob and Esau. But there are numerous Arab tribes that were descendants of cousins of Abram and it goes back to the table of nations itself where we see that these various nations rejected God. What creates the division, the hostility, the warfare, the conflict in human history? It is the rejection of God. Everything ultimately has to be traced to a theological root, to an understanding of who God is, what God is doing in history, man as a fallen creature, and the consequences of that. So we see that this is ultimately going back to a breakdown in the first three divine institutions: # 1, human responsibility. We see that at the tower of Babel, they refused to take responsibility for their actions in terms of expanding, and they gather together and build the tower in rebellion against God. There is a further breakdown of responsibility several times in the life of Abraham. This leads to breakdown in divine institution #2, marriage, when Abraham takes Sarah’s advice to take Hagar as his wife and raise up the promised child through her. This in turn breaks down the third divine institution, the family. So again and again what we see traced through the table of nations and through Abraham and the rest of Genesis is when the first three divine institutions break down, then it creates conflict and warfare. And these seemingly innocent acts that take place early on don’t seem that momentous have consequences that reverberate for centuries. Noah recognizes that this action that takes place in the tent really represents certain major character traits that are going to reverberate all the way down through history. In the same way, this seemingly innocuous act of Esau selling his birthright for a mess of pottage continues to reverberate through the headlines of the newspapers every day that we read about the problems in Israel. So again and again in Genesis the emphasis is on the fact that what may appear to be events that aren’t that momentous just ripped the fabric of society in threw ancient world.
3) Nevertheless, God is still in control of history. As we go through the table of nations we see that God controls the affairs of nations. Even though all events and decisions in human history are freely made by man, in the final analysis every event in human history is under God’s sovereign will and He is working through human history to accomplish His purposes in the angelic conflict.
4) We learn that the sins of the parents may afflict future generations but only insofar as those future generations continue to perpetuate those sins. This is found in Exodus 34:7, and this is called the fourth generation curse. This doesn’t mean somebody can curse you and it goes down to the fourth generation. It doesn’t mean that God is going to punish down to the fourth generation those who commit certain sins, but if a person commits the same sins as his forbears they will. What the table of nations points out is that there is a genetic tendency to perpetuate the sins of the parents, grandparents and great grandparents unless there is a turning to God, positive volition, a change based on Bible doctrine. That is the only way to reverse this curse.
Basic observations on the table on nations
1) Genesis 10:1-11:26 comprise the fourth and fifth toledot sections. (This is what happened to the descendants of) The fourth toledot extends from 10:1 to 11:9—the toledot of Noah’s sons (This is what happened to Shem, Ham, and Japheth). In 11:10-26 we have the toledot of Shem. Notice something: the 4th one says, “These are the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth,” and then the 5th comes back, “These are the generations of Shem.” What is the writer telling us? What is important here? The Shemites. This is where the focus is going to go, so it is foreshadowed by repetition of Shem’s descendants. That culminates in Terah who is the father of Abraham.
2) The isolation of Shem as a distinct toledot, after Shem, Ham and Japheth, draws our attention to the unique role that Shem will play in human history—that is, the descendants of Shem. Shem is the one who is positive to Yahweh.
3) The toledot of Shem, Ham and Japheth focuses on two things: what happens to the descendants of the three sons and the rebellion at the tower of Babel. In this section which is called the table of nations the Scriptures classify people according to genetically related plans. They are divided up anthropologically, linguistically, politically and geographically. The genealogy not only mentions the names of people but also mentions tribal groups, countries and cities.
4) Another thing that is interesting is the order reversals. Up to this point we’ve read the names of Noah’s sons as Shem, Ham, and Japheth. When the table of nations begins we don’t we don’t begin with the descendants of Shem, we begin with the descendants of Japheth. Again, this is the writer drawing our attention to the fact that he has reversed the order and he is going to end with Shem. That is the direction he is going in. This draws attention to Shem as the focal point of the table of nations.
5) The number of descendants. Japheth’s descendants number fourteen. Ham’s descendants number thirty. Shem’s, twenty-six. Add them up and we have seventy. There were 70 that went into Egypt with Jacob when Joseph was the vice-ruler. This all ties Genesis together. This shows us that there are internal threads here that give us great confidence that this is exactly what it claims to be, the Word of God. It was written by one author; there is an internal cohesion; and it is not just something cobbled together by different religious people over the centuries, which is what the liberals charge.
6) The seventy nations are said to correspond to the numbers of families in Israel where God arranged their boundaries according to the number of the Israelites—Deuteronomy 32:8, “When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of man [the division at Babel], he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.”
7) The table of nations also introduces important place names—important geographical places, cities, nations.
8) The writer shifts between two terms. He starts off talking about “the sons of” and then he will shift and use the phrase, so and so “gave birth to.” It indicates something. The writer emphasizes what became of the sons. Certain sons were given birth to and then the writer wants to emphasize what became of those sons, what they produced, the people that came forth from them in relation to Israel. We don’t see some things in the English but they are there in the Hebrew, and they give us the confidence that this is a historically valid document, that it is accurate in everything that it says, that “all Scripture is God-breathed.”
Genesis 10:1, “Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.” Obviously they had daughters as well, but the focus is on that line of descent through the sons. We start off by looking at the sons of Japheth. Seven are given. Only two of these sons are then singled out for further development: Gomer and Javan. Their sons are given in vv. 3, 4, and then there is a concluding sentence in v. 5. That is where we are headed, the conclusion, the emphasis. “By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.”
The first focus is on Japheth. This word is also brought over into the Greek in the word iapotos. He was considered to be the father of the Greeks and he is part god. Here is an interesting aside to remember. There are two things that go on during this early period of time. First, there were these stories that filtered down of the beni ha Elohim, the sons of God. These were the demons that intermarried with the daughters of men, and they produced a race that was known as the nephilim, the monsters, “giants in the earth in those days” [KJV]. This was a supernatural race. So that is one stream of thought that gets filtered. Remember that as time goes by these things get distorted, but there is a core of truth, a kernel of historical reality, that goes back to the fact that there were these demons that were thought of as gods who came to the earth and took human wives. Then, on the other hand, there are the beni Noah, the sons of Noah. These sons of Noah and their sons, and even their grandsons, lived for hundreds of years after the flood. See Genesis 11:10ff, “These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: and Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah: and Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.” All these people are going to die before Shem dies. Most of them are going to live longer than their great grandsons. These are the first three or four generations off the ark. That means the first three generations or so off the ark are going to also appear to be gods to their great great grandchildren. These were civilization builders. When we look in Genesis 10:6 at Mizraim who is the descendant of Ham, he is the founder of an Egyptian civilization, the founder of the first dynasty of Egypt. He and his sons built the pyramids. These men were considered gods by their descendants because of what they were able to accomplish. Shem, Ham, and Japheth brought with them the technology of the antediluvian world. So in those early generations while they were still alive, while Ham and Mizraim and the other passed on this technology—and they accomplished incredible things—five generations, ten generations later on that technology was lost. They couldn’t go back and duplicate it. So those descendants thought of Noah and that generation as gods. As a matter of fact, what we have is an attempt to identify Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth with the gods.
There was a group of men who wrote for several centuries called Euhenerists, and these were men who took Genesis 10 and 11 as literally true. They also assumed that the ancients, descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth, deified the early generations off the ark. So they tried to identify the humans listed in the table of nations with the gods and goddesses of the ancient pantheons.
Japheth’s first son is Gomer. He is mentioned in Ezekiel 38:6, “Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.”
There is a listing in this chapter that relates to the Gog and Magog invasion of Israel in the Tribulation. V. 2, “Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: and I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.” Who are these people? Well, we have to go back to Genesis 10 to find out.
Gomer, when you take out the vowels is GMR. If the G hardens to a C or a K you have the word CMR. This is related to the Cimerians who were related to the Cythians, the people who inhabited the central part of Turkey in the period right after the flood. Eventually those people moved north and west into Europe. The Assyrians listed them as the Gamaria, and in Greek they were called the Kemarioi. Notice how the G becomes a C and then becomes a K. Also, sometimes when a word goes from one language to another language the consonants will shift. Think about that: GMR, can we think of a country that instead of having as its root consonants GMR it has its root consonants as GRM? Germany! The descendants of Gomer through Ashkenaz (there is a lake Ashkenaz up in northern Germany): the Germanic tribes ultimately derived from the descendants of Gomer, and, of course, many, many others because he is so far back. Other names that are etymologically related to Gomer are Umber in Italy—the G in Gomer softens to O, and then U in Umber. That also shows up in the English North Umberland. Related to Gomer: the Gauls, the Celts, Galatia, etc. Ireland was also known as Ibernai or Hybernia, which again is etymologically related to the word Gomer. All of these are related to Gomer. So we end up with the Irish, the Scots, the Germans, Brits, some tribal groups in northern Italy, the Gauls in France; all are descendants from Gomer.
The third man is Magog, mentioned in Ezekiel 38:2, the land of Gog, a region between Armenia and Cappadocia in the central eastern part of Turkey. These are the ancestors of the ancient Cythians. Think about the word “Cythian.” SC or KT, or Scot. The Cythians are the progenitors of the Scots. They come down through Magog. Between those two terms, God and Magog you really have a summary of western Europe. So how does that fit Ezekiel 38 and 39? Interesting. According to an eighth century monk in Britain the Goths were also descendants of Magog.
Madai, the fourth son, is the progenitor of the Medes who lived in the area east of Assyria, south-west of the Caspian Sea in the area of modern Uzbekistan. These were the Medes who joined p with the Persians in the time of Daniel.
Then Javan, also Ionian. The J turns to an I and the V to an O and becomes Ionia. This is one of the progenitors of the Greeks in western Turkey, an area that is eventually made up of Greeks. There is Troy, Ephesus, and all that area. Early records during the reign of Sargon II in the 8th century BC refer to that area of western Turkey as Jawan or Jamon. So these ancient names were attached to the areas where they established their domain.
Tubal is described as the father of a people the Assyrians called Tabale, and they lived in an area called Tabal which is in modern Georgia. The capital of modern Georgia is Tblisi. Notice how that is related etymologically to Tabal and Tubal. Tabal is next door to the biblical land Togarmah, which is mentioned again in Ezekiel 38. He is mentioned in Genesis 10:3 as a son of Gomer.
Then we have Meshech, father of the Cappadocians. The last is Tiras, the father of a group of Greeks in the northern part of Greece known as the Thracians, according to Josephus.
So from the seven sons of Japheth we are beginning to get an overview of how western Europe became settled, and also how these names show up later on in history.
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053b-The Enlarging of Japheth; Gen. 10:1-5
As we look at the postdiluvian civilization it begins with the three sons of Noah: Shem, Ham and Japheth. We are covering the section on Genesis 10 that begins with Japheth, then we get an expanded genealogy from Ham, and then we go to Shem. Genesis 11 gives us an even more detailed look at Shem. So obviously it is building to the focus on the descendants of Shem and how that fulfills the blessing that is in the Noahic oracle that comes at the end of Genesis 9. If we are going to understand what is going on in Genesis 10 & 11 the framework is really established at the end of chapter 9 with the oracle of Noah—when he curses Canaan, blesses Shem in the realm of his relationship to God under the terminology “Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Shem.” And then the blessing for Japheth in v. 27, “May God enlarge Japheth.” This works itself out when we get into Genesis 10. We don’t have a lot when it comes to the descendants of Japheth, it seems rather brief in the original and we only have five verses that give us the descendants of Japheth. He has seven sons mentioned in v. 2, and of those only two are singled out with their descendants. Gomer is mentioned in v. 3, we have three of his sons mentioned, and then the sons of Javan, another of the sons of Japheth, and there are four of his mentioned. That gives a total of fourteen, yet the emphasis here is on this expansion of Japheth. It is not that apparent to us as we look at this because when we compare the number of descendants of Japheth with the number that are listed for Ham and for Shem, Japheth seems to get a sort of a short shrift, not much is mentioned here.
The thrust here is to demonstrate not only descendancies, to who comes through what line, but it is also to demonstrate certain family allegiances that become dominant later on in history and become important in understanding different aspects of prophecy. But when we look at this structure we see that it is an expansion of the cursing and blessing of v. 25. The only time we have any diversion in this chapter is an explanation in vv. 8-11 of the beginning of Nimrod’s kingdom. There we immediately are introduced to the fact that there is an ominous overtone here that he is the founder of Babel, and that immediately tells us that this is something that is negative. So this is the only thing mentioned of the descendants of Ham, and, of course, if you were reading this as a Jew the fact that Canaan is a descendant of Ham would also have very negative overtones. Then after we have finished the three genealogies of chapter ten there is a nine-verse expansion on the tower of Babel. So everything that is happening really focuses on what is happening at Babel. But because we are so unfamiliar with these names and nations it is important to go through this in order to familiarize ourselves as to who these people groups are.
A second reason it is important is because these chapters from Genesis 1 to Genesis 11 are under assault, and have been under assault, ever since the birth of the so-called Enlightenment in the 17th century. One of the basic undergirding assumptions of the Enlightenment is that you really couldn’t trust any of the stories, any of the histories, that had been written prior to the 1600s. That is the enormous arrogance that came into western civilization through philosophy as it threw off what they considered to be the yoke of religion, and in some ways it was because of the way that the Roman Catholic theology operated and did not allow any room for investigation within a biblical framework and it was too bound by tradition. But beginning with the birth of the Enlightenment there were scholars questioning the historicity of Genesis 1-11: whether creation could have occurred that way, whether there was really a universal flood, whether the table of nations in Genesis 10 was accurate or not, and how could we know these things, and more and more scholars began to doubt the historicity of these eleven chapters. So we have many people who don’t spend any time studying them in terms of their historical value and significance, and frequently when we get to a chapter like chapter 10 we will find that pastors will simply skip over it or teach the whole chapter in one 40-minute lesson or exposition simply because they don’t want to run the risk of boring anyone to death with all of this minutia related to people that apparently don’t have any relevance to us today. But we understand that all Scripture is God-breathed and it profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, and if the Holy Spirit took the time to record this n Scripture then it is important for us to understand it. And it may simply be that this gives us a framework for our thought, and may also be because it is going to increase our confidence in the historicity and accuracy of the Scripture so that when the Scripture teaches us others things related to either our spiritual life or other dimensions of life then we know that we can count on it, that in areas where we can evaluate the Scripture because of known history or historical events we know that it is trustworthy and therefore what it claims to be, the Word of God.
The first son that is mentioned is Japheth in v. 2. One of the interesting things that happens in history is that there is the division of the human race into three groups, according to Genesis chapter nine: the Hamitic descendants, the Shemitic descendants, and the Japhethic descendants. The Japhethic descendants split very early on into two basic groups. There is the western branch and an eastern branch. The eastern branch became known as Arius or Arians. The western branch which goes on into Europe had a different name, Iavanos [under Javan]. So it can be seen that just two generations from Noah there was a major split between two groups. The eastern group know as the Arians give birth to the Persians and the northern Indian tribes in India, which would include modern Afghanistan and Pakistan. On the Indian side of this family tree the Noah character is known as Satyaurata—the Arian Noah. Satyaurata has three sons. The oldest son is call Iapiti (easy to see how that relates to Japheth), the second son is Sharma (like Shem), and the third son is Karma (like Ham). So ancient Arian legend correlates with biblical information. What is interesting is that when we read these ancient mythologies we realize that ther4e are certain things there that are just fantastic, fantasy, they don’t fit into reality. Then when we come over into Scripture we just see this bare-bones outline, there are no extreme claims, we don’t find odd or unusual things going on that stretch our credibility. So these things correlate the Scripture. They don’t prove the Scripture is right but they give us confirmation that what the Scripture is giving us is accurate historical information.
The last group, Tiras, mentioned in v. 2, is identified by Josephus as the father of the Thracian people in the northern part of Greece. But Josephus was mistaken. He based his identification simply on the similarity of sound which in many ways can help but also in many way can lead astray. When we take out the vowels here we end up with the three consonants, TRS. What seems to survive down through the language historically is the RS consonants, and they show up in Egyptian, Assyrian, and Hittite records. These people were quite dominant in the ancient world—talking about 2500 BC, which is not long after they came off the ark, to 1500 BC. They began to go through a military decline between 1500 and 1300 BC and as a result of that they dominated in eastern Turkey, Armenia, north-west Syria. They eventually went due north into Russia. It is those descendants who, incidentally, were blue-eyed and blonde. Where we are going with this is Tiras is the Rosh of Ezekiel chapter 38. “Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal” [NKJV]. In some modern translations they will translate that as the chieftains of Meschech and Tubal. They translate Rosh that way because the Hebrew word for beginning, bereshith: resh is also the Hebrew consonantal pattern for beginning, or first one, or it came to mean chieftain. So there are certain number of commentators today who take the word Rosh of Ezekiel 38:2 as an adjective referring to the chief of these nations. Early translators didn’t understand that Rosh was a form of Tiras. So once again this traces right back to the table of nations.
Genesis 10:3, “And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.” Togarmah is important because his name is mentioned under the terminology bethtogarmah in Ezekiel 38. The descendants of Ashkenaz go into western Europe. The Jews have had in their records for centuries before Christ that Ashkenazi is related to the group that went north west into Europe and, in fact, most Jews that come out of Europe are divided into two groups, the Ashkenazi—those who were in the Germany and Poland part of Europe, and the Sephardi, the Jews that were down in the areas of Spain. But if we look at the etymology of Ashkenaz, there is an SH or S sound, a K and an N, and this becomes the root that we begin to look for. There are a couple of lakes in Turkey which simply retain elements of the original name of Ashkenaz. They operated in an area of Turkey after they came off Ararat and eventually they migrated north and to the west. As they moved they left clues, and variants of this name are found everywhere. Then we have Togarmah, mentioned in Ezekiel 38 as part of the Gog and Magog alliance that invades to the south from Russia. Jewish tradition puts them in the area of Armenia. In fact, the ancient Armenians claimed that their ancient ancestors, the founder of the Armenian race, was a man named Hiak, the son of Targom (which sounds like Togarmah) who was a grandson of Noah. So again there is correlation with the Scriptures. The Jews often refer to the Turks as Togarmah, and sometimes the Black Sea area is called by the Jews, The Sea of Togarmah. The Greeks called them Phrygians. This group ultimately moves north and west, and they, too, end up in the area of Germany.
Verse 4, “And the sons of Javan; Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim.” Javan is the father of the Greeks, and these names all come down into Greek history. In fact, Elishah is a name that is corrupted into Hellis, and the Greeks are known as the Hellenes. Josephus connected this name to Cyprus, as well as to Crete. Tarshish is often associated wit Spain, and it is mentioned in 2 Chronicles 9:21 that the king (Solomon) had ships that went to Tarshish …” Kittim is also a name that is associated with the islands around Greece and the Aegean Sea, and so were the Dodanim about which not much is said. There is a passage in 1 Chronicles 1:7 that is a parallel to this, but instead of having Dodanim it has Rodanim. The thought is that the Dodanim are probably related to those who settled on the Isle of Rhodes. So all these people who are the descendants of Javan merge into what becomes the Greek people.
Verse 5 summarizes: “By these were the isles [coastland peoples] of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue [language], after their families, in their nations.” The word “coastland” is the Hebrew word ayyiy. This word means coastland but it is applied in a tremendous number of passages and it refers basically to Gentiles who are living off to the north west somewhere. It doesn’t just refer to people who are living on the coast but it basically refers to western European. It includes everyone from the Russians to the western Europeans and it is the beginning point for the fulfillment of their expansion. Eventually the western Europeans expand to North America and South America, and through all of the great explorers of the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries there is the establishment of western European colonies all over the world, so that in the early 19th century there was a saying that the sun never set on the Union Jack, the British flag. So this is the ultimate fulfillment of the expansion blessing of Japheth. Japhethites have expanded further than any of the other descendants. Of course, now there are people scattered all over the world and we have the global environment; but that is why that happened. Other groups were not sending explorers around the world, it was the western Europeans that went out and basically conquered and controlled the world, and as a result of the establishment by the Japhethites of trade routes and international trade there is then the expansion of Hamites and Shemites all over the world. But there would not have been that cultural trade in exchange if it weren’t for the foundation laid by the Japhethites. They were the ones who had that commercial and intellectual and geographical expansion that provided the blessing for the rest of the world.
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054b-The Descendant of Ham; Gen. 10:6-20
It is so important to understand the cursing and blessing of the three sons that was generated by Noah if we are to understand this outworking. Japheth has a blessing that he will be enlarged. This enlargement blessing relates two ways: it has a physical dimension and it has an intellectual dimension. It is from the western Europeans that the world is colonized. You don’t see any other group after their initial spreading out, as it were, when certain groups ended up in Africa, Asia and India, and having the same kind of geographical dispersion that you do with Japheth. In fact, in Asia there are closed cultures. China and Japan are not reaching out, they are closed off to surrounding civilizations and cultures; but it is the western Europeans who take themselves around the world and they are enlarged. And as they go they take the gospel with them, and they take western civilization. Western civilization is a combination of two things. On the one hand it is a combination of Christianity. This is what made western civilization what it is after the expansion of the early church. But before Christianity there was European paganism under which the most highly developed thought was Greek thought. There was the development of Greek philosophy. In Rome was the development of the concept of law and many other facets that were part of Roman society. These merged with Christianity, so there was the merger of the intellectual with the spiritual. The spiritual comes from Shem because it is through Shem that we had the Jews, the communication of the Old Testament and, of course, our Savior is a Jew. And so Christianity comes about from Shem, and this fulfills the principle of Genesis 9:26, 27, “And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem … God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem...” This tent of Shem is virtually Christianity, our Judeo-Christian heritage. As Japheth takes his intellectual proclivities, which are part of the blessing and his enlargement, under the umbrella of Christianity, this then is the dynamic that changes the world.
Notice in the blessing there is a blessing for Japheth, a spiritual blessing for Shem, but there was no blessing for Ham and there was no cursing for Ham. Only one line that came out from Ham, from Canaan, is cursed. So we see the outworking of that curse in this next section.
There are two sections in this genealogy that comes out from Ham. In vv. 6-14 is the broad view of the Hamitic descendants and how they spread out over the earth. Then the focus is narrowed in v. 15 to one of his sons, Canaan. It is Canaan that is cursed and he will be a servant of servants, according to Noah’s curse in Genesis 9:25. So vv. 15-20 will give us the descendants of Canaan.
Now remember you have to put yourself in the place of the Jew. You are with Moses and have come out of Egypt where you have been enslaved for over 400 years to Egyptians. The word for Egypt in Hebrew is Mizraim. Notice that Mizraim is the second son of Ham. So when you read this and see that the sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan, you immediately think of the fact that you have just come out of bondage to the descendants of Mizraim. Further, you are getting ready to conquer the land of Canaan, and you are going to invade and destroy by divine order all men, women and children who are Canaanites. There would be those who would ask why. What is the justification for this? This is what begins to lay the foundation for God’s decision to eradicated the Canaanites from the fact of the earth.
Verse 6, “And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.” Cush is another term for Ethiopia and would probably also include part of modern Sudan. Cush comes up many times in Scripture. There are also descendants of Cush that inhabited parts of Arabia, so it is that area that is south of Egypt. There were other groups of the descendants of Cush who migrated even further east and went though the southern part of Iraq and Iran. Another segment of the descendants of Cush pushed further east into India. It is from Cush that most of Africa descended, as well as certain elements of India. The second son of Ham is Mizraim, from which we have Egypt, and there we have the im Hebrew suffix, and when we see that at the end of a name—e.g. v. 13, “And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim”—these are people groups. So when we see Mizraim with the im plural ending this is not just referring to an individual but to all of his descendants as a people group. Phut is Lybia, to the west of Egypt. Canaan refers to the descendants of Ham who inhabited the area of Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine. It is interesting that when we went through the first five verses of Genesis 10 and looked at the descendants of Japheth we could trace the etymology of those names all the way through history, but when we come to the descendants of Ham none of these names show up in modern usage at all; they have all disappeared. You can find elements of them in ancient history but you can’t find the roots of these words showing up anywhere today.
From verse 7 we get a genealogy of Cush. “And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtechah.” Of those five sons we know very little. Seba is a tribe in Arabia. Ptolomyin his geography calls them Asabi. From there they spread into Africa. Seba is also related to the term Sheba, and this was located in south west Arabia. This is where the Queen of Sheba derived. Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtechah are all located in southern Arabia. “… and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.” Dedan is located in northern Arabia.
Verse 8, “And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.” Vv. 8-12 focus on this one individual. Nimrod’s name is derived from the Hebrew marad, and this means to rebel. In the form in which Nimrod exists (we put an N at the beginning) as a verb it is a 1st person plural, “we rebel.” So Nimrod was probably one of the names that he picked up along the way emphasizing his rebellion against God. Nimrod becomes an interesting character over the span of history. He establishes a kingdom that encompasses Mesopotamia and the whole area of Arabia. Remember that by his generation he is the great grandson of Noah, and so if we compare him, for example, to the descendants of Salah in 11:12 who lives 438 years, they are living around 400 years. So we don’t think of him as a man who is living for 60-70 years. His death occurs not long before Abraham. This is the time when he established his kingdom.
Verse 9, “He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said [i.e., this became proverbial in the ancient world], Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.” He is well-known in the ancient world. According to Josephus Nimrod led the people in a rebellion against God and he was teaching people that they owed their happiness to themselves and not to God. He was the first one to introduce a tyrannical form of government. If we think about the ages of these people, that in the first three or four generations off the ark they outlived their great, great grandchildren, they were looked upon as gods. There was a correlation taking place in the ancient world between these great men and their accomplishments. So Nimrod is the one who leads the people in a rebellion against God.
Verse 10, he establishes his kingdom, “And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.” Babel is modern Babylon which is located about 50 miles south west of Baghdad; Erech is located even further south. All of these cities are located along either the Tigris or the Euphrates river between modern Baghdad and the Persian Gulf. The land of Shinar is used to refer to this whole area of the fertile crescent which is modern Iraq. This becomes his kingdom. Out of this kingdom will come this massive rebellion in chapter 11 where man builds the tower of Babel to assert himself against God. According to Josephus, Nimrod’s major problem with God was that God wiped out all of their ancestors. So the motivation is to build this huge tower which is called a ziggurat, a Babylonian word, and it will be built so high that they could survive any flood that could come. So Nimrod’s name becomes associated with the chief gods in the Babylonian pantheon. The city of Babel becomes the future capital of the Babylonian empire, and the city of Babel and Babylon becomes the counterpoint throughout the Scripture to what God is doing in Jerusalem. And it is the city of Babylon in Revelation 17 & 18 that becomes the headquarters for the Antichrist. But the point we are making now is that this begins in Genesis chapter 10 with the point and counterpoint between Jerusalem as the city of God, known as Salem at the beginning and the ruler of Salem was a king-priest by the name of Melchizedek. The Bible doesn’t identify who Melchizedek is, but Josephus tells us, and other ancient Jewish writings identify Melchizedek as Shem, the son of Noah. Shem does not die until Abraham becomes about 125-127 years of age. So Shem lives for many years and there is the possibility that Shem is the one who worships Yahweh, according to Genesis 9:26, and that he is Melchizedek. This is a position that many hold, it can’t be stated dogmatically because the Bible doesn’t make that identification, but there is a good chance that this is true. So we have this contrast between Babylon which is the city of man, Babylon which pictures all of man’s efforts against God—to find peace and stability and happiness apart from God—on the one hand, and Jerusalem on the other; and this conflict between the city of God and the city of man comes to its final fruition at the end of the Tribulation.
Erech was known to the Assyrians and Babylonians as a city of Euruch, and it was a city located on the Euphrates about 50-miles north-west of Ur which was Abram’s home town, so it is towards the south-east of Baghdad. Accad was also a major city in the north in Assyria. Sargon I who was a visior of a man named Cish (notice the similarity to Cush). Sargon I founded the dynasty at Agad and some attribute to him the establishment of this capital. Calneh is unknown. There are references to Calneh is Amos 6:2 and Isaiah 10:9 as a city in northern Mesopotamia, but there is no certainty as to its exact location.
Verses 11, 12, “Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.” Nineveh becomes known later on in Jonah when it was the capital of the Assyrian empire in his day. The Assyrian empire represents the other major enemy that Israel dealt with their future. They would be defeated by the Assyrians who would wipe out the northern kingdom of Israel, and the Babylonians who would wipe out the southern kingdom. So there is foreshadowing here as early as 1400 BC. Rehoboth is a Hebrew word meaning city squares or wide spaces of the city. It was somewhere in Assyria, it’s location is not known. The city of Calah is not known, but based on Genesis 10:12 it was a formidable city. It was referred to as being in existence during the time of Hammurabi and rebuilt by Shalmanezer I. But by the time we get into the first millennium BC it disappears from history.
In verses 13, 14 we shift from the descendants of Cush to the descendants of Mizraim. “And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, and Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim.” Mizraim is Egypt, and the terms Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim refer to different tribes of the Egyptians. However, it is interesting to note that the modern Lybians trace themselves back to Lehabim as a son of Mizraim. The Naphtuhim were thought to inhabit the area of the delta in the area of lower [elevation/north] Egypt. The Pathrusim were in upper Egypt [elevation/south]. The Casluhim—and then there is a parenthesis); there are not two different groups, Casluhim and Caphtorim, there is one group and that group breaks off into the Philistim and Caphtorim; but what this tells us is the Philistines who are often identified as part for the Greek sea peoples were not Greek. They left from Egypt, migrated up to Crete, and they could have been the early Minoan civilization. In archaeology they discovered that the language of the Minoans is what is called Linear A, and Linear A was not a Greek language. Linear B which came after it was Greek. So it is very possible that that language came from the original Philistines who went to Caphtor. The Philistines are mentioned with Caphtor in Jeremiah 47:4; Deuteronomy 2:23; Amos 9:7. So the Philistines are not Semitic, not Japhethic; they are descendants of Ham. What we see in this grouping of people is no blessing and no cursing, but they are the progenitors of the enemies of Israel.
Verses 15-18, we get the descendants of Canaan. “And Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad.” All of these are located in the general area of what we know as Palestine or modern Lebanon, and they are the enemies of Israel in the land that God has promised to them. Sidon becomes the name of the city that he founds and establishes in ancient Phoenicia. Sidon and Tyre were two major cities along the Mediterranean coast and they became very influential in later years in terms of trade. Heth is the father of the Hittites. The sons of Heth are mentioned in Genesis 23 in association with Abraham’s purchase of a burial plot for Sarah and for the family. His descendants also moved to the north into Turkey where they established the Hittite empire. Then in verses 16-18 we have a grouping of different tribes who are descendants of Canaan who have their residence in the promised land. The Jebusites lived in the area of Jerusalem which was eventually conquered by David. The Amorites lived in the northern part of the land but a large segment of Amorites also emigrated into Babyolon around 2000 BC and were responsible for the defeat of the 3rd dynasty of UR, and they established an Amorite dynasty at Babylon. The most powerful Amorite king in the ancient world was Hammurabi. At the time of the Israelite invasion of Canaan in 1400 BC Og of Bashan and Sion Heshbon were Amorite kings. Also the men of Ai are called Amorites. So in many passages Amorite becomes a synonym for the Canaanites. Of the Girgasites, the Hivites, the Arkites very little is known, other than they are Canaanite tribes that inhabited different portions of the land. At the end of verse 18 we read, “…and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad [dispersed].” They were just scattered throughout this area.
Verses 19, 20, “And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha. These are the sons of Ham, after their families [clans], after their tongues [languages], in their countries, and in their nations.”
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055b-First Attempt at Internationalism: Babel; Gen. 11:1-7
Internationalism doesn’t work. Nationalism is a principle that has been established by God for the maintenance of the human race. The Bible is firmly against things such as the League of Nations, the UN, all of this internationalism. One of the greatest dangers that we face in our country today is judicial tyranny, and there are a number of Supreme Court justices who instead of citing precedence in their decisions, case law in America, they are looking to the law that is being established in international courts. This is a violation of the biblical principle of independent nationhood and of independent people groups that are not to influence one another. God has established these boundaries, and it goes back to the events in Genesis chapter 11.
Liberals think that Genesis 11 account of the tower of Babel is just some sort of invented myth that people came up with to explain diversity in language. However, if we believe in the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture we know that this is telling absolute truth about history; this is what took place.
Remember that we have to read Genesis as though we were a Jew. We have to read Exodus as though we were a Jew, not in the Exodus generation but as though our parents were in the Exodus generation, and we are on the verge of entering into the promised land where God has told us to kill every man, woman and child in Canaan without exception, and that God is going to give us this land. So there are a lot of questions that you would be asking, such as why we should do this, what is the moral justification, why we have a right to this land, what God’s purpose is in doing this, and many other related questions. Genesis chapters 1-11 are simply a prologue to what God is going to do with the nation Israel. Up through Genesis chapter 10 we have had three major events since the creation: the fall, the flood, and now in chapter 11 the curse of the division of languages at the tower of Babel—three cursings. But this sets us up for the major blessing that begins to be expounded at the end of Genesis 11 when God calls out Abram, and through Abram God is going to call out a unique people to Himself, and He is going to work in and through these people to provide redemption for the entire human race. Before we can appreciate what God does with Abraham we have to have an understanding of the situation on the planet when God calls out Abraham. Genesis 11 gives us that understanding, that explanation.
Think about it. The earth was created about 4000-4100 BC. There is approximately 1500 years of history prior to Noah’s flood. Then there was the event of Noah’s flood. Noah lived about 350 years after the flood and has only one thing told to us after the flood, and that is the episode where he got drunk and then pronounced the curse. Don’t you think that some other interesting things happened in Noah’s life over that 350-year period. Why is it that the Holy Spirit only picks out this one episode that He is going to put into the Scriptures? We ought to ask the question many times: Why of all the things that happen in history is this included in the Scripture and so many other things not included in the Scripture. God is using that episode with Noah and his sons because that sets up in a microscopic way the pattern of all civilization in human history. It is demonstrated in this event through the behavior of these three sons. Shem is noted because he has a devotion to God, positive volition. Japheth is noted and blessed because he will be enlarged, and that has not only to do with physical expansion but also intellectual expansion. Ham is passed over. He is neither blessed nor cursed but his son Canaan receives a cursing. As has been pointed out, that has special reference if you are a Jew about to go and wipe out the Canaanites. Now you know why the Canaanites are cursed, that they have carried these sinful dispositions of their fore bearer to such a horrible conclusion and God has allowed that evil to ripen to such a degree that now their destruction is necessary for the preservation of the human race. This is structure for understanding the background for Genesis chapter 10, known as the table of nations.
The Japhethites have expanded to other parts of the earth and are no longer relevant to what God is going to do with Israel. We really don’t start to pay attention to the Japhethites until we come to Acts and the expansion of the church into Europe. Then in v. 6 down to v. 20 we see the descendants of Ham. These are the descendants comprising many of the people in the Middle East much more relevant to Jewish history. The interesting thing that stands out in the middle of Genesis 10 is the two diversions from the pattern. The first has to do with Nimrod, the grandson of Ham. He began to be a mighty warrior and is known for violence. He is described as a mighty hunter. What was he hunting? Part of it might well be that he is dealing with some of the great monsters that came off the ark. For example, dinosaurs survived. This may well be how Nimrod established his reputation, that he defeated some of these great creatures that threatened man, and he establishes as a result of his prowess and his power the ability to call people to follow him, and he begins his kingdom, v. 10. The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and he spreads out over the Middle East. The oldest kingdom known to us is the Samarians, the kingdom that was founded by Nimrod as he began to organize these people into various cities. And we see a parallel between Nimrod establishing these cities and Cain. Instead of wandering as God told him to do, Cain established himself in a city. He fortifies himself against God, as it were, and this is the same kind of thing that happens with Nimrod. So we see that Nimrod establishes this kingdom which is the foundation of the Babylonian empire later on, and Assyria.
In the conclusion of chapter 10 we read: “These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations. These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.” Languages is the second thing mentioned. If we go back to verse 5 we read: “By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.” Notice that with Japheth lands is first, they are expanding, going to their various countries first. We see the same order of families, languages, lands and nations with the descendants of Ham and Shem, but with Japheth the order is lands and then language and families and nations. What brought the division of the sons of Noah? They are all separated by their languages, and that is the second thing that happens.
It is the descendants of Ham who settle under Nimrod’s leadership at Babel. That is the beginning of his kingdom. We are told in 11:1, “And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.” So what happens here in typical Hebrew narrative fashion is a chapter that is a lengthy summary which covers what happened to Japheth, Ham, and Shem. Now we are going to come back and look at a microscopic event in a little detail. This is the same kind of thing that happened in Genesis 1 & 2. Genesis 1 covered all the details of the seven days creation, then in the second chapter and from verse 5 on focuses on the details of the creation of man on the 6th day. This is standard approach to Hebrew narrative. The Jews gave the overview and then the detail.
In Genesis 10:25, “And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided.” What is this division? This division has to do with the division of tongues. So this takes place about four or five generations after the flood. Literally in the Hebrew 11:1 reads, “The human race had one lip and one word.” They all spoke the same language. As a result of this they are enabled to get into trouble, and we have the description of man’s rebellion against God in verses 2-4. “And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime [asphalt] had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” They did not journey “from the east” as in the KJV, it is an idiom which means they journeyed eastward. It is an interesting thing in Scripture that whenever man is headed away from blessing he heads east. When Cain left he went east. When Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden they went east. East is the direction of condemnation and away from the place of blessing. The Bible shows us that these aren’t just random events; they are a pattern. This is because there is a sovereign God in control of history. So history is important because it is the outworking of His plan. In verses 3 & 4 they come to a resolution, a resolve. They express their religious independence of God.
Verse 5, a contrast. “But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men built.” The first verse establishes the principle that all the earth had one language. Verse 2 is an emphasis on the location, the land of Shinar. Then in verse 3, “they said to one another,” so they line themselves up, ally themselves to one another: “each one to his neighbor,” literally in the Hebrew. Then they make their first statement: “Come, let us make bricks,” also in v. 3. Then in v.4 they establish the reason: to make a reputation for themselves. This is really an idiom for the fact that they want to establish themselves independently of God. They are standing there shaking their fist at God. The point of this whole narrative is to show what happened to the human race, that they set themselves against God and independence of God, and rejected Him as God. Verse 5 is the focal point. One of the major themes the writer is driving home here is God’s involvement in human history.
Verses 6, 7, “And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.” This is parallel to man’s statement “Come, let’s make bricks” in v. 3. Before, they talked to one another; now they are not going to understand one another. In v. 2, “and they dwelt there”; now they are going to be dispersed from there, v.8, “So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.”
Verse 9, “Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.” So they go from one language in v. 1 to many languages in the last verse. The point of this whole passage is that man left to his own devices will unite in rebellion against God, and if that is left to go to its natural conclusion it will destroy the human race as it did before the flood. So God steps in and confuses the languages in order to forestall this. What we are seeing today is that we are moving back to a point where we are close to this same kind of international cooperation. The United Nations is internationalism in its worst form, a precursor to what will take place in the Tribulation period. It is the kind of mentality that is going to characterize the kingdom of the Antichrist, the kind of one-world government that takes place. They achieve it to some degree because Revelation teaches us that no one in the whole world will be able to buy or sell unless they have the mark of the beast. There is no a tremendous movement toward globalism, an irresistible movement today. We have to resist it as much as possible. But this idea of confusion is the key thought here. Actually, many people think that is what Babel means. The word in the Hebrew which means “confused” is balal, not Babel which may actually means “the gate of Bel,” one of the gods of the Babylonian pantheon. But what the Bible is doing here is making a play on words. When a Jew heard the word Babel he would think of balal, it sounded that way.
What is interesting in this passage is that the writer uses the letters B & L, as well as the letter N in a lot of different ways. What is this intends is to bring our attention back to this B L word play. Constantly throughout this whole narrative there is the use of the choice of words that have B sounds in them, so that it brings to the readers attention and reminds again and again in these subtle ways of the emphasis on confusion. In v.4 the people get together and say, “Let us make bricks.” The Hebrew word here is LBNH. The H is dropped and what is left is an LBN combination. And God says, “Let us go down, and there confound their language,” and there we have NBL. And people say that ignorant shepherds put this together! This is incredible literature. We miss most of it in the English but if it is read in Hebrew the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit is evident. All of these little details highlight for us the theme of the passage, which is the confusion that is brought about because of the rebellion of man against God. When man rebels against God the result is always going to be confusion and divine judgment.
Earlier the point was made that the Japhethic people had dispersed over the earth. Now the Hamitic people are scattered forcibly over the earth, not from their own initiative.
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056b-The Descendants of Shem; Gen. 10:22-32; 11:10
We now want to merge together the genealogy given in Genesis 10:21-32, the descendants of Shem given there, and the descendants that are specifically delineated in 11:10-26 which ends with the father of Abram, Terah. That ends this book. Verses 10-26 is one toledot. From verse 27 we have the toledot of Terah which goes all the way down to Isaac.
Genesis 10:21, the descendants of Shem. The five sons are listed in verse 22. “The children of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram.” Only two of them are going to be isolated in terms of their descendants, so we don’t know a whole lot about all of these five men and where they went. What we will notice going through the genealogies is that there is some repetition. There are some names in the Shem line that we also find in the Japheth line and in the Ham line. These are not the same persons. The firstborn is Elam, and there is a region or country that is named after him, and this is the territory of Elam which lies to the east of southern Mesopotamia. What is interesting is that for years liberal Protestant scholars—the development of liberal Protestant theology in the mid-19th century which rejected the historical veracity of the Bible—taught that this had to be false because here the Elamites were being portrayed as Semites, the descendants of Shem. Yet, because of the limited archaeological discoveries of the 19th century the only thing discovered at that point was that the descendants there were probably Hamitic. So that caused them to question the veracity of Scripture. However, by the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century archaeologists had uncovered further layers and discovered that the oldest inhabitants of this area were a completely different racial stock than the later inhabitants, and the earliest inhabitants were Shemites. What we see from archaeology confirms what the Bible says. That is, in the northern area of what is modern Iraq and Persia there were some fair-skinned descendants—Japhethites. In the center area, following Nimrod and from what we know about Ham, we see the descendants of Ham; and in the southern part we see these Shemitic descendants. What happens under Nimrod is that he becomes a conqueror and that is why he eventually enters into the pantheon of Babylon under the name Marduk. (Taking the MRD consonants from Nimrod his name survives as Marduk, and later on as Merodach-baledan) He establishes the kingdom of Babylon as he conquers both the descendants of Japheth and Shem.
Genesis 10:23, Aram has four sons. “And the children of Aram; Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash.” Once again, we don’t have much said about them. This genealogy, though, is confirmed in 1 Chronicles 1:17. The name Uz appears again as a nephew of Abraham through his brother Nahor and Micah, noted in Genesis 22:21. Another Uz shows up a couple of generations later as a descendant of Esau. But these are several centuries later and so they can’t be confused with this particular Uz. This Uz seems to be one who gave his name to a particular territory. This is where Job lived, the land of Uz, and this territory would be in the area of Jordan or Iraq, down to Saudi Arabia today. We don’t know precisely where it was, but according to references in Jeremiah 25:20 and Lamentations 4:21 it would be to the south east of Israel. We know nothing about the other sons, but because they are the descendants of Aram they are probably the forerunners of the various tribes that later made up the Aramaeans who were a Semitic people in the area of Syria.
Then we have the descendants of Arphaxad, v. 24. “And Arphaxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber.” So we have the line developing to Abraham. Then, v. 25, Eber has two sons, Peleg and Joktan. Joktan has thirteen sons that are listed between verses 26 and 30, and these all settled down in the area now known as Saudi Arabia.
But we have two major problems to discuss in relation to this genealogy. The first problem has to do with a gap. This is important because nearly everyone has heard the argument that there are gaps in the genealogies. In Genesis 11:10-11 we are told, “These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: and Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.” So Shem was 600 years old when he died. Arphaxad lived 35 years and begot Salah when Shem was 135. Because of those numbers, can you insert multiple generations in there? You can’t. The Bible is establishing a strict chronology. There are no gaps there. The problem that develops is that if you add up all the numbers you end up with a creation somewhere between 4000-4500 BC.
One thing we ought to note is that there are different kinds of genealogies in Scripture. Note the genealogy in Matthew chapter one has gaps because it is not trying to show every single generation. It is trying to establish the fact that there is a straight linkage between Jesus Christ all the way back through David to Abraham. But there are no numbers there. Once you insert numbers, where X lived 35 years and begot Y, and then he lived another 600 years and died, and then Y lived 25 years and begot Z, and then lived another 250 years; as soon as you put numbers in there you close up the genealogy. The problem that we have with Genesis 11 is that there is the insertion of another person between Arphaxad and Cainan in Luke 3:35, 36, “Which was the son of Saruch, which was the son of Ragau, which was the son of Phalec, which was the son of Heber, which was the son of Sala, which was the son of Cainan, which was the son of Arphaxad, which was the son of Sem, which was the son of Noe, which was the son of Lamech.” We’ve picked up somebody in there! In Genesis 11 we have Shem, then Arphaxad, and then Salah. No Cainan. Where does this Cainan person come from? If it is accurate it is the only example of a gap. But there is no gap here. This is a case of a copyist placing text in the wrong place. There is a mention of Cainan in verse 37. There was a Cainan in the genealogy before the flood, so what appears to have taken place in Luke 3:36 is that somewhere, probably in the 4th or 5th century A.D., some scribe inadvertently copied the name twice.
Let’s see if there is any kind of confirming evidence for this. The Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament and it was translated into Greek between 250 and 150 B.C. because the Jews living in Egypt outside the and had forgotten how to read Hebrew. Jospehus would have been using the Septuagint, or something based on the Septuagint. The Hebrew text, known as the Massoretic text, gives the age at which Arphaxad became a father at 35. But the Septuagint says it was 135. Josephus says it was 135. Cainan isn’t mentioned by either the Massoretic text or Josephus. Salah was 30 years old according to the Massoretic text, 130 according to the Septuagint and 130 by Josephus. The Septuagint adds 100 to all the numbers, so that was clearly some kind of scribal error. Josephus follows the Septuagint in that mistake. Josephus, because he has the same error in terms of the numbers that the Septuagint has clearly was using either the Septuagint or a Septuagint-based document for coming up with his genealogy. But he left out Cainan. So that tells us that in the first century, i.e. at the time of Christ, the earliest records from the Old Testament did not have Cainan in there. Cainan is not found in the Massoretic text, is not found in 1 Chronicles 1:18, which is a parallel genealogy, and it wasn’t found in any of the ancient versions that were translated directly from the Hebrew. It wasn’t found in the Samaritan Pentateuch, it wasn’t found in the Aramaic, it wasn’t found in the Syriac Targums, or in the Vulgate. Jerome refused to use the Septuagint as a source for translating the Vulgate. He felt it was too corrupt and not an accurate translation. The point is that at the end of the first century, around 70-80 AD, Josephus is using a Septuagint or something based on the Septuagint and doesn’t mention this person Cainan. Not only that, but about 100 years later between 200-250 AD an early church father by the name of Julius Africanus produced a chronology of the Bible. He did not include Cainan in his list. What is interesting is that, just like Jospehus, the numbers that he had matched the numbers in the Septuagint. So he is obviously using a Septuagint as late as 220 AD that doesn’t have Cainan in it. So that tells us that this insertion of this name into the Septuagint doesn’t occur until at least 250 AD. So it is obvious that Cainan is an insertion and is a textual problem, and it is not in some of the oldest New Testament MSS as a matter of fact.
The second thing that we have to look at when we study this genealogy is, what does it mean when it says that “the earth was divided” in the days of Peleg? In the genealogy there are two interruptions. One is to tell us about Nimrod and the other is to tell us about Peleg. Genesis 10:25, “And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided.” Let’s look at the name, Peleg. There was a group in northern Greece that were known as the Polaskians. We have seen before in relationship to language that there are certain ways in which we define that somebody is from a certain area. This ending is related to the English word “scion,” the descendants of somebody, which is interestingly related to the Greek ending “skoi.” So you have the descendants of Peleg being called the Pelegskoi, which becomes the Polaskians. These people were known as traders. They had ships, sea-faring people who sailed the Mediterranean, and were also pirates. They operated in the area north of Greece between two rivers. One of these rivers was called the Hebrus River. Isn’t that interesting! Who was Peleg’s father? Eber. The root of Eber is where we get the word Hebrew. That is just an interesting note that would confirm that this is the area where his descendants ended up. Eventually they were pushed further south by the Thracians and they merged in with the Greek people. In the concept of being divided the first theory was proposed in 1859, relating this to the split of the continents. A lot of creationists thought this might be possible for a while, but the geologic upheaval would be too great; it would be enormous. The second idea which many people have thought is that this would described a division of national boundaries by Noah. They proposed that Noah divided up the earth among various territories, designating his various sons and grandsons. But there is no real support for that. What we have is the fact that Peleg (his life and the life of Nimrod overlapped) was about 125-150 years old when the tower of Babel incident occurred. So this reference to a division in the time of Peleg is a reference to the division of languages, it happens during his life.
Shem dies just ten years before Abraham does, so everybody else was outlived by Shem. Notice with Peleg, and from that point on, life-spans began to drastically shrink. Each generation gets shorter and shorter. Almost all of the antediluvian patriarchs lived over 900 years. A couple of them lived just a little less, but afterward there is this immediate decline. Noah lives to be 900+, but Shem only lives 600 years, a drastic drop. Something changed in the environment after the flood and people just couldn’t live as long.
That brings us down to the sons of Joktan in Genesis 10:26-29, “And Joktan begat Almodad, and Sheleph, and Hazarmaveth, and Jerah, and Hadoram, and Uzal, and Diklah, and Obal, and Abimael, and Sheba, and Ophir, and Havilah, and Jobab: all these were the sons of Joktan.” They all move into the area of modern Saudi Arabia. These are the thirteen original Arabian tribes. Many of these names have cognates of places, wells, oases, etc., in Saudi Arabia. They can indicate the historicity of these names. That shows that we have descendants of Ham as well as of Shem that form the foundation for Arabic tribes. Later on other groups comne out of Abraham, but these are more distant cousins of Abraham who come through Joktan.
When we come over to Shem’s genealogy (a closed genealogy) it is a straight line of descent all the way down to Nahor in Genesis 11:22-24, “And Serug lived thirty years, and begat Nahor: and Serug lived after he begat Nahor two hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah.”
Genesis 11:26, “And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.” Notice the parallelism here. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. There is a parallel showing consistency of the author—one author of Genesis, not three or four. But we see now that when Abram is born Terah is still alive, Nahor is still alive, Serug is still alive, Peleg is still alive, but Eber, Salah, Arphaxad and Shem are also still alive. So there is a tremendous population explosion simply because the generations aren’t dying off yet. The first four generations off the ark are still alive and live throughout most of Abraham’s life.
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058b-Importance of Gen. 1-11; Review
We want to look at Genesis first of all from the framework of the structure of thought Moses was attempting to instill into the Israelites as they were on the plains of Moab about to enter into the promised land. If God had given the title deed to the land to Abraham and his descendants in perpetuity now is the time where God is going to come through on His promise. So the Jews, like any other people, would be asking the question: Why should we go in and take this land? Why should we go in and annihilate every man, woman and child? What gives us the right to do this? What is God doing? So what Moses is doing in communicating to the Jews the foundation of a world view. How you view ultimate reality affects how you view everything else: how you view creation, education, marriage, family, inter-personal relationships, whatever it may be. Everything is related ultimately back to your view of who God is and who man is. This for the Christian is founded in these first eleven chapters of Genesis. So Moses is trying to communicate a world view to the Jews, a foundation that gives them personal identity—who they are, what their mission is, what God has called them to do, and what they are supposed to be involved in in the world and with their neighbors in this new land.
By application what we have here as a structure of thought is that God is communicating to us. So we move from understanding what Moses is communicating under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the Israelites in about 1400 BC to what God is communicating to us by way of application. What is it that we are supposed to learn? Because fundamentally the world view, this foundational concept of life, was the same for them as it is for us, and they were cutting just as much against the grain by these first eleven chapters of Genesis as we are today. We read this and think that back then everyone believed in God, but no, they didn’t. There was a culture that the Jews were interacting with a whole culture surrounding them that doesn’t believe like they do about origins. As a result, these other cultures, whether their views on law, their views on everything else in society are completely distorted because of their ultimate view of origins. So what God is doing here is laying the foundation for our thinking on every area of life. And just as in the ancient world there is a conflict between the divine viewpoint analysis here and the analysis that is given in the cultures and what is popular and acceptable and politically correct.
We believe that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are the foundation of the Bible. They are just as inspired by the Holy Spirit, just as breathed-out by God, just as authoritative as any statement made by Jesus. Every word in the Bible is equally inspired; it is the Word of God. The Bible is an integrated whole, that every part of the Bible is equally significant, whether it is in the first eleven chapters of Genesis or the last fifteen chapters of Revelation, the Gospels, the Psalms; every part is significant and part of a whole, so that each part and section fits together and is interdependent on the other parts of the Bible. Every part of the Bible is equally inspired and fully inspired, and fits together with every other part, making a coherent whole.
We have discussed all of the major doctrines that are initiated in the first eleven chapters of Genesis. We are introduced to God at the very beginning as the creator-God. He is omnipotent, completely distinct from His creation. He is able to create all of the systems and all of the designs in the universe, which means that He is omniscient because He has to deal with such a vast amount of data, control it and put it all together. We could logically deduce many things from the fact that He is the creator of everything but we have the Scriptures that develop this. Furthermore, we know that there is an ethical aspect top God. He is not simply a God who has all this knowledge and all this power but He is a righteousness God, a God of integrity, and He places certain demands upon His creatures in relationship to morality. There was a test in the garden of Eden, so we are introduced to the fact that God has created man. And we are introduced to the doctrine of man and who man is, and to understand who a human being is, what makes us human beings, and what is significant about a human being is derived from the first three chapters of Genesis. If we are involved in any kind of career, any kind of education, any kind of study that involves people, we have to start with an understanding of Genesis 1-3. If we don’t then whatever the data is that the field of study is in is skewed, leaving out crucial parts of the information. Think about that. If you are in psychology and are excluding what the Bible says about the nature of man and being created in the image and likeness of God, and the Bible says that man’s basic problem is that he has a sin nature, and Jesthat that core problem can’t be resolved apart from the grace of God, then how is that going to affect your life as a psychologist trying to communicate to people who have marriage problems or difficulties raising children, or problems just coping with life? If you are not taking into account Genesis 1-3 your solution is no solution because it is based on a view of people and a view of reality that is distorted and doesn’t take into account a lot of truth, and so you can’t really help people. You may be able to put a band aid on some things but it doesn’t provide real long-term solutions. Understanding of meteorology, geology, the ice age, is all affected by our understanding of these first eleven chapters of Genesis. It is not simply something interesting to tell us about how man fell, how sin entered into the universe, and how God had to judge sin a second time because of angelic infiltration into the human race prior to the flood. It goes a lot deeper than that, there is a tremendous amount of profound information here that we can’t just step past.
These chapters talk about volition and human responsibility, what sin brought into the creation in terms of the consequences of the sin penalty. And we have to remember that there is a distinction between the penalty for sin in terms of spiritual death on the one hand and the consequences that that engendered on the other hand—the physical death, the physical suffering, certain changes in the animal kingdom; all of which were the consequences of that spiritual death. That then challenges our thinking as to just what God is trying to demonstrate in all of this. So we look at the fact that sin has entered into the human race and that God in His integrity and love has also provided a solution. We see that announced at the very beginning. God didn’t wait six months, six years, sixty years, before He announced the plan of redemption. He is not caught by surprise. As soon as it happened He announces a plan of redemption—Genesis 3:16. We have sin as man’s basic problem, suffering, redemption, marriage, family, nations—all these doctrines have their foundation in these first eleven chapters.
Furthermore, we believe that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are the foundation of human history. We understand from Genesis 9 with the curse on Canaan and the blessing of Shem and Japheth that this gives structure. Noah through divine inspiration saw through his sons the course that human history would take. All of this comes from this period. If we believe that these eleven chapters are not only the foundation of the Bible but also the foundation of history, this gives us a divine interpretation of history and the divine perspective on humanity, and it provides the framework for understanding everything that we see in creation. So it is not only the theology and the religion and the doctrine that is presented in the Bible that is important, but it gives a framework for everything else in life.
There are two basic types of thinking: divine viewpoint thinking and human viewpoint thinking. There are other terms used that are synonymous to human viewpoint thinking. There is cosmic/kosmic thinking, the same kind of thinking that characterized Satan and the demons. James 3:13 ties these together. It is paganism. These all are the same thing. It is a system of thought, and there are many different elements within human viewpoint thinking but they all ultimately represent the same thing. Divine viewpoint is going to look at the world and the events and details of the world and ask how God says we are to interpret this data. Human viewpoint comes and says it can interpret this data on the basis of rationalism (its own reason), or empiricism (its own experience), or mysticism (some intuitive insight into the nature of reality: I know it is this way because that is what makes sense to me). But all of that relates to man’s arrogance, that man can interpret the world around him and come to certain conclusions apart from God. The conflict that we as Christians face in the world is that we believer what God says in the Bible is absolutely true and nobody around us believes that because they are operating on either autonomous reason or autonomous experience or mysticism, or they are blending the Bible with one of those, but ultimately whenever you blend the Bible with one of those systems it always corrupts the Bible. So they come up with different conclusions. So the issue: Are we going to be steadfast in our understanding of the Scriptures? There is always this conflict, and we have seen that human viewpoint thinking always fails. The Bible makes it clear that it is presenting a view of history, of life, of creation, that is 180 degrees opposite everything else.
The interpretation of the first eleven chapters of Genesis sets the pattern of the interpretation of the rest of the Bible. How you interpret Genesis 1-11 will impact how you interpret the rest of the Bible. If you come in and make these allegories, that there wasn’t a literal Adam and Eve but they were just symbols for the original parents, all of a sudden what you are doing is setting a pattern where you are no longer taking other things in the Bible literally, and you are going to change them around to where you are able to avoid the impact of the literal interpretation. If you believe in a literal Genesis 1-11 you need to believe in a literal Revelation, the last book of the Bible.
We see that the Bible presents God’s interpretation of man, of history, of society, marriage, family, government. All social relationships are laid down in these first eleven chapters, and everything that relates to that, such as economics, politics, history, literature.
The events of creation, fall, flood, tower of Babel, are historical events that took place in time. They are not just stories designed to communicate morals or ethics. Christianity, unlike any other religion in human history, is grounded in history. If it didn’t take place the way the Bible says it took place then the theology that is derived from it is false. That is why the empty tomb is attack, why Genesis 1-11 is attacked; because if the critic can destroy the significance or the reality of Genesis 1-11—it really didn’t happen that way—then it destroys the theology of the whole Bible and basically rips the foundation out from under Christianity. So you can’t compromise on anything in these first chapters of Genesis. The Bible begins with God as the ex nihilo creator. This is completely different from everything else. You can say that there are 20, 50 100, 200 different creation stories throughout the world, but there are only two. There is the view of the Bible, that God is completely distinct from creation and creates everything by the word of His own power; or that somehow matter is eternal and sort of self-generates and creation comes out of itself. Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” This is a very clear concept of ex nihilo creation. God is distinct from everything in the universe. “Heavens and the earth” is a Hebrew term for the universe. God is different; He is not part of the universe. Hebrews 11:3, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear [which are visible]”—the HREMA [r(hma], the spoken Word of God. This describes ex nihilo creation. John 1:3, “All things were made by him [the LOGOS, Jesus Christ, the agent of creation]; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Psalm 33:6, “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” Colossians 1:16, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.” This doesn’t leave anything out, and it presents a clear view that God, the God of the Bible, is completely distinct from creation.
The Bible always goes back and interprets Genesis 1-11 in a literal way. For example, Jesus interprets the events of the creation literally. When He is asked about divorce in Matthew 19:4, 5 His answer is: “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, [Quote from Genesis 1:26-28] and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?”—God says that at the end of Genesis chapter two. Jesus didn’t have the benefit of modern scholarship and He recognizes that Genesis was written by the same author! He treats the Genesis record as both valid and as literal events. Jesus doesn’t make any comment on the fall, doesn’t mention Adam by name in the Gospel accounts, but He does mention Noah (Matthew 24:37, 38) treating the days of Noah as a literal event. In the genealogy for Christ the genealogies are treated as literal events. Noah is mentioned there, Luke 3:36, “… was the son of Noah, which was the son of Lamech.” Luke 3:34-38 takes the genealogies of Genesis 10 and Genesis 5 in a literal fashion. Luke 17:27, 27 is a reiteration of the Matthew 24 passage, treating the existence of Noah in a literal way. Jesus doesn’t mention the tower of Babel but other writers do. New Testament writers clearly interpreted the events of Genesis 1-3 literally. 1 Corinthians 11:9, builds his whole understanding of the relationship between men and women in marriage and in church on what happens in Genesis 1 & 2. Cf. 2 Cor, 4:6, “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 3:9, “…God, who created all things by Jesus Christ.” Colossians 1:16, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.” Hebrews 4:4, “For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.” 1 Corinthians 15:45, “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit”—quote from Genesis 2:7. James 3:9, “Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.” Revelation 4:11, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”
Revelation 10:6, “And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein…”
Again and again throughout the New Testament it affirms the literal historicity of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. It talks about the fall. 1 Timothy 2:13, 14, “For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” Romans 5:15, talking about death reigning from Adam to Moses; 1 Corinthians 15:22, “For as in Adam all die…” The flood is recognized as having happened literally in Hebrews 11:7; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:5. If you take those out then you destroy whatever is being taught doctrinally in the New Testament.
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059b-Review Importance of Creation, Gen. 1
Unbelief and paganism is always trying to spin divine viewpoint into its own frame of reference. Human viewpoint is constantly trying to take the Word of God and just shift it, just twist it and slightly reshape it into something that is acceptable to rebellious, autonomous man, rather than dealing with the radical distinction that the Bible presents that God is the God who created everything from nothing. This is what we see in the first eleven chapters of Genesis and why they are the battleground. In divine viewpoint God is the one who interprets for us creation. He tells us how to understand His creation; we don’t generate it on our own through rationalism of empiricism.
Origins and the study of origins is important. That is why it is a battlefield; that is why it needs to be a battlefield in education. How we view origins affects everything. The origination or beginning of anything, any organization, any task, is directly related to its purpose and meaning. So if we want to understand why a church exists we have to go back to its founding, its origin. Why did Jesus Christ found the church? What is its purpose? The purpose of any organization is directly related to its origins. So when God intentionally executed and planned the creation of mankind it was for a purpose, and He is the one who defines the meaning and purpose for creation, in contrast to human viewpoint and all the various views of origins that man has generated. Ultimately in every system man is just the product of time plus chance if you push it back far enough. And ultimately the meaning for man is derived from something in creation. For example, in Marxism the ultimate purpose for man is derived from society itself and how man functions in society as a worker and his role in relationship to the economy and society. In existentialism meaning comes from the individual himself. You assign your own meaning to life, there is no meaning assigned from God; meaning is determined by what you want life to be. This ultimately is what happens in postmodernism: meaning is whatever each culture determines the meaning is—there is no absolute truth, it is relative to a culture. But the Bible says over against all that is that man is created in the image of God and he has a purpose in resolving the angelic conflict. So one’s view of origins, then, becomes the foundation for everything in society. This is why there is such a radical battle over what is taught in public schools.
We have seen that Genesis presents God as unique in contrast to all the gods and goddesses of all the other ancient near eastern religions. In Genesis chapter one the emphasis is on God’s majesty, His power/omnipotence, that God creates everything. He has the omniscience to create all of the different life systems on the planet so that everything works together and is completely integrated. We see His sovereignty, that He is the ruler over creation. He is the one who defines creation and man’s role in creation. He stands, nevertheless, completely apart from creation and is the one who rules creation and oversees the history of mankind. Psalm 89:11, “The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them.” When we look at Genesis we see the emphasis on God as creator, and the first thing we see is that God is distinguished from the creation—the creator-creature distinction. 1 Chronicles 16:26, “For all the gods of the people are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.” Nehemiah 9:6, “Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.”
We se that God reveals Himself to man. He is not only the God of Israel but He is the God of all the people, the God who created everything. He is the one who speaks and everything comes into existence. Psalm 33:6, “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.”
We see that it is God who restores life where there is death. In Genesis 1:1 we note that there was an original creation, and then in Genesis 1:2 there is darkness on the face of the deep, and the earth is without form and void. Of course, this brings into focus a controversy and that is: is there a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2? There is an old view, the “old gap” view. This view has been traced back at least as far back as the second century AD in the Targum of Johnathan, which recognizes that there is in Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 a lapse of time during which the angels are created and there is the fall of Lucifer. That view is also supported throughout the centuries until we get down to the 19th century. In the 19th century there was a lot of pressure from historical geology and from biology, from uniformitarianism. Uniformitarianism is the underlying idea that all processes on the earth follow a uniform decay process, and claims that if you can understand what that process is today then you can extrapolate back into the past to see how old the earth is. Historical geology in the 19th century was projecting an age of the earth of about 50-60,000 years. In the early 19th century some theologians came along and were trying to somehow fit the Bible into these new discoveries in science, so they hi-jacked this old gap view and decided that instead of having the angels and the fall of Lucifer in this period between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 they would ram, cram, and jamb all of the historical ages in there so that the Bible could still fit with modern science and the earth can be 50-60,000 years old. It is one thing to make the earth 50-60,000 years old but to come up with three or four billion years as is done today, or ten billion years, is another story. This was all false. It was based on false exegesis and a desire to make the Bible compatible with human viewpoint. So once again we see how human viewpoint seeks to absorb the Bible and to put a spin on the Bible so there is not a radical distinction between what the Bible says and what is being taught in the secular classroom.
One of the basic problems with the above view is that if you put all of the geological ages into this period between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 it results in a big problem, because you have a lot of dead things. All the fossils that are found out there are dead things. The Bible teaches in 1 Corinthians 15 that death came by Adam. The context isn’t spiritual death, it is physical death because the context is talking about physical, bodily resurrection. Obviously you can’t have physical death which is the result of Adam’s sin in all of creation until after Genesis 3. So you can’t have dead things coming in between 1:1 and 1:2 because there hasn’t been a fall yet. So this is a direct attack on the necessity of the cross. It is also a desire to assimilate to the need to find lots and lots and lots of time. The only reason people are coming up with time is because they want to somehow assimilate all the dating mechanisms that modern biology, geology and physics can come up with. We have seen that this is all built on the false assumption of uniformitarianism which is how they analyze everything with their dating systems. We have to quit letting science and modern archaeology dictate how we interpret the Scripture.
The old gap theory is often challenged because people don’t like the new gap view, but the old gap view doesn’t really have any major problems.
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060a-Review: Sin, Evil, Reality, Gen. 2-3
The big problem in the ancient world in philosophy was trying to explain change. Everything around us changes. On the one hand there is change and on the other hand there seems to be something that doesn’t change, some sort of changeless substance that underlies everything. What they did in the development of Greek thought was that changeless, existing substance was identified as being. This is the idea of existence. There is something out there that exists, there is being itself. But what they had was this concept of being. They know something exists but didn’t know what it was. You know that there is something there but if you don’t know what it is in terms of its characteristics or its essence you can’t say what it is. So what happened in the ancient world is that they developed all of these arguments for some sort of being out there, and they called it God. But they didn’t have the characteristics of the Bible, the biblical God, so they couldn’t identify this thing they got to as the God of the Bible. This is what everybody tries to do but it is a tremendous leap; you can’t get there. So all they were getting to was something called being itself. Out of being itself this was identified as the highest good, as the most perfect being. They don’t identify being as personal, it is just that which exists. It was “the most perfect being,” and there were a number of other terms for it; and out of this came other beings: other existence came out of this. But they were all part and parcel of this one thing called being. That is why we use the term continuity of being. When you get back behind everything and push it back you ask what existed then, and what existed then. There had to be something that existed, and it was being. It is something that existed, but what is it? So there was all this argumentation to identify what it was and somehow within it there was change. Change brings in this idea of chaos. So you have being which is some kind of matter plus chaos. How does that differ from modern cosmogonies like the big bang theory? What do you have? Push it back far enough you have some little dense piece of matter or something that exists, and then you have a lot of chance. If you put enough chance and time into the whole equation you are going to come up with the universe, with various different life forms from amoeba to man, and it all happens because you start off with some existent chaos, and in the midst of change and enough chaos and chance you end up with something. So there is ultimately no difference in the ancient world and its mythologies, it is always part and parcel of pagan thought. It becomes the structure of all pagan thought.
The Bible says there is God, and then there is everything else. Everything else is not a part, it doesn’t come out of the being of God; it is created out of nothing. We have to understand that. Part of the implication of this affects how we view man and how we view ultimate realities and absolutes, because if we have this concept of being then not only do beings come out of this but so do all concepts of values, laws, social systems, etc. In other words, if the diagram of a circle describes being itself, and everything comes out of that circle, then being itself generates its own values, its own authority, its own absolutes. This is why there is always some sort of tyranny of some minority in any kind of system like this: because the system itself is generating its own values and absolutes. That is what we have already looked at, this radical distinction between the creator and the creation which the Bible presents versus all pagan thought which blends it in some sort of scale one way or the other, whether it is a top to the bottom scale like in ancient and mediaeval thought, or whether it is from the bottom up like in modern Darwinism.
As we went through the first chapter we looked at the fact that God created the universe and everything was good. Even though there has been an angelic creation and an angelic fall, when the restoration is finished everything is according to plan. It is a perfect creation, and God has excluded the angelic sin from its invasion into this new restored creation because it is a test sight to demonstrate to the angels the depravity of sin and what sin can do. When God created the angels initially He gave them volition. They had personal responsibility just as He gives man personal responsibility. Then Satan fell, as described in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14, where there is the example of Satan’s five “I wills” expressing his arrogance and rebellion against God. He wants to be like God. We infer from a number of different passages of Scripture that God judged the angels—Matthew 25:41, the lake of fire has already been prepared for the devil and his angels. Why aren’t they there? Obviously the execution of their sentence has been postponed. So we can infer from Scripture that God apparently is teaching something. We can say that Satan challenged God’s verdict but the basis for the verdict was probably along the lines of, How can a loving God sentence His creatures to such a horrible condemnation as eternity in the lake of fire? We still hear that today. The question isn’t so much how can God punish His creatures, but how can He punish His creatures with such a serious eternal condemnation. What God is showing Satan is that any act of disobedience by the creature, no matter how innocuous it may be, has unforeseen circumstances, bringing about such incredible consequences of suffering and misery and horror, that the punishment of eternal condemnation in the lake of fire is mild compared to what that creature causes. So what we see is a test case. God restores perfect environment to the planet, places Adam and Eve on the planet, and gives them a test. He provides everything for them. God’s grace is sufficient and He puts them in the garden, and the test has to do with a tree. Every tree of the garden you may freely eat. Notice the adverb freely. This is the grace of God. God is giving them everything, He is not somebody sitting up there telling people what they can’t do and trying to spoil all their fun and keeping them from having a good time. God gives Adam everything, but He makes one prohibition: eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There are all kinds of sins that people blow out of proportion, but this isn’t anything like that. This is simply eating a piece of fruit. In the instant that Adam ate from the tree he died spiritually. It caused separation from God who is the source of life. Real life is in God. Without that relationship man is cut off and other things are going to happen, including physical death, but now there is the introduction of suffering and sorrow and misery and struggle, and the earth is cursed. What going is showing is that this act of disobedience on the part of the creature is like throwing meteor in the middle of the ocean. It sets off tidal waves of destruction. It is not just some little innocuous act. The sin that you and I commit, that we justify and say it is no big deal, sets off tidal waves of destruction in our own soul—problems that we don’t even foresee and in some cases don’t even connect in our own lives. That is what God is demonstrating, that there is no such thing as an innocuous sin, no such thing as an act of disobedience or independence on the part of the creature that is simply innocuous and really doesn’t matter. These things have incredible consequences.
So the second major event in Genesis is the fall, and the fall explains how evil enters into creation, why things are the way they are. We must understand the fall and the sin nature if we are going to be able to properly and adequately deal with any situation in life, because every situation we face in life is marred by sin. In most situations we deal with in life we are going to deal with people who are marred by a sin nature. They are corrupt individuals, no matter how nice or how sweet they are, now matter whether they are believer or unbeliever, they still have the sin nature. People are still going to yield to their sin natures, maybe frequently, and it is going to set off all kinds of fireworks and problems. The only way we can deal with that is to understand where it comes from and the fact that we live in a fallen world. What we see in the first two chapters of Genesis is that as we deal with the doctrines related to God, man, and nature, how things were originally created and then what they became after the fall, we see that this becomes central to every area of human involvement. You can’t name anything in life that isn’t touched by these events.
We have to look at man before the fall, and will break it down into four areas: Man in relation to God, the spiritual dimension; man in relationship to himself, the psychological dimension; man in relationship to other human beings, the social dimension; man in relationship to nature, the ecological dimension.
When we look at man before the fall we see that man is in the image of God, Genesis 1:27, 27. That has certain implications. It has an implication in terms of man’s mission, his purpose: he is created to represent God to creation; he is to rule over creation because God set him there. Man as part of creation is set over creation to rule creation, so this clearly indicates that there is a hierarchy but it is within creation and does not include God. Ethically this means that man is created with perfect righteousness. It is untested righteousness. Man is under authority of God. Even in perfect environment we see that there is authority and a recognition of authority, and there is even authority in the structure of the Trinity. Authority relationships have nothing to do with equality. Spiritually man has perfect rapport with God, he is in perfect relationship with God and there is no hindrance to that relationship, and he is learning. He is not created with all-knowledge, he has finite knowledge and God is teaching him. He is learning under God’s authority and in the framework of divine revelation. Adam could have learned many things about the trees in the garden of Eden through empiricism and rationalism but he could never have learned that if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would die. He had to learn that through God’s revelation. So man can only function because of his limited knowledge as a creature on the basis of submission to divine revelation.
In terms of man’s psychology man becomes a living soul [nephesh], Genesis 2:7. That really refers to the fact that man has two parts: the physical component which we call biological life, and an immaterial component made up of two elements, a soul and a human spirit. The soul has four elements: self-consciousness, which indicates that he has self-awareness and can understand his purpose and his orientation within the plan of God; mentality, so that he can learn to think, can understand God’s plan, and he can generate thought on his own; volition, so that he is accountable and responsible for the decisions that he makes; conscience where he stores the absolute standards of God. The human spirit is something that interacts with these four elements of the soul so that they can all direct themselves towards God and man can have a relationship with God. When Adam eats the fruit he dies spiritually, he loses that human spirit so that man is left to operate on his own in terms of his soul. He is cut off from God, the source of life, and in terms of his self-consciousness, mentality and volition, he is out on his own without any input from God. We understand that man begins this way psychologically, and he is perfectly healthy psychologically. What has happened, of course, and what screws him up psychologically, is not that his parents dropped him on his head, not that he was abused when he was a child, not that he grew up in poverty; his problem is going to be sin, pure and simple. If we are not dealing with that as the problem then we are just dealing with symptoms and are never going to be able to ultimately resolve whatever the situation is.
Socially, God establishes two divine institutions—actually three, but one is potential. He has volition established clearly, that is the test of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In volition the authority is God. He is accountable to God for all of his decisions and this is established before the fall, before there is any corruption in history. The second divine institution is marriage, designed to be between one man and one woman. It is not a marriage if they are of the same sex. This is established before the fall. Then potentially family is established because they are told in Genesis 1:28 to be fruitful and multiply. So part of the command to exercise dominion over the planet is to have children and produce generations so that those generations would be able to carry out this dominion mandate. This is man socially, and there is a perfect harmony and rapport there between Adam and the woman. These divine institutions are designed for the harmony and perpetuation of the human race to enable them to fulfill that divine purpose that God gave them.
In the ecological issue there is no disharmony with creation. Man is the lord over creation, the one who is naming and categorizing all of the animals. The animals are there for man’s benefit and for his purpose.
Then we have the fall, and it is important to understand what takes place in the fall because in the very core of the fall there are two issues. One is an issue of authority and the second relates to it, and that is an issue of knowledge, what we will call epistemology [how you know what you know]. Notice what God says in Genesis 2:17, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Now look at Genesis 3:1, “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Is that what God said? Notice how he twisted it. So the first thing we see is that the serpent is going to come along and he is challenging the authority of God—Has God said?—and he is challenging it by reinterpreting and putting his own spin on what God said. God said they may freely eat, and the way the serpent expresses it is, You can’t eat of every tree. He spins it negatively. The woman answers: “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” God never mentioned touching it, so she is not accurately interpreting what God said. This gets to a problem of knowledge. She is already interpreting what God said, she is not listening to God. This is why it is so important for believers to be in Bible class more often than we have time to have Bible class. We need to know the Word—precisely what God says. The serpent then challenges that interpretation and says: “You won’t die.” God interpreted reality; the creature comes along and wants to reinterpret reality. At this point the serpent is telling them not to live in the realm of reality but to live in the basis of your wishes, whims, and reconstruction of reality; don’t live on the basis of how God defines reality. But the Scripture is clear that as creator God has the right to determine the nature of things. He tells us the nature of things and the way things really are. Most people, especially in a fallen world the way things are now, don’t want to face things the way they really are; it is much more comfortable to live in some sort of dream world that people really aren’t bad and that people don’t want to go to war and that there aren’t people out there who want to kill us and destroy us, and that there aren’t religious fanatics out there who want to destroy western civilization. It is more comfortable to create some sort of fairy world, live in that fairy world, and think that somehow we can define marriage the want to define marriage, culture the way we want to define culture. And these are people who are psychotic. Remember the difference in the definition of neurotic and psychotic? Someone is neurotic when they are creating a dream world; they are psychotic when they move in! That defines every liberal as basically someone who is psychotic because they are creating a fairy palace in rebellion against God, and they have moved in. They want to create political leaders and political structures that fit their psychotic view of reality. They are divorced from reality about as far as they can get. Unless that is stopped they are going to try to force the rest of us into their psycho-palace and it is all going to come crashing down. But that happens in every civilization; it is the cycle of civilization. It is the devil’s lie that man can create his own reality and he can live on the basis of that reality, that he can be his own god.
We know what happens. The man and the woman die spiritually, and then they have their first counseling session, Genesis 3:8. The Lord is going to say, “Where are you?” because He is emphasizing the fact that they are apart from God. That is the basic problem: they have divorced themselves from God and until they deal with that they cannot get anything else right. All they are doing is putting band aids on major problems. Until believers start getting right with doctrine and getting serious about the Word, and learning the Word and applying the Word, they are just fooling themselves. Adam’s reply: “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” That is man’s basic problem spiritually, he is exposed and he is vulnerable and he can’t solve the problem himself. They tried to solve the problem, they sewed fig leaves together, and that is all the human viewpoint gimmicks to try to make life work apart from God. The fig leaves that man creates are almost infinite in their variety. Until man realizes that these do not solve anything but only deaden the reality of his spiritual nakedness he will never get anywhere.
Genesis 3:14 is an outline of the curse which is an explanation of the consequences of sin. The penalty is a judicial penalty and it was activated the instant they ate of the fruit. There are consequences that flow from that new reality that ripple out like tidal waves from that central core explosion. God is going to explain these. They are going to impact nature. It impacts the serpent so that he is going to have a form change, but also all the other beasts of the field are also cursed. There is a change in man’s spiritual relationship, his rapport with God is broken. He is spiritually dead, his ability to represent God and to rule over creation is now going to be hindered. So there is always going to be a sense of frustration in man because he is now living in an antagonistic environment. It will not be until the Son of Man returns at His second coming that man is going to be able to ultimately fulfill that dominion mandate. There are changes in man’s social relationships. He now has a basic problem with authority that is inherent to his sin nature and will plague all of his relationships for all of his life. There is the psychological dimension in that man is now really screwed up psychologically because he has a soul but no human spirit. Because of that it will screw up everything he does. He is going to have a major problem, and just because he is regenerated doesn’t mean the problem is solved. Remember, what caused the problem was a twofold problem: a breakdown in authority and a breakdown in knowledge. What happens as a result of sin is that the area of knowledge becomes really screwed up. By the time most of us are saved or get serious about our spiritual life our soul has sucked up so much garbage that the only solution is a major overhaul of the way we think. Most people don’t know what the phrase “epistemological rehabilitation” really means. It is hard work. It means you have to overhaul your whole framework of thinking, your whole structure of thinking. It is a lifetime process, not just learning to think good things instead of bad things. It is to overhaul one’s own structure of thought and to learn to think biblically instead of like a pagan. It is not easy.
Socially, we see that the divine institutions get all messed up. Marriage gets messed up because now there is an authority struggle between the woman and the husband. Instead of compatibility and rapport in the marriage there is now an authority struggle—which can, of course, be reversed through regeneration and doctrine. It also affects the family because most parents become so involved in work, in careers, in their own self-absorbed orientation that they don’t have time to teach the kids to control their sin natures. Most of the parents haven’t learned how to control their own sin natures.
Ecologically they have a problem because now there are problems in nature. The ground is cursed and there is going to be a struggle just to survive. The man is told that he is now going to have toil. He is going to eat by the sweat of his face and then he will die physically.
But there is hope, and that is that God solved the problem of evil. He is going to restrict it and He is going to judge it. This is the great message of hope, that it didn’t end with the curse, it ends with God providing a new covering for man. There is a principle there is the coats of skins: the shedding of blood, which is a picture of Christ’s death on the cross so that man can have redemption. So it is a message of hope. God can solve any problem but what has to happen is that there has to be an orientation to God, we don’t orient God to us. We are the ones who have to orient ourselves back to God and this is done through thinking biblically.
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061a-Review: Judgment: Grace and Salvation
Adam and the woman in the garden were there in order to serve God, and God has a relationship with them. But this relationship doesn’t operate in an ethical vacuum. In order have this relationship God establishes ethical boundaries, and what we learn here is that relationships have to function on the basis of integrity. A relationship cannot function apart from integrity, and we need to understand that. It is true about a marriage, about friendship, about whom we work for in a company or corporation—if there is no integrity at the corporate level then there can’t be a real relationship. When there is no integrity in the relationship then the relationship serves as a prop to arrogance. It is always serving somebody’s self-interest. It is there for self-promotion, self-indulgence and self-gratification. When there is no integrity that relationship is only there for one reason and that is to benefit the person in charge. So in a marriage where a person lacks integrity then that relationship is really a sham.
What we learn from the first few chapters of Genesis is that the God of the Bible is a God of righteous, absolute standards and that is the standard of His integrity. Justice is the application of that integrity and this works in conjunction with His veracity. If God is not true in all that He does and all that He says, then He is not trustworthy. So integrity relates to His love, justice, and His veracity. Integrity highlights God’s righteousness, His justice, His love, and His truth. Those four always go together when talking about integrity, and that lays the foundation for God’s relationship with man. The reason why God can enter into unconditional covenants with man where God binds Himself legally to a contract is because of the high level of His integrity. That is something He binds Himself to without binding man to it because He knows the sinfulness of the human race. So the post-fall unconditional covenants are all unilateral, with the exception of the Mosaic covenant which was in some sense unilateral but was temporary.
Righteousness is the standard of God’s integrity. Justice is the application of that righteousness to man, but this is always in the context of love. Love means that God always has the highest and best in mind for the object of His love; it is not self-serving. God’s righteousness and justice does not operate toward man in a self-serving manner but has the best in mind for the object of love, and it always operates in veracity.
Once man sins there is a break in the relationship with God. And the sin is defined objectively. It is not just some sort of subjective line that is crossed, but he violates a specific commandment. This changes the fabric of the universe basically. God’s righteousness is violated and in justice God has to condemn man. For God to remain God He has to judge the violation of that righteousness, but in love He wants to do the best for the creature consistent with His veracity, and so He is going to now express grace to the creature. Grace is defined as God’s unmerited favor, unearned kindness. Grace can’t operate before the fall because before the fall man has perfect righteousness. It is not undeserved kindness; he deserves it; he has the same righteousness that God has. After the great white throne judgment when all unbelievers are sentenced to the lake of fire grace doesn’t operate any more. Why? Because believers are all in heaven without a sin nature and there are no sinful creatures out there for God to be gracious to. Grace is limited in history; it is bounded by the fall and the great white throne judgment, between Genesis 3 and Revelation 20. Something else is also bound and limited, and that is evil.
The fall introduces the problem of evil and it also introduces for us in an extremely abbreviated sense the solution to sin, which is salvation. We saw that in Genesis chapter three, that God solves man’s problem of nakedness (which represents the sin problem) by making them tunics of skins, and this is done through animals sacrifice which pictures the ultimate death of Christ on the cross. Genesis chapter four shows that the sin problem isn’t restricted to Adam and Eve but it is generational now, it is going to affect the entire human race, everyone who descends from Adam. So in Genesis chapter three we have this very abbreviated picture of God’s solution, but the picture that Genesis really gives us of salvation is the next big event is the flood which begins in Genesis chapter six. Genesis chapters four and five really focus on the ongoing problem and consequences of sin on the human race and how it continues to play itself out generationally until man gets to a point where God is not going to put up with it any longer. In Genesis seven and eight, in the flood, we have a picture of judgment that goes along with salvation. This is always how the Noahic flood is used in the New Testament. It is always treated as a literal and actual event but it is always used to teach the doctrine of judgment as well as salvation. So when we look at Genesis we see a hint of judgment and grace and salvation in the curse but it is really developed in its full picture with the flood. The first mention of grace (not the first act of grace) in the Bible is in Genesis 6:8: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” This shows what the Holy Spirit is wanting to emphasize in this flood event.
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062a-Review: Evidence of the Flood; Young earth vs old earth
Why is Noah’s flood important? It is important because understanding what Genesis says about the flood changes everything about how you view earth history. If the Bible record is correct, a universal reality, is historically accurate, then it changes everything in terms of science: ages, the age of the earth, dating mechanisms. In flood geology we have on the one hand those who believe there was a literal world-wide flood that lasted up to a year that changed everything about the earth’s structure. The results of a flood of that nature would have impacted many other of earth’s systems, not just water. It would have changed geology, meteorology, and would have had an impact on creating an environment that would develop into the ice ages. On the other hand there is modern geology which insists that the earth is millions and millions of years old and that all life on earth developed gradually through a process known as evolution, and that the evidence of this process is what is embedded in the rocks in terms of fossils. Flood geology argues that all of these fossils were laid down at the same time in a catastrophic global event that killed everything except the animals that were on Noah’s ark. The difference is a time factor of just a few years. Modern geology has a lengthy time frame because the assumption is that if you have enough time anything can happen.
The Bible says that the earth really isn’t that old. From Abraham until now is only about 4000 years. Abraham was born about 2156 BC. If any archaeologist gives a date for any civilization beyond about 2000 BC, then just discount it. There are reasons for this but a lot of it has to do with the fact that they date things on the same basis and the same assumption of uniformity that evolution uses. So if the dating is flawed for evolution then it is also flawed for archaeology. The date for the earth is only 6-7000 years.
2 Peter 3:5 says that modern man is willingly ignorant of what the Bible says about the heavens in Genesis chapter one. “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was [pre-flood earth], being overflowed with water, perished.” There is divine judgment. If that is ignored then there is the need to come up with explanations for where all the dead things came from that are found in the rocks. The presupposition that underlies that is uniformity.
The result of taking the flood literally is that it would have resulted in vast deposits of sediment which would contain the extensive remains of plant and animal life. This is what is found all over the planet. Fossils show that these animals were killed quickly. Something catastrophic had to happen to kill these rapidly. In the fossil records ninety-five per cent of all fossils are marine invertebrates, and they are found on top of the land. Ninety-five per cent of the remaining five per cent are plants. Ninety-five per cent of the remainder are fish, and most of the rest are insects. Much less than one per cent are land vertebrates, and these usually consist of less than one bone. So we have very little evidence that we are using to extrapolate theories from. Fossils are found in catastrophic underwater deposits, but only on the continents. This indicates that at one time the earth was covered with water.
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063a-Review: Babel, Genesis of Kosmic Thought I,
Gen 10,11
Starting in Romans 1:17 and going into the beginning of chapter 2 Paul almost gives us a historical perspective on what has happened historically, and we see the dynamics of what is going on as a consequence of human depravity. Romans 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” The term “wrath of God” is a technical term for the outworking of the justice of God on rebellious humanity. It is not a statement of His getting literally angry, He is simply demonstrating His justice toward man because of rebelliousness. The “men” is this verse are tose who “suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” This is an adjectival statement describing men and giving content to the meaning of ungodliness and unrighteousness. The word “suppressing” in English has the idea of holding something down, but the Greek word here is KATECHO [katexw] which does have that idea but it also has the idea of simply holding something. The verb ECHO [e)xw] means to have or to hold, to hold on to something; KATA [kata], the preposition that is prefixed to this word making it a compound verb intensifies the meaning of the main verb. So it means to hold something, to hold something, and sometimes to suppress something; but here it is talking about holding on to certain truths by means of, and this is the Greek preposition EN [e)n] plus the dative which has the idea of instrumental means. Mankind in ungodliness and unrighteousness is holding on to truth [lower case true] by means of unrighteousness. They have taken something that is true and have redefined it. It is like putting a new spin on the truth until it is completely different from what it was originally understood to be. Every human being is a good spin doctor on God-consciousness. That is what is happening to them. They are taking truth that is evident to them in creation, that God makes evident within us, and they are holding this truth by means of unrighteousness. They take this truth and spin it so that man is not as bad as Scripture says he is and God is not the creator that the Bible says He is. Here Paul is reflecting what happened historically in that post-flood civilization. They very quickly kicked into gear their sin nature in terms of reinterpreting truth.
Romans 1:19, “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them.” In fact, every individual knows that God exists. Romans 1:20, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” The revelation of God is so clear and so precise that every human being who reaches God-consciousness have no excuse before the judgment of God. They can’t say they needed more evidence that He existed. Romans 1:21, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” What happened historically was that they knew God. They had the evidence from the flood. When they came off the ark and for the next few generations they were still seeing the reverberations of the flood in terms of both geology, earthquakes, and also in the weather. Those men who were eyewitnesses to the flood were able to give testimony to their great, great grandchildren. What those great grandchildren did was reject that testimony, they rebelled against God, and they tried to redefine what had happened in terms of these various mythologies. And that is what the tower of Babel in Genesis 11 is really all about. Genesis 10 gives us a description of how the descendants of Noah scattered over the face of the earth. Then in Genesis 11:1-9 there is a description of the tower of Babel and the human race under the leadership of Nimrod and how they sought to build this tower to heaven, they sought to make a name, a reputation, for themselves that is superior to God’s reputation. What the writer is indicating is that they are seeking to set themselves over against God. They are worshipping the creature instead of the creator. There was no gratefulness and grace orientation for what God has done in destroying the antediluvian situation, and after the flood antagonism sets in with the arrogance of man’s soul, and they are reinterpreting the flood as God making war against man. So now they have to protect themselves from God, which is the reason for building the tower. That becomes the historical basis, even though it gets lost over time, throughout the ancient near east for why they established their worship sites in high places. They saw these as a place of refuge from the judgment of God.
So rather than being grateful to God and worshipping God they rebel against God and blame Him for what happened in destroying the ancient civilization. “Their foolish hearts were darkened,” which indicates that their thinking begins to be clouded, they can no longer think according to reality, and the result of this is not simply spiritual, which is Paul’s point, but it also impacts the knowledge that they had. The early survivors of the flood carried with them the knowledge of the antediluvian civilization and its technology. Paul’s comment is that anyone is spiritual darkness, though professing to be wise—they may have a Ph D from Harvard or Cambridge, written various erudite books—they are fools. They may have a high IQ and great education but they have rejected the creator God of the Bible. Romans 1:23, “And exchanged the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” This is a picture of primitive idolatry. There are examples of this that have survived in time. As time went by those idols became less concrete and more abstract until there were men worshipping ideas rather than images made of stone or wood.
Then we see that as a result of this there is a progression in time. Romans 1:24, “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves.” The more they want to rebel, the more God restrains the evil that they are able to do. So there is a gradual deterioration among these Gentile nations in the ancient world. Romans 1:25, “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.’ So we see there is a certain progression that takes place once there is a worship of the creature rather than the creator. Romans 1:26, “For this reason…” For what reason” Once you do away with the God of the Bible something moves into that vacuum. The something else that dominates, that becomes god, is something in the creation. You are going to deify something in the creation—matter, energy, some element of philosophy, some abstract ideal. “God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.” This is sexual lust. There is a connection here that Paul is showing between sexual depravity and spiritual rebellion. Rejection of God as creator leads in a straight line deterioration in terms of sexual perversion and sexual depravity. Sociologists today will challenge that, but this is what the Scripture says.
All of this introduces us to the basic elements of what we have defined as cosmic thinking. The Greek word for “world” is KOSMOS [kosmoj]. It can refer to the world, the earth, to a system. Usually it has the idea of some sort of organized system. It may refer to any kind of organized system but primarily in the Scripture it is talking about an organized system of thought, and the word KOSMOS is used to refer to all of those thought systems that man develops that are hostile to God. As we have seen many times, on one side we have the divine viewpoint which is the unified viewpoint of Scripture. The Bible expresses one and only one unified concept. Over against this man has developed his own viewpoint, so we have human viewpoint. Human viewpoint isn’t monolithic, there are all kinds of human viewpoint; at least it looks like that on the surface. But when we boil them all down they are all basically saying the same thing. Another word we use for human viewpoint is paganism. Paganism is not a pejorative term, it refers to non-biblical thinking. Anyone who doesn’t think according to the Bible is a pagan, according to Webster’s Dictionary. Paganism is also demonism, demonic thought, according to James 3:13-15. It is that which has affinity with the soulish person, i.e. the unbeliever. So this is a way of thought that is promoted by man against God.
So we have to ask the question: What are the basic elements of human viewpoint thought? The first element is arrogance, man’s assertion of his own authority. Man thinks he is somebody when he is nobody. In arrogance we talk about the basic arrogance skills. Arrogance skills are self-absorption where we are completely absorbed with ourselves. Then we give in to ourselves—self-indulgence. We give in to our thinking, there is no self-discipline, we just go with the flow of our own lust pattern. Then there is self-justification, where we are justifying all of our basic wants and needs and why we have done what we have done. This leads eventually into self-deception. We are divorced in an extreme way from reality and are just living in a false understanding of the world. This leads to the fifth which is self-deification. All that is a part of arrogance. So the first characteristic of arrogance is human self-assertion against God. It is man elevating himself over against the creator God of the universe; it is the rebellion against the authority of God—minus authority orientation toward God. The more man rebels against the authority of God the more there is going to be rebellion toward other elements of authority which God has legitimately set up in the world. Man replaces God as the ultimate determiner of value. So man becomes the center of the universe: How do you know what is right and wrong? It is whatever society determines, or whatever a sub-group of society determines. This kind of thinking is demonstrated today in sociology text books, in history text books, in literature; so for one going off to school this is going to hit left and right and that one had better be prepared.
The tower of Babel is the real point in Genesis 10 & 11. The dynamic is: “They became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened.” This is what sin does, it makes you think that somehow you can escape God, and through this process of carnality and rejection of God you are reducing God to something that man can control. So the second dynamic in cosmic thinking is fear and dread of God which becomes the underlying motivation to try to escape God. What happens when there is this fear and dread of something? It promotes a hostility toward that which threatens you. The whole cosmic system has its historical source at the tower of Babel. This is the prototype for the development of the cosmic system. The characteristics of the cosmic system and cosmic thinking grow out of what happens in Genesis chapter eleven. One of the things we should note is that at the end of this narrative in Genesis 11:9, the end of the toledot, there is a note of judgment, of hopelessness and despair. There is no note of hope at the end of the episode at the tower of Babel. It leaves us hanging, and this is what the writer under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wants to do. Where is the hope? And this is the introduction to Abraham because the hope for mankind now is going to be what God does through Abraham and the seed of Abraham. It is through the seed of Abraham that redemption will come, the curse will be reversed, and it is through the seed of Abraham that there will be the establishment of perfect environment in the Millennial kingdom, the curse is rolled back, and eventually the establishment of the new heavens and the new earth. But the tower of Babel gives us a foreshadowing of what man does throughout history under the guise of the city of man in conflict with the rule of God in history.
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064a-Review: Babel, Genesis of Kosmic Thought II,
Gen 10,11
Genesis 11:1-9 describes the tower of Babel, and it is the rebellion at the tower of Babel—man uniting with one language against God—that gives the reason for the scattering that occurs in chapter ten. Babel, then, becomes a picture or a type of what happens to mankind in rebellion against God, that the nations of human history cannot survive unless they are in obedience to God. This is the principle. Babel sets up and begins to crystallize what the Bible calls the world system. This world system is that which dominates human history. It dominates all nations, all peoples, that are in rebellion against God. And in contrast to that God calls out one individual, Abram. It is through Abram that God is going to work to counter the world system. Through the promised seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ, God is going to provide a salvation that will in turn come back to redeem the world. What happens with God’s judgment on the tower of Babel is in grace. God begins to work through one individual because nations, the peoples, in their volition have turned their backs on God.
Romans chapter one is a picture of what happens historically and what took place after the flood. Eight people came off the ark. They knew what happened, had witnessed the flood. They had witnessed the fact that God had closed and sealed the door on the ark. God protected them and preserved them. When they came off the ark they were witnesses to the covenant that God made with Noah—a verbal, audio covenant. Shem, Ham and Japheth all know that, and yet, within just three or four generations their descendants were setting themselves up in antagonism to God, shaking their fists, as it were, at God, and creating alternate deities. This is what happens to the human heart that is sinful and wicked above all things—Jeremiah 17:9.
Romans 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Romans 1:19, “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them.
Romans 1:20 “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Romans 1:21 “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Romans 1:22 “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
Romans 1:23 “And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.”
This is the beginning of idolatry. They begin to worship that which is in the creation rather than the creator. And it doesn’t have to be limited to some idol made of stone, wood or metal, it can be the worship of some kind of intellectual ideal or process, or something abstract.
Romans 1:24, “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Romans 1:25, “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”
This is the breakdown. In every single system of human thought, including the most sophisticated scientific theories today, buys into a form of monistic pantheism where the universe itself becomes God. So they are worshipping, deifying something in the creation. The consequence of that is that there are three stages of divine discipline, where God, as it were, pulls back the restraints and gives man over to the consequences of his rebellion. We see that these are signs of judgment.
Romans 1:26, “For this reason God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:”
Lesbianism and homosexuality is all a part of God’s judgment on a culture for their rejection of God. It is not that for which we will be judged, it is God’s judgment on the culture.
Romans 1:28, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting.”
Perversion and all manner of sins are listed after that.
Romans 1:32, “Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”
Man knows at his very core that he is accountable to God: “knowing the judgment of God.” They not only know that they engage in things that are deserving of death but they also approve of those who practice them. This is the backdrop of what happened historically in that period between Noah and Abraham. What this is, is the establishment of the cosmic system, and this becomes solidified at the tower of Babel. So throughout the Bible there is a battle that culminates eventually in Revelation between Jerusalem, the city of peace, and Babylon, the confusion created by human viewpoint paganism. This is the struggle that we have down through history and is not resolved until the Lord Jesus Christ comes back at the second advent. Babylon represents what the Bible calls worldliness or the world system, and this becomes solidified in Genesis 11 in all of its dynamics. It has a political structure: the tyranny of Nimrod. Every political system, other than that which was originally designed by God is the theocracy of Israel, is going to deteriorate into tyranny eventually. Every political system is going to deteriorate because it comes out of this cosmic thinking.
1 John 2:15 is a crucial text for understanding the world system: “Love not the world [cosmic system], neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world [cosmic system], the love of [for] the Father is not in him.” In other words, you can’t love the world and God at the same time. This is the same thing that James writes about in James chapter four: “Friendship with the world [cosmic system] is enmity [hostility] with God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the cosmic system makes himself an enemy of God.” These are mutually exclusive ways of thinking.
1. Cosmos in its negative sense has to do with an arrangement or system of thinking that is arrayed against God.
2. Satan is the ruler of the cosmic system. As such cosmic thinking reflects the kind of thinking exemplified by Satan at the time of his fall. John 12:31; 14:30.
3. The whole world lies in the power of the evil one and thus is under his influence and cosmic thinking. 1 John 5:19.
4. Satan as the ruler of the cosmic system was judged on the cross. John 16:11. Cosmic thinking has been judged or condemned by what Jesus Christ did on the cross. Cosmic thinking asserts independence from God; Jesus submitted Himself to God. It is fearful of God; Jesus loves God the Father. Cosmic thinking is antagonistic to God whereas Jesus Christ totally fulfilled everything God planned; He was obedient to the point of death. The cosmic system is the expression of Satan’s agenda.
5. The cosmic system has its own way of thinking. It may be manifested in a number of different ways but they are all manifestations of the same basic arrogance and hostility towards God. In cosmic thinking you have an ultimate view of reality and all of these systems of thought, all these religious systems, can all be boiled down to one basic view of reality.
6. Man has always sought to establish his authority for his knowledge/truth apart from revelation, either in terms of reason or experience or mysticism. But reason, experience and mysticism are set over against revelation, so that rationalism is used to denigrate the Bible, empiricism is used to try to destroy biblical truth. But it never does, it always destroys itself in history. This is not to say that there is something wrong with empiricism or rationalism, but empiricism and rationalism must operate under the authority of Scripture.
7. A way of thinking, i.e. whatever mode of thinking one adopts, produces a lifestyle that is consistent with it. So every cosmic form is going to produce certain lifestyles that are consistent with it. We call those lifestyles culture. The core of every culture is the idea of religion. What made western European history different was Christianity. Christianity changed the dynamic. If it hadn’t been for the infusion of Christianity and Bible doctrine in the early church age which changed the trend of western Europe, western Europe would have been just as animistic and pagan as everybody else.
8. The elements of cosmic thinking are three. a) Arrogance. It is creaturely centered. b) Fear, dread of judgment. That in turn motivates antagonism, hatred for the Word of God and the desire to destroy Christianity and the truth of the Word of God. This is why James says, “Friendship with the world is hostility toward God.” They are not compatible at all.
9. Therefore the believer is to extricate himself from the morass of cosmic thinking in his soul. At the point of salvation a person’s soul is loaded with cosmic thinking. It is our job as a believer to be reeducated. Romans 12:2, “Be not conformed to this world [the modes of cosmic thinking] but be transformed by the renovation of your thinking.”
This is the mission, and what God is going to do through Abraham. At the end of Genesis eleven the world is in a state of collapse, almost the same condition as before the flood (minus the demonic infiltration), and there were just a few people who were believers.
065a-Overview: Abraham: Friend of God, Gen 11:26-25:11
The life of Abraham is given in the Scriptures from roughly Genesis 11:27 down through Genesis 25:11. The only person in the book of Genesis who gets more space in terms of chapters is Joseph, and they almost tie. So we see under the law of proportionality that God the Holy Spirit spends a vast amount of time in Genesis on Abraham. This shows how important Abraham is to Scripture, to history, and to salvation.
An outline of this portion on Abraham can be divided into four parts.
a) Prelude, 11:27-32.
b) The preparation for the promised seed, 12:1-15:21.
c) The provision of the promised seed, 16:1-22:24.
d) Epilogue. The death of Sarah, the finding of a wife for Isaac, the death of Abraham, 17:1-25:11.
Introductory principles
1. As we get into the life of Abraham we see that God shifts from working through all of mankind as a whole to working through one man, and then his descendants. He excludes everyone else in the human race because the human race has rebelled against God. They are in complete negative volition, are into idolatry and have rejected God, so God now selects one man, Abram, and through him he is now going to deal with the rest of the human race.
2. This demonstrates God’s determination to bless mankind despite human rebellion. No matter how negative man gets, no matter how rebellious the human race becomes, God shows His fortitude, His determination to bless man. This is grace. So we are already introduced to the fact that grace will be a major theme, just as it is throughout Scripture. There is an emphasis here. Blessing becomes the dominant theme, whereas in the first eleven chapter because there was continual rebellion the cursing or divine discipline on the human race has been the dominant theme.
3. What we see in each of the men in the second part of the book—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph—is the constant struggle for the believer to operate on divine viewpoint instead of human viewpoint arrogance and autonomy. This is the struggle that each one has. We see this again and again in Abraham. Despite what God has promised him, despite the blessing of God, despite God’s personal appearance top Abraham on numerous occasions, Abraham still tries to live his life and solve his problems apart from God. This continues to be a problem and will continue to plague the nation Israel later on. But we see in these men the constant struggle that the believers has against the desire to live independently of God and to be arrogant.
4. In Abraham we see a progression in spiritual growth before he receives the promised blessing. Everything moves toward that promised blessing in the seed of Abraham. That is the focal point of the promise. The blessing to all men ultimately comes through the seed, which Paul will interpret as the Lord Jesus Christ, but in the context the promised seed focuses on Isaac. Isaac is that funnel through which that blessing that God promises will come. Before Abraham receives the promise he has to be mature enough to have the capacity to handle the promise. That is true for us. We have to be mature enough to handle the blessings that God gives us or He won’t distribute them. Abraham has to go through many tests and training procedures before God finally at the age of one hundred brings about His promise in the birth of Isaac.
5. What are some of the doctrines that are emphasized here? There are crucial doctrines that are taught through the life of Abraham. First of all, we have doctrines related to salvation. Regeneration: This comes through the fact that Sarah is barren. It is impossible for her to give birth and Abraham is sexually dead, and yet God regenerates them. He gives life where there is death. Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, the three wives of the patriarchs are all barren. God is teaching a principle: that He is the one who brings life where there is death, just as He brings spiritual life where there is spiritual death. Justification: Paul develops this in Romans chapter four, also in Galatians. Abraham is the Old testament picture of justification by faith alone. Also we see substitutionary atonement, and this comes in Genesis 22 when Abraham is to take Isaac and sacrifice him, the promised seed, to God. God at the last minute stays his hand and provides a substitute through the ram that is caught in the bushes by the altar. In Abraham we have perhaps the greatest example in Scripture of the life of faith. We walk by faith and not by sight, and Abraham is a picture of that faith-rest drill life. He is also a picture of the personal sense of eternal destiny, and this is seen in Hebrews 11:8-19:
“By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised. Therefore sprang there even of one, and him as good as dead, so many as the stars of the sky in multitude, and as the sand which is by the sea shore innumerable. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son. Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.”
The faith-rest drill as Abraham matured was oriented toward that eternal destiny. He is looking forward to that promise that God has; he is focusing on the future reality which changed his present life. So Abraham functions as an example of the spiritual life in terms of the faith-rest drill and personal sense of an eternal destiny. And then a centerpiece. Throughout the life of Abraham is the covenant that God enters into with him. This is crucial and foundational to the rest of the Old Testament, is foundational through all of human history. You cannot understand and interpret human history or the future if you do not understand the Abrahamic covenant, because this tells us that human history turns on God’s plan for the descendants of Israel. Even though we are living in the church age this does not mean that God has replaced and permanently passed away Israel. In fact, that is the subject of Paul’s discourse in Romans chapter eleven: that God has not passed away His people whom He foreknew.
There are three elements to the Abrahamic covenant: land, seed, and blessing. If you understand the concepts of the land, the seed, and the blessing, then you will understand what is going on in this context, because God promises Abraham that it is through his seed that He will bless the whole world, and that his descendants have to have a place, the land. We see at least six distinct times in these fourteen chapters where God promises a specific piece of real estate to Abraham, and at least twenty times between Genesis 12 and Genesis 50 God promises this specific piece of real estate to Abraham, reiterates it to Isaac, reconfirms it to Jacob, and makes that covenant with them and their descendants forever. This is profound in light of things that are happening today, both in terms of politics and in terms of theological aberration. God has not gone back on His promise, He has not cast away His people, and He has given that land to them. So there is a land where the seed will dwell to be a blessing for all mankind.
Then in this section of Genesis we get a particular look at who God is. There are six names for God that are introduced in the Abrahamic story. He is called the Lord God most high, EL Elyon, in Genesis 14:18-22. This emphasizes the exalted status of God. He is called the possessor of heaven and earth, emphasizing His sovereignty, that He is the one who rules the heavens and the earth. Secondly, He is called the God who sees in Genesis 16:13, El Roi, emphasizing the fact that He knows the future. The third name used here is El Shaddai, Genesis 17:1; Genesis 35:11, God the Almighty, used 48 times in the Old Testament, most frequently in Job. In Genesis 21:3 He is called El Elyon, the everlasting God, the eternal God, emphasizing the fact that He has neither beginning nor end. He is called Yahweh Jireh, or as written in the old KJV, Jehovah Jireh. It means the Lord provides, the Lord supplies. As we learn from the New Testament, God’s grace is sufficient for all our needs and He shall supply everything for us in abundance. This is first seen clearly and taught in Genesis 22:14 when God supplies a substitute for Isaac. Then He is called Yahweh, the God of the heavens, that He is the ruler of the heavens and the earth. So what we learn about God is crucial in our study of Abraham.
We begin the study of Abraham in Genesis 11 with the family background of Abraham. This is the next toledot, starting in verse 27. “This is what happened to the descendants of Terah.” Abram is a name that means noble father. Abraham was of nobility, of an aristocratic family from Ur of the Chaldeans which is located in southern Mesopotamia. The Chaldeans had a very advanced culture but they were enmeshed in idolatry, particularly the worship of the moon god who was called Sim (pronounced Seem). While we know from Scripture that Abraham’s family knew about Yahweh and worshipped Yahweh they were also heavily involved in idolatry. They had compromised, had assimilated, and were not devoted completely or exclusively to Yahweh. But apparently, once God called Abram it had an impact on them and brought them out. They lived between approximately 2200 BC and the rise of the 3rd dynasty of Ur which somewhere around 2000-2100 BC.
Abram was married to a woman called Sarai. It has been said that Sarai means “contentious” but consulting with numerous lexicons reveals that they agree to a man that it means “my princes” or queen. When the name is changed later to Sarah this is an intensified form of that name for princes. So it indicates that Abram and Sarah are both from nobility. The toledot in Genesis 11 ends by saying that Sarai was barren. That is the focus. This is the end of the line for Terah: Haran dies and Sarai is barren. The point that we are learning here is that God is going to bring life where there is death. Moses makes this point right up front. This provides the framework for understanding why God has to provide this seed and why this is such a miracle event.
Genesis 11:31, 32, “And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.” Abram isn’t born until Terah is 140 years old.
In chapter 12 we are introduced to the promise of the seed, and Abraham has to be prepared for the coming of the seed. So chapters 12-15 covers the preparation for the seed. We have the divine call and the preview to the Abrahamic covenant given in the first three verses. “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee: and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.” There are two commands here: Get out of your country, and be a blessing. The interesting thing as we look at these three verses is that blessing is mentioned five times and cursing is mentioned two times. This shows the shift in the emphasis in the book: to blessing from cursing. There are two different words for cursing here. One is the word qalal which means to treat someone with disrespect or to treat them lightly, the other word is the word to cut off from blessing, arur, a much stronger word. The second word is the one used back in Genesis 3 for the consequences of sin. The way this blessing statement should be translated is: “Those who treat you lightly I will curse harshly.” This is God’s statement of divine protection for the seed, for the descendants of Abraham and for the provision against anti-Semitism.
Abram starts out as something of a baby believer in incomplete obedience. Then when he leaves Terah he has Lot in tow. What we see is that God is eventually going to have to remove Lot from him, so that Abraham is eventually isolated from his family, because it is through Abraham that God is going to provide blessing and He needs to get these worldly influences away from the promised seed.
So Abram obeys God, and in Genesis 12:4 we read that Abram leaves and goes down to Canaan. First he goes to Shechem in the central part of Israel, and this becomes a major place in the life of Isaac, and all through the history of Israel Shechem is a significant location. From Shechem he goes a little further south to a place between Bethel and Ai. At Shechem God appears to Abram and says to him, “Unto thy seed will I give this land.” This is the first promise related to the real estate. “…and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.”
Genesis 12:8, “And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.” At this stage what Abram is doing is marking off the parameters of the land. This is the land that God has given him and he is beginning to claim it by faith as he goes through the land. Then he journeys further south down to Hebron and on into the Negev which is south of Beersheba. But then a famine comes into the land. This is his first test. The famine is in the land, the land is the place of blessing and promise, and what happens? Abraham decides he is going to solve problems his own way. This is the way most of us are. We use human viewpoint to solve problems rather than to stay put and trust Christ. There is plenty of food down in Egypt, so rather than staying put in the land God promised where God could provide for him Abram heads down to Egypt. Once he gets there he tries solve his first problem through lying. So Abram gets into trouble here because of his carnality. He is not trusting God so he has to learn a few things. He is going to create another problem that shows up later on: he is going to pick up a slave named Hagar, and Egyptian woman who is a descendant of Ham.
Finally Abram turns back to the land in chapter thirteen. He is back in fellowship and goes up from Egypt with his wife and all that he has. One of the interesting things is that when Abram goes down into Egypt he is treated like royalty. He is not just some traveling merchant that happens to wander in. He has tremendous wealth and when he shows up with Sarai Pharaoh gives him all kinds of gifts and riches, and then when he leaves we are told in 13:2, “And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.”
Genesis 13:3, 4, “And he went on his journeys from the south even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai; unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.” As far as we can tell this all covers a few months, maybe six months to a year at the most. He has tremendous possessions. In fact, he has so much wealth and there is so many servants who work for him, as well as Lot who is also wealthy, that there is just not enough room for them to dwell together in the land. So Abram says they have to divide things up. He shows he has grace orientation as a young believer and tells Lot to pick out the land that he wants. Remember that God has already promised Abram the land, and here he is giving it away to Lot. Lot chooses to go down to the cities in the valley, Sodom and Gomorrah. We are told that the area was like the garden of the Lord at that time: “as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.” This indicates that Egypt was considered a fertile green area at the time.
This sets up the situation in chapter fourteen when Abram has to deliver the cities of the valley down by the Dead Sea from the conquest by the four kings under the domination of Chedorlaomer. So what we see here is Abram functioning as a blessing to his neighbors. Lot is separated from him and we are told that for a period of fourteen years this area came under the domination of the king from the east. They invade at this time and take many people captive. So when Abram hears that Lot has been taken captive he arms his 318 trained servants. He has his own private army and goes in pursuit to the north as far as Dan. Just north of Dan is Damascus, and these are the parameters of the land that God is giving him. So Abram is moving throughout the extent of the land and showing his control over this area. He is exercising as a blessing in this land that God has given him. When he finishes he is going to be a blessing to Melchizedek.
In chapter fifteen God is going to enter into a covenant with him and it is a restatement of the promised seed. In this section God is going to emphasize the provision of an heir. In the first part of the chapter God promises not only the seed but that it would come through Abram. In Genesis 15:6 we have the key verse on justification: “And he believed in the LORD [Yahweh]; and he counted [imputed] it to him for righteousness.” This particular verse should not be translated as a simple past, which makes it sound like it occurred at this moment. Abram was already a believer. This is in the Hebrew an imperfect tense verb and it should be translated as a perfect tense: “He had already believed.” The verse is stating the fact that the reason God is blessing Abram in this way is because Abram was already a possessor of perfect righteousness. God cannot bless those who do not possess perfect righteousness, and God’s blessing is based upon his possession of imputed righteousness.
Then God reminds Abraham of who He is: “I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.” You can’t separate the seed from the land. So God is going to make a provision and in the rest of the chapter there is a reiteration that God is going give this land to Abram and to his descendants—but not yet because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete, v. 16.
But Abraham hasn’t learned all his lessons yet. Chapters 16-22 gives us the story of the provision of the seed. First of all in chapter 16 we have the birth of the pseudo-seed, the false seed. This is once again using a human viewpoint solution to the problem. They are going to try to do things the way the culture does them, but once again God is showing them that they have to be distinct from the culture. You don’t do things the way the world does it, you divorce yourself from human viewpoint. When you use human viewpoint solutions they compound the problems and create difficulties. And this is exactly what happened. Hagar becomes pregnant and Sarah becomes despised and ridiculed—the same word as used for being treated lightly or with disrespect in Genesis 12:3. The interesting things her is that Sarah says, “Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.” This is the same structure as in Genesis chapter three where Eve said, “Here, see the tree? It is good; take and eat.” Now Sarah is saying the same thing: “Here, see my handmaid; take her.” The author wants us to understand that this is as much of a fall for Abram as eating the food was in the fall for Adam, and this is going to bring tremendous negative consequences down through history. As a result of that there is now contention between Sarai and Hagar. Abram tells Hagar to leave. She leaves but the angel of the Lord finds her. This is God’s grace. Even in the midst of all of this disobedience we see that God still treats us in grace. He is going to protect Hagar because she has been treated poorly by Abraham and Sarah at this point. He promises here that she will have many descendants but that she is supposed to return back to live with Sarai and Abram.
Genesis 16:2, the promise, the foreboding. “And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” This is particularly true today in a time of terrorism.
In chapters 17 & 18 we have two more statements of the Abrahamic covenant. God reiterates the covenant with Abram—land, seed, and blessing—and changes his name to Abraham, which means “the father of multitudes.” He gives the sign of the covenant which is circumcision. In chapter 18 we have the birth given. From the time he is 86 at the time of the episode with Lot and the kings and the time of the birth of Ishmael until now (fourteen years) he has been living at Hebron. He lives here almost permanently. Again there is the promise of the seed. Sarah laughs and the child’s is named Isaac [laughter].
Before the birth of Isaac God has to do one more thing to protect the seed: destroy Sodom and Gomorrah because of their depravity. The promised seed was going to be born 30 miles from Sodom and Gomorrah and God is going to protect the environment from the perversion of the Sodomites. However, we see another principle of blessing applied. There is blessing of association because of Lot’s association with Abraham and because Lot is a believer God is going to deliver Lot from the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. But that deliverance comes because Abraham intercedes with God. God send the two angels to warn Lot and he escapes.
Chapter 20. We have an example of God’s protection of the seed. “And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south country, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.” Again, Abraham decides to hide the true nature of his relationship with Sarah. He lies and says she is his sister because he is afraid that Abimelech may just kill him to take Sarah as his wife. He is not trusting God. God warns Abimelech who then finds out the truth. What is happening is that God is protecting her so that there is no sexual intercourse with any other man. It must be clear that the seed comes from Abraham and Sarah. So once again God continues to providentially care for Abraham and Sarah.
In chapter 21 finally we have the provision of the seed itself. Isaac is born, and now there will be problems between him and Ishmael who is 15 years older. God now tells Hagar to take Ishmael, and they leave. Once again, God is protecting the seed so that the seed can live in the land unopposed and continue to be the source of blessing.
Then when Isaac grows up God tells Abraham at the pinnacle of his spiritual growth to take his only son—can you take your seed that I have promised you and apply doctrine to the situation?—and sacrifice him. We know that from Hebrews 11 that Abraham knew that even if he took Isaac’s life God was able to raise him from the dead. He knew that God has promised descendants like the sand of the seashore through this seed. This showed tremendous faith. Abraham never questioned God. God stayed Abraham’s hand and provided a substitute. This is a picture of substitutionary atonement. And again God reiterates the promise in Genesis 22:18, “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.”
Then there is an interlude in verses 20-23 about the descendants of Nahor, because that is going to end up with Rebeka. What we will find in chapter 24 is that Rebekah will be the bride for Isaac. So God is providing for the perpetuation of the seed.
In chapters 23-25 we have the epilogue, the closing statements. Sarah dies in chapter 23 at the age of 127. Abraham is in the land that God has given him but he doesn’t possess enough land to bury her. He has to purchase land where he will bury Sarah. In chapter 24 he sends Eleazor to go find a bride for Isaac. Abraham remarries. Not only did he have Ishmael and then Isaac after he was sexually dead, but now he is even more prolific. He marries Keturah and has numerous other sons. These sons are also progenitors of various Arab groups. Abraham dies at the age of 175 years.
So this is the life of Abraham who is given one of the greatest honors in Scripture. He is called the friend of God because of his close walk with the Lord. He rosew from spiritual childhood, spiritual immaturity, to spiritual maturity in the course of these chapters.
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066b-Avram’s Background, Birth; Gen. 11:26-32
This section begins in Genesis 11:27 and goes down to verse 32. This looks genealogical but it really isn’t, it is setting the stage, telling us who Abraham was, what his background was, where he began, and it gives us more information than what we might think initially. This is the toledot of Terah, i.e. this is what happened to the generations of Terah. “Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.” What we are told here is that in this pattern of writing the genealogies, just as there are other genealogies that end with three names of three people, so we have Noah gives birth to Shem, Ham and Japheth and here we have Terah giving birth to Abram, Nahor and Haran. But this isn’t their birth order, it is probably the order of their significance. Abram is mentioned first because he is the most important and significant of the three sons.
Genesis 11:28, “And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.” Now we know where they lived. It was a large cosmopolitan city in what is now southern Iraq.
Genesis 11:29, “And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah.” Apparently Haran died young. So Abram is going to marry a half-sister and Nahor is going to marry his niece, Milcah who is the sister of Lot. Remember that incest is not condemned at this point in history. The core issue in incest is genetics and the damage it does to the product of a sexual union between two people who are too closely related. But in the early history of the human race this wasn’t a problem. Adam was created with all the genetic combinations and possibilities for the entire human race. He gave birth to various sons and daughters and they married each other. There were no problems. This continued generation after generation until the Mosaic law, the first place in the Bible where there is a prohibition against the marriage of those who are too closely related. The reason is very practical. By that time the genetic pool had become diluted enough to where it became a problem and would destroy the racial stock of the people. That is hard for us to understand because we live 4000 years later and this has been taboo for so long that we think of this as being something that is inherently wrong. But it wasn’t inherently wrong or immoral initially, otherwise it wouldn’t have been going on as long as it did.
Genesis 11:30, “But Sarai was barren; she had no child.” This is the movement of the passage. This is why it is important to think in terms of what the author is trying to communicate. We have to look to see where the author is driving us. What is the point that he is making? The point is that there are all of these people getting married and having children but the line stops with Sarai. That sets the stage for the whole Abraham story, because the focal point of the Abraham story is that God promises him a seed. He promises him descendants as vast and innumerable as the sands of the seashore and stars of the sky. This is going to be the source of the savior, so this is the focal point; and there must be divine intervention before Sarai can have a child.
Genesis 11:31, “And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.”
Genesis 11:32, “And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.”
Background
1. First of all we have to remember what has just taken place in recent history. That is the tower of Babel. Not only is it recent history but that is the episode that takes place in the first part of chapter eleven. It is there for a very important reason as we have seen. The tower of Babel reveals man’s depravity, his rebellion against God, and the fact that he has united together and systematized his thoughts in terms of rebellion against God and establishing a culture, a city, a civilization that is going to write God out of its history, remove God from the pages of its books, and is going to create its own religious system in its place. Babel was the beginning of what is called in the New Testament the cosmic system. It is used that way throughout Scripture; it becomes the picture of worldliness. Everything that is evil is attributed to this autonomous civilization. Babel, and Babylon which is its successor, is viewed as the city of man and the kingdom of man and is juxtaposed to Jerusalem as the city of God. That struggle doesn’t finalize, is not completed, until the end of the book of Revelation or the end of the Tribulation.
2. The cosmic system is characterized by three major attributes and everything flows from these. First of all, arrogance. At the very core of this human idea is that man can assert himself over against God. This is a reflection of Satan’s arrogance as exhibited in Isaiah chapter 14:13, 14 where Isaiah records the five “I wills” of Satan. This is arrogance: the creature asserting himself over against the creature, that the creature can be the ultimate reference point, that the creature can bring order and meaning to creation without the creator. That is arrogance; it is autonomy; it is the creature creating his own law, his own set of standards. It is the creature saying that he can define society, that he can define law and the nature of law. It is the creature saying that he is the one who is ultimately answerable to himself alone and can change his view of reality based on his own ideas. It is this assertion of independence from God. The second attribute that comes out of this is fear. At the very core of the human soul, cosmic thinking, which is nothing more than rationalization to justify the sin nature, is fear. This what happened when God came and walked in the garden—just the very presence of God generated fear in the heart of Adam and Eve; they ran and hid. This is what happens when someone takes a stand for the truth. Those who are in moral rebellion, those who are operating on the cosmic system, are afraid. And what goes along with that fear? What is its counterpart? Anger and resentment toward God. This leads to the third characteristic of the cosmic system: antagonism, animosity, hatred toward God, toward all things that are biblical, all things that represent God, and anything that advocates biblical absolutes or the person of Jesus Christ.
3. The cosmic system really is an alternate religion. It develops an alternate religion because religion at its very core is the structure of whatever people worship, whatever they glorify, whatever they honor, whatever they put as the focus of ultimate reality; whether it is abstract ideals of the mind, or whether it is a more overt idolatry, whether it is atheism. Atheism is a religion. If you are an atheist you are just as religious as any devout Islamic terrorist, it is just that your religion denies that there is a God. The statement that there is no God is just as religious as the statement there is a God. And there is no such thing a spiritual or religious neutrality. So atheism is a religion, secularism is a religion; ritual mysticism is the other extreme. It can be the deification of the state, deification of leaders, which is the idea in the ancient states like Egypt and Rome where the leader was deified. Philosophical systems are religious substitutes. Religion is one of the worst evils in history, and in terms of our present civilization religion got its start at the tower of Babel, because the tower of Babel was a religious act and the gods were housed in the ziggurats up in the roof. Remember that Christianity is not a religion. Religion emphasizes man and his work, whereas Christianity is a relationship with God based on what Christ did. Religion and Christianity are opposed to each other. Religion is man’s attempt to gain the approbation of God through his own works. Christianity is a relationship based on the completed, sufficient work of Christ on the cross. Religion is produced by the sin nature as human good.
4. Abram was born and was reared in the midst of this toxic religious environment of southern Mesopotamia in Ur. Nevertheless there was still a remnant of understanding of who God was. He was El Elyon, the most high God. Apparently, once Abram reached God-consciousness he was positive and worshipped El Elyon. His family was involved in a mix of religious worship. Joshua 24:2, “And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.” Even though they may have worshipped El Elyon they also worshipped the other gods. They do what a lot of people do today. They just try to assimilate God and Jesus and the Bible into their pagan, evolutionary, secular mindset, and feel very happy and comfortable because they go to church on a Sunday. They think that they are acting Christian. It is not Christian because they have many other gods and Jesus is just one of them. Joshua 24:3, “And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac”—a summary of the life of Abram and God’s grace in Abram’s life.
5. Even in this context of tremendous idolatry, paganism, and hostility toward God, God is still dealing with man on the basis of grace. God is not turning His back on man. The interesting thing that we will see is that Abraham is the tenth generation from Noah. Noah was the tenth generation from Adam. That isn’t coincidental. The writer is showing and history is showing that by that tenth generation the world was just as corrupt ten generations after Noah as it was ten generations after Adam. This time God was going to deal with the world on the same basis as before, the basis of grace, and call out Abram.
What was the world into which Abram was born like?
1) He was the tenth generation from Noah, and that is including Noah. Abram is born in 2166 and Noah is still alive. Shem is going to live well into Abram’s adulthood, as is Arphaxad, Salah and Eber.Abram was born 400 years after the flood.
2) The flood took place in 2566 BC. Abram is 75 years old when Terah dies in Haran, and that means that Terah must have been 130 years old because Terah dies at 205. So Abram is clearly born late in life. Think about this. At 130 years of age Abram’s father gives birth to him, but when Abram is 80 he is incapable of procreation. This is showing the rapid deterioration of the human race from generation to generation.
1 Kings 6:1, “And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the LORD.” This gives us a firm date that everybody can agree on. That is, Solomon started constructing the temple in 966 BC. If we simply add 480 to 966 we come to 1446 BC as the date of the Exodus. That is a solid date. We know that the temple was dedicated in 966 BC. When we get into secular history we can’t date anything with certainty, we don’t have God giving us that benchmark date. Liberal theology comes along and says it doesn’t accept that date. They say it isn’t literal and just take it as a representative number, it represents X-number of generations, and they come up with a date of 1260. They stick the Exodus in the middle of the 13th century and then look around for a Pharaoh and say that the Pharaoh had to have been on the throne for a long time because Moses was out of the country for a while. So they end up posing Rameses II as the pharaoh of Egypt. Another passages that confirms this is Judges 11:15-27. Jephthah is in conflict with the Ammonites who were oppressing Israel. He argues that Israel has had possession of the Trans-Jordan area for three hundred years. All would agree that it was somewhere around 1100 BC when Jephthah defeated the Ammonites. Well, if that was in 1100 and we add 300 to it, that is 1400. So that would mean the conquest took place about 1400 BC. If the Exodus takes place in 1446 BC, they spend a year at Sinai, that’s 1445 BC, and forty years in the wilderness, that’s 1405, it is pretty close. So that is another confirmation in the text that we are dealing with the period in the mid-fifteenth century. Furthermore, God said to Abram as a prophecy in Genesis 15:13, “Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years.” On top of that, Moses in Exodus 12:40-41 says that it was 430 years between the time that Jacob entered Egypt and the Exodus. That puts the birth of Jacob at about 1876. This date is another thing that is contested. The liberals come along and say it was really only 215 years, and they base that on a verse in the New Testament, in Galatians 3:17 where it sounds like there is only 430 years from Abraham to the Exodus. “And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later …” Later than what? Notice what verse 16 says, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made.” God made the same promise about the land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In fact, the last time that God reiterates the promise to Jacob is in Genesis 45, just before they leave Canaan to go down into Egypt. So if we date from that last promise to the law it is 430 years, as stated in Galatians. Another evidence that there must be at least 400 years is to just add up the key people. Levi is 44 years old when he enters Egypt. He was 137 when he died, and that means he has 93 years in Egypt. His son Kohath lived for 133 years. Obviously there is a little bit of overlap but not a lot. Amram lives to be 137, and Moses eaves the land when he is 80. If we add all these numbers up we come up with the number 443. Obviously there is some overlap, so even if we take 100 years out for overlap we still have to have a minimum of 350 between the time Jacob goes into the land and the giving of the law. So this doesn’t support a short time in Egypt but a long time in Egypt. That means that if the Exodus was in 1446 and 430 years is added to that, then Jacob with about 70 with him entered into Egypt in 1876 BC. We know that Isaac was born in 2066. He was 60 years old when Jacob was born. Genesis 25:6. Since Abram was 100 years old when Isaac was born, then that means Abram was born in 2166 BC.
Going back to look at our passage, we know that it is in Ur, they are surrounded by idolatry, there is the worship of the moon, the worship of the stars, the development of astrology; all of this is going on. But the point of this introduction is that the line has a dead end. It ends with Sarah. Her name means princess. Abram means exalted father—not referring to him, it is referring to Terah. This tells us that Terah was part of the nobility at the time in Ur. He was part of the aristocracy under Nimrod. Nimrod would still have been very much alive. It is clear just from the name of Abram and what we see of them that the wealth of Abram was incredible. But Sarah is barren, and there is a doctrine in Scripture, the doctrine of the barren woman. There are only a few women mentioned who are barren, and it is not just because they can’t have children but that God is doing something.
The doctrine of the barren woman
1) The significance of barrenness is not some sin on the part of the woman. With the barren women in Scripture that are mentioned the barrenness is related to something significant that God is going to do in their life.
2) Sarah, Genesis 11:30; Rebekah, Genesis 25:21; Rachel, Genesis 29:31; the mother of Samson, Judges 13; Hannah, the mother of Samuel, 1 Samuel 1; Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. The seventh woman whose womb gets introduced into Scripture is Mary. The empty dead womb or the barren women is all a type of then fact that God will bring a special life into the womb of Mary. With these barren women their wombs are incapable of producing a child, and of even carrying a child in the case of Sarah. It was just not physically possible. God is going to perform a miracle in bringing life where there is death.
3) There was a spiritual significance to this. The absence of barren women was to indicate Israel’s spirituality and God’s blessing on them. The presence of barren women was to indicate that God was judging the nation. Exodus 23:26, “There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.” If they obeyed the law there wouldn’t be any miscarriages and there wouldn’t be any barren women. It was a sign. God would sovereignly control this situation depending on the spiritual status of the nation.
4) Thus, the barren womb in these pictures portrays the emptiness and the lifelessness of spiritually dead mankind. The barren womb is a picture of man in spiritual death.
5) In each of these cases God miraculously brings forth life where there is death. It is a picture of regeneration. Only God can solve the problem of spiritual death.
6) Ultimately this is a picture of the virgin womb of Mary, that there a unique life would begin in the womb of Mary who would solve the problem of everyone’s spiritual death, and He would bring life where there was death and be the source of regeneration.
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067b-A New Covenant; A New Dispensation; Gen. 12:1
Everything from the end of Genesis chapter 11 to the end of the book we are told about has something to do with the Abrahamic covenant, with either the land or with the promised seed that God is developing. That becomes the structure for understanding and interpreting Genesis. There is a dispensational shift at this point. Acts 1:6-7 occurs just before the Lord’s ascension. “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” The very question that the disciples are asking recognizes that they don’t have a kingdom at this point. Jesus’ answer to them is clearly a recognition of the fact that the kingdom hasn’t been given at all. They are not in any kind of kingdom stage. Jesus tells them ten days before the church age begins that it was not for them to know the times [CHRONOS/xronoj]] and the epochs [KAIROS/kairoj]. The basic idea of CHRONOS is a succession of events, one thing following another in the course of time. It is a word that is used in Galatians 4:4 in terms of the fullness of time. Often the word refers to events in fulfillment of prophetic prediction. KAIROS indicates a broader expanse of time, time periods that have certain definable characteristics. We would compare it to our word “age.” A third word that is used, though not in this passage, is AIONOS/a)iwnoj]. But just twenty years later when Paul writes to the Thessalonians, he says, “Now as for the time and the epochs, brethren, you have no need for anything to be written to you.” The implication is they already know. What has happened between Jesus’ ascension in 33 AD and Paul’s epistle to the Thessalonians in about 50-53 AD is that the church age began and with it the giving of special revelation called mystery doctrine of the church age. With that package of information revealed to the apostle they are told things about prophecy and the coming kingdom. So it is not that we are not to know anything about times and seasons but that Jesus was telling the apostles right before Pentecost that they didn’t need to know it then. But they have been informed of it now; there was more revelation. AIONOS or age is sometimes used in a double sense, and that means from age to age or eternity. An age is similar to KAIROS indicating an age in human history, and an age whether it is similar to KAIROS or AIONOS may include several dispensations. The word dispensation actually doesn’t have a time frame, it emphasizes the responsibility given by God. The other words have the temporal element to them. So when we are looking at dispensations we are talking about the fact that God delegates certain responsibilities in different periods of time. He administers things differently. A dispensation is a distinct and identifiable administration in the development of God’s plan and purposes for human history—Ephesians 3:2; Colossians 1:25, 26. God manages the entirety of human history as a household, moving humanity through sequential stages of His administration, determined by the level of revelation He has provided up to that time in history. As we go through time more and more revelation is given, and as we see the difference between the church age and the Old Testament more divine enablement is given—we in the church age are indwelt and filled by the Holy Spirit; we have a completed canon of Scripture, so there are no revelatory gifts functioning today. Each administrative period is characterized by revelation which specifies responsibility, a test in relation to those responsibilities or an evaluation. There is almost always a failure to pass the test because part of what God is demonstrating is that man is incapable of doing anything apart from his complete sustenance, and then God’s gracious provision of a solution when that failure occurs. So these elements are what we look for to try to identify when a dispensation changes. In a dispensation here is a time when one dispensation ends and another begins, but there may be a transition period. For example, there was a short transition period between the crucifixion of Christ, which was the end of the law, and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost some fifty days later. The understanding of dispensationalism emphasizes the divine administration of history. We have to recognize that in history God is the ultimate cause. You can’t interpret history today or yesterday without a divine viewpoint framework.
One thing we understand from this is that new revelation will designate a shift from one dispensation to another. That is what we have in Genesis 12—new revelation. God is going to single out one individual and give him a whole new set of promises and responsibilities. That means that something is happening. God does that with other people in history but it is not a dispensational shift because he is still working within the framework of what He has already done with Abraham. When we move from one dispensation to another some things will remain the same and other things will change. Another thing we learn is that each dispensation has its own responsibilities and its own tests. Finally we learn that the dispensations move us in a certain direction. Each dispensation is designed to demonstrate different points in relationship to the angelic conflict.
In the dispensation of Israel there is going to be the age of the patriarchs and the age of the law. The foundation for this shift is an understanding of the covenants. We have the initial covenants—Edenic, Adamic and Noahic—and then the first of the Jewish covenants. These are unconditional, eternal covenants and are not dependent upon the Jews’ obedience. The first of these, the foundational covenant, is the Abrahamic covenant, and there are three elements to it: land, seed, and blessing. The land covenant is further expanded in Deuteronomy 30, the seed aspect in the Davidic covenant in 2 Samuel 7, and the blessing aspect in the New covenant in Jeremiah 31. The Abrahamic covenant becomes the foundational covenant for understanding not only the Old Testament but the New Testament as well.
Genesis 12:1, “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee.” The verb amar which is the Hebrew word for say here is a qal perfect, and a perfect tense verb in the Hebrew. It can have a sort of pluperfect sense: “the Lord had said to Abram.” Here we see that the motivation to move to the land of Canaan was from God. God is going to separate Abram from that pagan, rebellious culture. Believers are to live a life separate and distinct from the cosmic system around them. There was a physical separation in the Old Testament because God was establishing a new nation on a new piece of real estate.
Genesis 12:2, “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.” Here is the seed idea. Here is a childless man whose wife is barren and God is going to regenerate in the physical sense as a sign of spiritual regeneration as He builds this new nation.
Genesis 12:3, “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” So we see the three elements here of the Abraham covenant: a land promise, an emphasis on the seed or the descendants, and a promise of blessing.
Genesis 13:14-17 gives another indication, “And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.” The separation from Lot had to do with God fine-tuning Abram so that there was no interference with the seed. In these verses we again have the emphasis on the seed, the descendants, and on the land.
Genesis 15:1-21 extends the borders of the land, from the northern borders on the Euphrates all the way down to the south-western border of Egypt. In the meantime Abram is to stay in the land as basically a stranger, and eventually his descendants will go into slavery in Egypt. Genesis 17:1-21 reiterates the covenant and gives the sign of the covenant which is circumcision. In Genesis 22:15-18 there is a reaffirmation of the covenant after Abraham’s test as to whether he would be willing to sacrifice Isaac. So these are the basic scriptures.
Every covenant is actually a contract. God is the party of the first part because He is the one initiating the covenant or contract with Abraham, and Abraham is party of the second part as the representative of what will be the Jewish nation. The thing that we have to understand about a contract is that the provisions are written and spelled out in order to keep everybody honest in fulfilling the obligations of the contract. Abraham has no conditions placed upon him. God is giving this to him. This is called a royal grant treaty in Old Testament studies because it follows the pattern of a king who is willing to give or bestow a gift upon an obedient subject.
There are thirteen provisions given in the Abrahamic covenant. We extrapolate that from all of these different passages.
1) God promises to develop a great nation from Abraham. Although there will be many nations the primary focus is on one nation, and that is Israel.
2) God promises an actual piece of real estate. He gives the boundaries. Genesis 12:7; 13:14-17; 15:7-21; 17:8.
3) Abraham was to be blessed. This went into effect immediately. We see that by chapter fifteen Abraham is probably one of the wealthiest men in the world.
4) God promises that Abraham’s name will be great. He will be famous.
5) Those who bless him will be blessed. Those who are positive towards his descendants will be blessed.
6) Those who curse him [treat him lightly] will be harshly punished.
7) In Abraham all nations will be blessed. That is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the seed, according to Galatians 3. So it is through Abraham that everyone is blessed.
8) He is told that Sarah will have a son. Genesis 15:1-4; 17:15-21.
9) God promises that his descendants will spend 400 years in bondage in Egypt. Genesis 15:13-15.
10) Other nations will come from Abraham, not just the Jews. Many Arab nations can trace themselves back to Ishmael or Abraham’s second wide Keturah, Genesis 17:3-6.
11) God changes his name from Abram (Exalted Father) to Abraham (father of multitudes).
12) Sarai’s name is changed to Sarah, from My Princes to The Princes. Genesis 17:5.
13) The token or sign of the covenant is circumcision.
Everything changes. God changes history because of a very private act to Abram. This is a private communication to Abram, it is not trumpeted throughout the ancient near east.
How do we categorize these provisions? First of all, God promises certain things to Abraham. That he would be the father of a great nation; that he himself would possess the land; and that is an important point because Abraham never possessed the land. So Jesus is going to come along and use that as an argument for resurrection. Other nations will come from him. Kings will arise from him. He is promised personal blessings during his life time. He is promised that his name would be great. There are also other promises to the seed, to Israel. There is the promise that the nation will be great, that in its destiny there will be an innumerable number, that they will possess this land forever, and they are promised ultimate victory over their enemies. To the Gentiles there are promises, that they will receive blessing if they bless the descendants of Abraham and cursing if they curse them, and they are promised spiritual blessings or salvation through the seed of Abraham.
The three basic themes of the covenant are land, seed, and blessing.
Confirmations
Abraham had eight sons—Ishmael, Isaac, and six other sons, from three different women, Hagar, Sarah, and Keturah. But God only confirmed the covenant with one of those sons: Isaac. It is through Abraham and Isaac that the line goes. Genesis 26:2-4, God confirms the covenant with Isaac. “And the LORD appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of: sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father; and I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” This is a reconfirmation of the land, seed, and blessing promises of he Abrahamic covenant.
Isaac in turn had two sons, Esau and Jacob, but the covenant is only confirmed to Jacob. Genesis 28:13, “And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed; and thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.” It is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that is important. It is the descendants through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that makes one a Jew.
This sets the stage for the age of the patriarchs, which covers the period in the Bible from Genesis 12:1 through Exodus 18:27. The central person in this dispensation is Abraham, so the major focal point is understanding Abraham. We call this the dispensation of the patriarchs because this was the group through whom God worked. The responsibility during this dispensation was to obey the Abrahamic covenant, i.e. to keep the seed isolated from the surrounding pagan environment. He failed to do it, so God had to take him out of the land and take him to Egypt because the Egyptians were so racist they hated the Semites, and they were not going to intermarry or having anything to do with the Semites at all. They isolated them in the little room of Goshen and it was there that God protected them and they grew from seventy individuals who went down to Egypt with Jacob to a nation of about 2 to 3-million in just a short period of 400 years. The test to see if they would remain separate and be a blessing: they failed through intermarriage with the Canaanites and threatened the seed, and so God judged them by sending them in slavery down to Egypt. But in grace God preserved the nation and He delivered them from slavery to bring them back to the land in order work out His plans and purposes.
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068b-Called Out: Doctrine of Separation; Gen. 12:1
There is a major shift taking place in Genesis 12:1 because of what had happened earlier in Genesis 11. We can’t separate Genesis 12:1-3 from the context of the deterioration and decline into cosmic thinking as exemplified in the tower of Babel incident. Because the entire human race had degenerated in these ten generations since the flood God is now going to intervene in history in a different way from the way He did at the flood.
God appears to Abraham, and in this passage we have what is called the call of Abraham. The response to this call is not salvific, not related to salvation. When Abraham responds that is not the basis for being saved. He is already saved, has already been justified, we have the same kind of construction in Genesis 15:6—“Abraham had believed God and it was already accounted to him for righteousness.” That is referring back to his salvation at some unknown time prior to this call to get out of his co0untry. Because he was already saved this is seen as an award, a contingent blessing distributed to Abraham in time. And the pattern for the Abrahamic covenant was based on a type of contract or covenant called a royal grant treaty. A royal grant treaty was where some kind of real estate or property was given by a sovereign or king to an obedient and loyal servant. It is given unconditionally as a result of something they have already done. The indication is that Abram has been faithful to God living in the midst of this paganism in Ur of the Chaldees, and God for His own reasons and His own purposes decides to grant this gift to Abram. He is now going to work in a unique way in history by limiting Himself to working through one individual and his descendants.
The context of this mandate is the context of the paganism of the tower of Babel. In order to accomplish His purposes God has to call out Abram from the midst of this culture, because He knows that if Abram stays where he is God can’t accomplish through Abram what He wants to through Abram. So He gives him a command which emphasizes separation. He is to remove himself from the influence of the country he is in, even from his close family and relatives, and from the house of his father. The interesting thing is that Abram responds to this just as we respond to God’s commands most of the time—with partial obedience—because we just don’t have the maturity often to fully trust God. So we see this response on Abram’s part which is in stages. He leaves his country and he goes to Haran, but he takes his father with him and he takes his nephew Lot with him. What we will see in the next few chapters is that God has to work with Abram where he is to finally cause this separation. It happens because his father dies, and then Abram and Lot goes down to Canaan. In the next chapter it is going to be obvious that there is a conflict of interest between Lot and his servants and Abram and his, and it becomes necessary to separate. It is going to take God about ten years of working with Abram to get him to finally separate himself from these negative influences so that he can be in a position where he is exclusively trusting God. He is operating on faith but he is not being completely obedient. We are the same way. Growth comes incrementally, we don’t just jump into full-fledged spiritual obedience. But that is where the grace of God comes in. As long as we are alive God still has a plan for our life and God always supplies the resources.
What is going on here in God’s plan for the human race is that He is faced with a rebellious human race. Everyone is in rebellion against Him and about the only one, or one of the few, who is obedient to Him is Abram. So God is going to choose to work through Abram in order to bless the rest of humanity. He is going to choose out Abram and his descendants to function as a counter culture, a sort of fifth column within the kingdom that Satan is establishing on the earth. Through cosmic thinking Satan has hoisted his pseudo religions and idolatrous systems and they are dominating the thinking of man.
The core of cosmic thinking is human arrogance. Two things are operational as a result of human arrogance. There is the operation in the area of man’s autonomy. We are declaring our independence from God, that we don’t need God, we can manage just fine, thank you very much. On the other hand, there is an antagonism, a hostility, an enmity toward God. But what operates cyclically is arrogance: self-reliance which is at the very core of autonomy, self-reliance as opposed top dependence upon God, the faith-rest drill. This is why it is so hard for people to exercise the faith-rest drill. It calls upon us to completely rely upon God to supply all of our needs, to trust in Him and rest and relax. But at the very core is self-reliance, that I am gong to provide stability, tranquility and contentment for myself and if I don’t do it nobody else will, including God. This is where things start: this element in our thinking of self-reliance, autonomy. That leads to the second arrogance skill which is self-absorption. We focus on our self; it is self, self, self; our own well-being is at the heart of everything. The more we are absorbed with ourselves the more we become self-indulgent. We give in to the lust patterns of the sin nature. Then the next is self-deception. Now we are living divorced from reality. We can’t understand the ways things are, why things are going the way they are, because we have created an entire construct to explain life that is not based on Bible doctrine or spiritual dynamics. So we are operating in our own little bubble of self-deception, and at the core of self-deception we have substituted our own lusts and desires for God and are worshipping ourselves and are into self-deification—worshipping the creature rather than the creator.
This is the environment in which Abram is operating. It is no different from the environment in which we are operating, it is only exaggerated to a much higher extent. So God says that if He is going to accomplish in human history what He wants to He has to get Abram out. This leads to a very important doctrine that is found throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, the doctrine of separation. God has called us to be separate.
The doctrine of separation
1) Separation begins with a mental attitude that results in removing from removing from our lives elements and people that are either distractions, or may become distractions, in our own spiritual advance.
2) Separation, then, begins in the believer’s personal life as he learns and applies doctrine in the direction of his own sin nature. The Bible says that separation starts in relation to the sin nature. Romans 6:11, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Remember that death is Scripture doesn’t mean cessation of existence, it means separation from. Cf. Romans 8:13, “For if ye live after the flesh [sin nature], ye shall die.” That is not talking about spiritual death, it is talking about carnal death. It is talking about the fact that if you are a believer and operating in carnality then all of the blessings of the abundant Christian life are not yours. Even though you have eternal life you might as well be dead, and you are living in carnal death. “…but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” We are to put to death the deeds of the body. That is a calling for separation in the believer’s life from sin.
3) Separation involves separation from human viewpoint thinking. It is not just the sin nature that is influencing the life but also all that human viewpoint garbage that is floating around in the soul. All of the ideas we have grown up with need to be excised by the scalpel of the Word of God. We need to have that stuff flushed out of our system. This is what Paul is talking about in Romans 12:1, 2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy [set apart], acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world [cosmic thinking]: but be ye transformed by the renewing [renovation] of your mind [PHRONEW/phronew: thought systems], that ye may prove [DOKIMAZO/dokimazw] what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” dokimazo indicates a demonstration of something, “that you may demonstrate.” This is what happens as we advance spiritually and we renovate our thinking and apply doctrine the Holy Spirit is changing us from the inside out, He is producing the fruit of the Spirit, the character of Christ in our life, and it demonstrates that the will of God is good and acceptable and perfect. We become a living, walking testimony of the grace of God in the angelic conflict. So this calls for separation from human viewpoint thinking. So the first two categories of separation has to do with what is going on between the believer’s ears. They don’t have to do with what is going on necessarily in the world around him. Although if the world around the believer is producing temptations where he easily succumbs to sin, then that means he has to make some choices about where he goes, who he associates with, or the things he does, recognizing that if he is in an environment that easily leads him to sin then he needs to change his environment.
4) We are commanded to separate from certain kinds of carnal believers: backslidden, reversionistic believers. This is because there are certain types of carnality that are contagious.
5) We are to separate from believers who reject sound doctrine. If there is anything that can destroy our own spiritual life it is when we associate with people who don’t hold to sound doctrine. They say, “Well you know, there are a lot of different views in evangelicalism. There are folks who believe this and there are folks who believe that, but we can all just get along and we don’t have to draw these doctrinal distinctions.” There is an embedded blasphemy there, and that is the idea that God doesn’t communicate clearly enough for us to take strong positions on doctrine. Wishy-washy people don’t really think God communicated things clearly, so you can think it means this and I can think it means that, and somebody else thinks it means something else, so we can all just put our arms together and emote on our common experience that Jesus loves us. Then we’ll all go home and be happy that we went to church this morning! This is not the biblical view. 2 Thessalonians 3:6, “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which he received of us.” This isn’t tradition for tradition’s sake, this is the apostolic doctrine contained in the Scripture. This is a mandate. Then in verses 14 & 15, “And if any man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.” The goal is restoration, not exclusion; but if there is no response then there is no option other than to go separate ways.
6) We are to separate from believers who make their own internal lust patterns the motivation for their life. Romans 16:17, 18, “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark [note] them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly [lust patterns]; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.”
7) Separation from the immoral social scene where one’s norms and standards are gradually eroded through peer pressure. 1 Peter 4:4, “Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you.” Proverbs 1:10-19, “My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: we shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: for their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.” 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good habits.” The idea there is good positive habits of the spiritual life.
8) We need to separate from unbelievers to avoid having our doctrine compromised. 2 Corinthians 6:14, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” This involves some types of business partnerships, not necessarily all. It involves marriage, dating, intimate social life. We are to separate from unbelievers where their influence can affect our own doctrine.
9) We need to separate from believers who are enmeshed in religious modes of operation and apostasy. Cf. 2 Corinthians 6:17; 2 Timothy 3:5.
It was important for Abram to be separate from the culture of Ur of the Chaldees, from the paganism, the cosmic thinking, so that he could advance spiritually. This is why God called him to go out. And the response was by faith, Hebrews 11:8, “By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.” When God calls us we may not always know where the Lord is taking us in our spiritual life and in our Christian service, but we are to recognize that we are living our lives in terms of an eternal destiny and that we have to be prepared for that destiny; and this means that there has to be a separation in this life.
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069b-Walking by Faith; Gen 12:1; Acts 7:2; Heb 11:8
What we have been emphasizing as we go through Genesis is that the events are not simply historical events. They are not just nice stories, biographies, and not just to help us understand certain individuals, but they have to do with teaching specific doctrines and upholding certain doctrines historically. Here the shift in Abraham is going to be on faith, justification, and God’s provision of the savior historically. What we see here is how faith is strengthened in Abraham. In Genesis chapter 12 Abram hears a command from God but he is incomplete or partial in his obedience. We will see from Hebrews 11 that Abram is not an immature baby believer at this point. There are certain things that he understands about the plan and purpose of God. When he obeys God by leaving Ur he is obeying because he understands that there is a city built without hands. In other words, he is at a point where he is perceiving that he is making present time decisions based on his future destiny. So we call that a personal sense of eternal destiny. He is reaching spiritual adolescence. But in chapter 12 he is partial in his obedience, and when we look at the outworking of God in his life we see the removal of his father through death, and that is when he moves on, but he still takes Lot with him. Then Lot is removed. So God works with us where we are. That is a crucial principle of grace. God doesn’t meet us where we ought to be, He meets us where we are. When God starts dealing with Abraham his faith is partial, and we see God dealing with Abraham through various tests, various situations; there is increased relationship with God, Abraham becomes known as the friend of God, and then when we come to Genesis chapter 22 we see the apex of Abraham’s spiritual growth when God appears to Abraham and tells him to sacrifice his only son, the one who was the promised seed. Abraham is immediately on his way and takes Isaac with him up to the mountain with no hesitancy whatsoever. See what has happened to Abraham’s faith? He has gone from incomplete, partial obedience, taking halting steps, to where he has this tremendous example of trusting God in Genesis 22 and he demonstrates that he has reached spiritual maturity. That is the progress we all go through.
So as a result of teaching about faith we are going to focus on two elements actually in Abraham. One is faith in relation to justification because he becomes the standard example in the New Testament for justification by faith alone. Then faith in terms of the faith-rest drill as it applies to sanctification—experiential sanctification, our spiritual growth and spiritual advance.
With regard to the doctrine of separation we have to be careful of a distorted concept of separation. Separation ultimately has to do with separation from sin. We have to learn to separate from sin in our own life. Romans 7ff talks about putting to death the deeds of the flesh. This also involves separation from the world. That doesn’t mean leaving the world, isolating in monastic churches, etc. Separation from the world means to quit thinking like a pagan, to think biblically; not just from the content of our thought but the structure of our thought. Separation is from the sin nature first of all, and from the world, and as we do that it is going to have some effect perhaps on family, friends, and social life. What begins to occur to us, despite the fact that we may truly enjoy friendship of some people who aren’t believers, we realize that they can become a distraction in our own lives. As we grow up we realize that there are some friends that we have had since we were kids who get in the way of our Christian life. Separating in Scripture has to do with separating from those people, circumstances, and cultural things that are a distraction to one’s Christian life: spiritual growth and occupation with Christ. Hebrews 12:1, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” The Christian life is a race and sometimes family and friends, favorite hobbies, are nothing more than distractions to the spiritual life.
Acts 7:2, “And he said, Men, brethren, and fathers, hearken; The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Charran.” The word “appear” is the Greek verb HORAO [o(raw] in an aorist passive indicative. The aorist refers to a past event in terms of its entirety without reference to its beginning, its progress or its ending. The passive looks odd because, you say, How do you passively appear? But Arndt and Gingrich lexicon notes that the passive voice of HORAO has an active sense of becoming visible or appearing to someone. This is the idea: that God is always present to us but in this sense He manifests Himself. So this is an Old Testament theophany—the word comes from a combination of THEOS [qeoj], God, and PHONEO [fonew], to appear. Here this means an appearance of God, but it is not God the Father, it is God the Son. God the Father never appeared to anyone; only God the Son—John 1:18. “...when he was in Mesopotamia,” not in Haran, which is up in Syria. The Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Abraham before he left. This tells us that the threefold command there to leave Ur with the threefold promise of land, seed, and blessing came when he was still back in Ur. The verb there when it says, “the Lord [had] said” in Acts is a tense in the Hebrew of Genesis 12:1 which should be translated with a completed sense. The result is Acts 7:4, “Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Charran: and from thence, when his father was dead, he removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell.” So why does Abram move? He moves because God spoke to him. God gave him a specific body of revelation; God gave him content. He is not just moving out because he “felt the Spirit was moving him.”
Acts 7:5, “And he gave him none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on: yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.” The concept of inheritance comes out of the Old Testament and this is one of the first places to understand it. It is the Greek word KLERONOMIA [klhronomia]. When we think of the word “inherit” we think of receiving something from someone who has died. We receive certain possessions, and this is really the core idea in inheritance: the idea of possession, of ownership, of having something that is one’s own. So Stephen emphasizes the principle that God gave Abraham historically no inheritance. He had no possession in the land. God promised him the land, that the land would be his; but he lived out his life without ever owning land. The only piece of land that he owned was the burial ground for his wife Sarah, and then for himself. But there was the promise that God was going to give it to him.
What was it that that enabled Abraham to pack his bags and to move out of his comfort zone in Ur of the Chaldees? That is given to us in Hebrews 11:8. This is the key dynamic. Hebrews 11 is often understood as the hall of faith chapter on the Old Testament, and there is a lot of truth to that. It is an emphasis on Old Testament heroes who trusted God and had doctrine in their souls. It starts of with the familiar “By faith” which is simply the dative case of the noun pistis [pistij]. Here we are making a distinction between the noun and the verb. The verb will emphasize more than anything the act of trusting or relying on something; the emphasis is on action, whereas the noun indicates frequently not simply the act but the object, the reality. Faith isn’t simply an act of trusting, it is trusting in something. The concept of faith for Abraham is not just the act of trusting but it is what he is trusting in. It is the doctrine in his soul, the revelation that God gave him. So we read in Hebrews 11:8, “By faith [by doctrine, the content and focus of faith, the object of faith] Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.” The very verb “obeyed” emphasizes the fact that there was something to obey. It is the aorist active indicative of HUPAKOUO [u(pokouw] and it means he obeyed, submitted to God. It means to trust God and do what God says to do. Has Abraham received an inheritance yet? No. This is one of the arguments Jesus used for resurrection when speaking to the Pharisees.
Abraham knew that God had spoken to him but he did not know where he was going. The only way we know that God is speaking to us is to open our Bible and read what the Bible says. Our decisions are based on revelation. God doesn’t speak to us face to face as He did with Abraham or Moses, but through the Word of God and knowledge of the principles of the Word of God.
Hebrews 11:9, “By faith [by trust in the doctrine he had received] he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.” He knew the land would be his but it wasn’t his yet. He wasn’t to live today as if he were already the king or ruling royal authority in the Millennial kingdom. Why is that important? Because that is what the charismatics are doing with “name it, claim it” stuff! That is why at the very core of their whole concept is this idea that we are in a present form of the kingdom. But if we are not in a present form of the kingdom and are in the church age, and if we are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ we are like Abraham. This is going to be the inheritance, but it is not now. So we don’t act as though we own it now. It won’t be ours until we return in the Millennial kingdom. Abraham had to live his life in light of eternity, the same as we do. We live today in the light of eternity with our focus on where God is taking us in preparation. Abraham recognized that he was in a temporary circumstance.
Hebrews 11:10, “For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” This city wasn’t there; this city was the new Jerusalem and it was not present during his life time. This city is not coming until the future, until the Millennial kingdom.
How did Abraham know about this city? It is not in the text. What does that tell us? It tells us that there was some sort of 9overstating it a little bit) Noahic or Adamic Bible—not necessarily a canon of Scripture, but just using the term generally, but there was some body of revelation that was known to Abraham, to Noah, to Enoch who walked with God before the flood, that isn’t present for us today. We don’t know some of the things that they knew but obviously Abraham knew some things that aren’t included in the Pentateuch. Moses doesn’t reveal to us the basis for Abraham’s knowledge about God and the specific things that Abraham knew about the plan and purposes of God. We also get hints from the book of Jude which quotes the apocryphal book about Enoch that apparently Enoch knew some things related to prophecy and eschatology that aren’t given to us in Genesis. New Testament passages give us hints that these guys really had a body of revelatory knowledge that isn’t available to us today, and it was on that basis that they lived their spiritual lives. Abraham knew that there was a future and he knew what that future was, he is not just stumbling around. He has an understanding of dispensations and he has an understanding of eschatology.
The basic issue is the walk by faith. This is an example of walking by faith. Abraham doesn’t know where God is taking him but he knows that to fulfill his responsibilities as a believer in the Old Testament he has to leave Ur and go forward, and that God is going to provide for him along the way. There is nothing that Abraham is going to encounter that God didn’t know in eternity past and make provision for. God knew that Abraham would run into a famine. What did Abraham do? He said in effect, “I’m not going to trust you, Lord, I’m going down to Egypt.” Time and again we see Abraham learn lessons the hard way, just as we do. But we know that when we are obeying Him, God is always going to make provision. No matter what happens in our life God is always going to provide what we need for our spiritual sustenance and growth. The basic mechanic for walking in the Christian life is that we walk by faith.
The basic meaning of the word “faith.” There are a couple of different words that are used in the New Testament related to faith and are based on the same root. The first is the noun PISTIS [pistij] and is used as an attribute, a description or an adjective, and indicates reliability and trustworthiness, that which is dependable and has integrity. For example, Titus 2:10, “Not pilfering, but showing all good faith; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.” There faith is used in the sense of reliability, dependability and integrity. As believers we should show all integrity. It comes from faith, from our knowledge of doctrine and application of doctrine. Another passage that is used this way is 2 Thessalonians 1:4, “So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith …” It is talking about the results of their trust in doctrine which produces dependability and integrity. A second way in which it is used is the idea of the action. It means faith, confidence, trust, that we recognize and accept Bible doctrine. So in the active sense it has the sense of trust or reliance upon something. Then we can break that sense down into three sub-categories.
The first is in the arena of saving faith. The faith that is operational at the instant of salvation is a faith or a trust that has as its object the cross, the work of Christ. It is used in the sense in Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” That is trust in the cross. The second way in which it is used is post-salvation faith-rest drill, the basic mechanic of how the believer grows and matures. Here the object is not the cross, it is still trust, but the object is now the revelation of God—Bible doctrine. We are going to trust the promises of God, the principles given in the revelation of God. This is the basis for the faith-rest drill. The first stage is mixing faith with promises, the second stage is that we draw from those promises various rationales or reasons for trusting God, and third, we draw from those rationales doctrinal conclusions and apply them to the situation. All of this has to do with that active sense of trusting God in our post-salvation Christian life and growth. Then we have a sort of passive meaning to faith. It is not the act of believing but it is focusing on what is believed, the content or the object of faith. In other words, the doctrines we believe. It is used this way in Galatians 1:23, referring to Paul himself: “But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith [the doctrine, the body of belief] which once he destroyed.” This is the sense that we have in Hebrews 11. It is not just the act of faith, it is what is believed, the doctrine, the body of doctrine. So we could say that these mean’s faith was the body of doctrine they believed. Faith resulted in action. By the doctrine Abraham believed, he obeyed...by the doctrine he believed he dwelt in the land of promise. It is the belief in that doctrine; it is trusting that doctrine.
The object of faith at salvation is the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The object of faith for the spiritual life is the promises and principles of Scripture and Bible doctrine. That is the function of growing up. Faith, then, focuses on the body of doctrine, revealed content. This is what happened with Abraham and is how he was able to go forward and advanced in his spiritual life, because God gives him specific content, specific directions, and he trusts in that even when he can’t see where it is going. Do we make mistakes? Sometimes, but God’s grace is always there. If we are still alive God still has a plan for us.
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070b-Abram: Worldwide Blessing; Gen. 12:1-4
One of the key things to understand here is the contrast between Abram and what God is doing with his life and what God is allowing to continue in the rest of the world. The pattern goes into the doctrine of separation, that Gold calls out a people for His name. In the Old Testament the key people are the Jews, the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That doesn’t mean that every Jew is saved by means of birth, but God is working through them to be a missionary organization. That is another element in the first part of Genesis chapter twelve. These first three verses provide a foundation for missions. This is God’s insertion in the Old Testament into the Gentile world that is in rebellion against Him.
Verse 1 of this chapter expresses the divine plan to separate Abram from the divine cosmic system. We’ve seen that he is living in the very heart of the kingdom of Nimrod. That provides the context. Then He gives the command to separate and then there is the summary of the divine promise in verse 2: “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great.” We have to understand that last clause, “make your name great,” in juxtaposition to what has just happened at the tower of Babel. If we look at Genesis 11:4 when the followers of Nimrod gather together they say, “Come let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves.” In contrast to man who is constantly trying to solve his own problems, elevate himself, make something from his own accomplishments independently from God, you have God who is the one who is going to work to make Abram’s name great. What this shows is at the very core of a lot of international activity is spiritual motivation. This is one of the things we are never going to get on the evening news, we are only going to get this if we come to it from a framework of Scripture. The most important thing that is going on in the history of mankind has to do with what God is doing in history. That structure begins by understanding this juxtaposition between the tower of Babel and that you have one segment of humanity that is in rebellion against God and that God started to work in the midst of this rebellious mass of humanity with one individual, Abram. And it is going to be through his descendants that He ultimately is going to win back what has been taken by Satan.
As we look at these verses, verse 2 represents the divine promise. Verse 3 summarizes the divine protection. He promises certain things in verse 2 and then He gives protection in verse 3, “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee.” That provides an important structure for all of human history, too: that human history does not revolve around God’s plan for the United States of America. It didn’t revolve around God’s plan for Britain 100 years ago; it didn’t revolve around God’s plan for Germany under Bismark; it revolves around what God is doing for Israel. We may be in the church age but that does not mean that what God is doing among the Jews is inconsequential. The focus today and since the day of Pentecost in approximately 33 AD has been on the church, a unique people of God; nevertheless the Jews are still God’s people, and especially if we are near the end of the church age when things are going to culminate with the church age and with the church and the shift is going to be towards Israel, then that again becomes important. The promise of God’s blessing and protection to the Jews is embedded in verse 3. The conclusion is that all the families of the earth will be blessed.
What we see in the life of Abraham as we go through this is four key doctrines that are picked up later on in the New Testament and developed. Abraham becomes the picture of these doctrines. The first is faith alone justification; that we are saved by faith alone in Christ alone. Paul uses and develops this in Galatians chapter four. How do you understand justification? That justification is apart from the works of the law. Justification doesn’t have anything to do with personal morality, it doesn’t have anything to do with religion, it doesn’t have anything to do with church attendance; justification has to do with simply faith alone in Christ alone. The key verse for this is Genesis 15:6, and this is picked up and discussed in Romans chapter 4. The second key doctrine that is pictured in the life of Abraham is the post-salvation faith-rest drill. In chapters 12 through 25 Abraham is going to go through approximately ten tests. In each test we will see how certain problem-solving devices worked. Abraham becomes a picture for the faith-rest drill primarily, but other elements enter in. That is what the writer of Hebrews picks up on in chapter eleven. Also in Hebrews eleven we learn that another key doctrine with Abraham is a personal sense of his eternal destiny, that he is not just living his life in terms of the immediate but that he has a focus on the city that is built without hands and whose architect is God. He is focusing on eternal things. He never in his temporal life ever owned any land other than his burial site in the promised land, but he knows that is going to be his and he lived in light of that reality. Then the fourth key doctrine is election because God chooses to work through Abraham and his descendants. What is very important to understand when getting into the doctrine of election in the New Testament is that we have to recognize that just because God doesn’t say why He chose someone doesn’t mean that there isn’t a reason that He chose someone.
We have seen that the initial call of Abraham took place while he was still in Ur of the Chaldees. So he is at home with his family in the center of paganism, the birth of cosmic thinking. God calls him out from the midst of that and what God is doing is setting up a fifth column in the devil’s world. The devil becomes the god of this age, the ruler of this world, after Adam’s fall. Now God is going to call out this one individual in the devil’s world. The world is at enmity with God, and God has inserted a counter-revolutionary force, a counter-cultural force inside the world. In the Old Testament it was the Jews and in the New Testament it is the church, believers. And we are to function as God’s representatives in a fallen world. Eventually through the descendants of Abraham, specifically through the seed of Abraham who is the Lord Jesus Christ, God is going to defeat Satan who is the present ruler of the earth and Jesus Christ will be installed as the ruler of the world. God will have gained back the territory which was lost. This begins with Abraham. Abraham, then, is the key to history and the Jews are the key to history.
When Abram left Ur he had reached spiritual adolescence and he understood he had an eternal destiny, and that was his motivation. Genesis 12:1, “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee.” There are two imperatives. The first is to leave his home and get out of his country and the second is to be a blessing, but they are not of equal weight. Abram has to decide whether or not he is going to respond positively to this command. That is the first test of faith in the life of Abraham. Will he obey God and leave or not? This imperatival form “to go’ is used one other time in Abraham’s life, and that is in Genesis 22:2 with “Take now thy son.” So the first test is in Genesis 12:1, “God,” and then there are 8 other tests, and the tenth test is in 22:2 where there is the same command “go.” Where is he going in 12:1? He is going to a land where God will show him. He has no clue where he is headed. What happens in 22:2? “Go to one of the mountains that I will show you.” Again, Abraham doesn’t know where God is taking him, he is just told to go. But the test is virtually the same. What we have in 12:1 is partial obedience, he leaves his country and his clan but he doesn’t leave his father or Lot. In chapter 22 when he is told to do something even more demanding there is one hundred per cent obedience. What we see here is that as Abraham goes through this sanctification process there is a series of tests. Some tests he passes; some he fails, but in the process he learns who God is, he learns about his provision, and Abraham hits spiritual maturity and trust in God when he gets to the end of the line. All of this relates to the principle that we have in James 1:2ff where we are told, “My brethren, count it all joy when you encounter various tests; knowing this, that the testing of your faith [doctrine in the soul] produces endurance.” The faith there isn’t testing your ability to trust, it is testing your ability to trust in doctrine. The issue is: Are you going to be trusting in doctrine to handle the situations in life? Endurance will bring about the completion of maturity. That is how we grow—from test, to test, to test. This is brought out with Abraham, and it is also brought out in James 2 when it talks about the evidence, i.e. living faith as opposed to dead, non-productive faith. So Abraham is the picture in the New Testament of saving faith (justification) as well as ongoing post-salvation spiritual growth. The end result is that Abraham is given the title “friend of God,” a very special title that is not given to anyone else in the Old Testament, and it is that title that indicates that he has hit spiritual adulthood with personal love for God.
In Genesis 12:2, 3 God promises Abraham protection, and He promises seven blessings, seven positive things for Abraham. 1) I will make you a great nation; 2) I will bless you; 3) I will make your name great; 4) As a result of this you will be a blessing—imperative of result; 5) I will bless those who bless you; 6) Him who curses you, I will curse; 7) In you all the families of the earth will be blessed. So there are seven verbs that encapsulate what God is going to do for Abraham. What is interesting is that there is this same sevenfold structure when God relates His promise of blessing to both Isaac and Jacob. In Genesis 26:3, 4 there are seven verbs as God outlines what He is going to do for Isaac. In Genesis 12:2 God promises that He will make Abraham a great nation, and by great nation He means a nation that has prominence in the world, not one that simply has size or magnitude but one that has a significant role in history. It is the centerpiece of God’s plan in history. “I will make your name great” means that He will honor and distinguish Abraham’s name; He will be a man of consequence. In his life time this did not take place, but it takes place through his descendants. And as a result, “you will be a blessing.” We will see these themes work their way out all the way through the life of Abraham, that he is going to be a blessing to others through blessing by association. So verse 2 gives us the unconditional promises that God makes to Abraham.
Genesis 12:3 gives the protection. “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” The first word “curse” means to treat lightly; the second word means to curse harshly—two different words in the Hebrew. The key idea here is the idea of blessing, that God is promising blessing. Blessing in Scripture relates to the divine promise which may include protection or prosperity or health or grace or happiness or peace. It is not a promise that if God blesses you then you are not going to have problems, that you are going to have health, that you are going to have financial wealth. It is none of that. It is that God is going to provide for you everything you need so that you can have perfect peace and tranquility and stability in life, and it is not going to be based on what you do, on the circumstances of your life; it is going to be based on your grace-based relationship with God. The source of blessing is never what we do, it is always the possession of righteousness. God is perfect righteousness and absolute justice. The righteousness of God represents God’s eternal and absolute standard. The justice of God represents the application of that standard to mankind. So when man falls short of that standard of righteousness the justice of God operates in terms of condemnation. When the righteousness of God is met then the justice of God operates in terms of divine blessing. Man is born under the condemnation of God, but when we put our faith alone in Christ alone it is the perfect righteousness of Christ that is imputed to our account at the instant of salvation. God then looks at the +R [imputed righteousness], and because of that +R that we possess God is free to bless us. So God now blesses us not because of anything we do but because we possess the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. This is what happens with Abraham—Genesis 15:6, a parenthetical reminder that before Abraham had left Ur he had believed in God and it was imputed to him as righteousness. So everything that is flowing out of this is a result of the fact that Abraham possesses that imputation of righteousness. It is not his. This is the same reason Gods blesses us: because of our imputed righteousness.
God has given us a package of both temporal blessings and eternal blessings, and those blessings are also comprised of logistical and advanced blessings. Logistical blessings are not based on our maturity. God is going to pour them out to us: the air to breathe, the food to eat, Bible doctrine so that we can grow spiritually. It will be made available to us. Through logistical grace we can grow and advance, and as we do and we develop capacity for blessing God is going to distribute temporal blessings. We will also acquire eternal blessings: crowns and rewards. This is designed as a basis for giving us incentives for growing spiritually and advancing in the spiritual life. But if we don’t grow the result is going to be divine discipline and loss of rewards because we don’t have the capacity and because God is punishing/disciplining us for disobedience. As we grow in life we see there are two sources of blessing. One happens just because we have imputation of righteousness, and that brings us logistical grace blessing. Secondly, as we grow and advance and develop capacity for life we have capacity righteousness. We call it capacity righteousness because that results in getting advanced grace blessings. As we get the distribution of those advanced grace blessings we are blessed, but also there is blessing by association to others, to those who are around us. So what Abraham is told is that he will be a source of blessing to others and that there will be blessing by association simply to those who treat the Jews well. But to those who treat them lightly—and today we live in an era when anti-Semitism is on the rise, and the new anti-Semitism is expressing itself as anti-Zionism and is very subtle—will be cursed.
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071b-Abram and the Land Promise; Gen. 12:4-9
The first four verses in Genesis 12 actually form a unit. In verse 1 Abram is commanded to go, and when we get to verse 4 we see “Abram departed.” It is the same word as in v. 1. There is the command to depart in verse 1 and then the response in verse 4, “So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.” What we saw in the first three verses was a summation of the Abrahamic covenant with its three provisions: land, seed, and blessing. Each of these are going to be expanded on over the course of Abraham’s life. This isn’t the covenant itself, it is the original mandate of God to Abram, the covenant itself is laid out in chapter 15, cut in chapter 17. Each section has to do with at least one of the provisions of land, seed, and blessing. Then there is a test. There are twelve tests that God takes Abraham through in the course of his life. Some he passes, some he partially passes, and some he fails. We see the dynamic of the divine promise and the response of the believer in terms of the faith-rest drill.
Lot was no supposed to go with Abram. The mandate was to get away from the family but he is taking his nephew and his father with him. He had to stay in Haran until the Lord took his father home and then he left there, but it is still incomplete obedience. He is trusting God but not fully.
Genesis 12:5, “And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.” Abram is one of the wealthiest men in the ancient world. He not only has material possessions in terms of flocks and herds but also has servants and slaves. Finally, after a period of time Abram arrives at his destination in Canaan. Like many of us it takes a little time to arrive at the next stage in spiritual growth. Then we are told in verse 6 and following, down through verse 9, how Abram entered the land.
Genesis 12:6, “And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.”
Genesis 12:7, “And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there built he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.
Genesis 12:8, “And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.
Genesis 12:9 “And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.”
Why does God the Holy Spirit furnish us with these details?
1) Why is it necessary for us to know about these places? The first major stop is at Shechem, the second at Bethel, and then he goes on to the Negev which is in the south.
2) Why is there this apparent division of the land into three regions? There is the area in the north, down to Shechem. There is the area in the center from Shechem to Bethel. And then there is the area that is in the south.
3) Why is Abram building altars in the land?
The first place he goes is Shechem. Shechem figures in the Old Testament in a number of different ways and this is the first place it is mentioned. What we see here is that when Abram first came to Shechem God appeared to him. This is the first clear articulation of the land provision in the Abrahamic covenant. He said, “To your descendants,” and here we have the Hebrew word zera, the word “seed,” the same word that is used Genesis 3:15, the seed of the woman. So this is a narrowing of that seed promise, and what God literally says is, “To your seed I will give this land,” not some other land. What is Abram’s response? “…and there built he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.” The purpose of the altar was to perform a sacrifice but it was to worship God. Principle: Worship is a response to what God does for us in grace. That is why worship includes singing, prayer, and studying God’s Word. But we should not fall prey to the fact that modern evangelicals have distorted the word “worship” to refer to singing. Singing is a minor part of worship. So God promises the land to Abram’s descendants and he worships Him at that site.
Abram builds his first altar to the Lord at Shechem, right in the heart of Canaan. Archaeology has discovered that Shechem is an ancient Canaanite worship area. So Abram goes right to the heart of the Canaan religion and, as it were, plants his flag for God there right in the heart of pagan idolatry. This is in response to God saying He has given this land to him. So he is starting to claim the land. He staked the boundaries. He is going to the north, the central part, and the south, and he is going to establish an altar where he calls upon the name of God and he is basically staking his claim to that land even though he never owns it during his lifetime. There is a spiritual dimension to it, it is not just a physical property. This same pattern is followed two generations later with his grandson, Jacob. Genesis 33:18-20, “And Jacob came to Shalem, a city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Padanaram; and pitched his tent before the city. And he bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem's father, for an hundred pieces of money. And he erected there an altar, and called it Elelohe-Israel [God, the God of Israel].” Again, Jacob is restating the claim of his grandfather Abraham to that territory. The piece of land which he purchased was probably a large piece of land. Part of it later became the tomb for Joseph. They also dug a well here. It was still operational in New Testament times when the area was called Sychar, and was where Jesus had a conversation with the woman at the well, right here at this spot. Is that incidental? We have to trace these things through the Scripture because these things don’t happen by chance. God is not a God who does things in a random manner.
The interesting thing is the next time Shechem is mentioned. It is a word play. This takes place just prior to Jacob’s death. Jacob’s is now referred to as Israel. When Jacob is referred to as Jacob he is usually carnal; when he is referred to as Israel then that is an application of the principle of his role as a prince of God and an application of the principle of blessing. And he is now going to bless Joseph. Verse 21, “And Israel said unto Joseph, Behold, I die: but God shall be with you, and bring you again unto the land of your fathers.” Notice the importance of the land. Genesis 48:22, “Moreover I have given to thee one portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.” In other words, he gave Joseph, the youngest, a double portion. In Genesis 33:19 it says that he bought the land, but the Shechemites tried to take it away from him and he had to fight to defend it and to protect it. This establishes the principle that we have the right to fight to the point of killing anyone who tries to take our personal possessions or property, whether it is a criminal or a foreign aggressor seeking to attack the nation. It is passages like this in history that lay the basis in history for the doctrine of just war. (Cf. Augustine and Aquinas on just war) So this property stays in the family and when the Israelites under Joshua go back into the land they take Joseph’s bones with them, and Joseph is buried at Shechem. So Shechem has a very important significance all the way through the Scripture. Abram’s movement to Shechem first sets a pattern that is followed throughout the rest of the Scripture. He goes to Shechem, Bethel, and then down south. Jacob returns to the land and goes to Shechem, then Bethel, then south. When Joshua brings the army in to conquer the land, and under the command of a holy, righteous, loving God, every Canaanite had to be killed. The pattern in Joshua is the same pattern. He goes to Jericho, then to Ai which is right across the valley from Bethel. Then to Shechem and then he goes south. In Joshua 8:30, 31, “Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD God of Israel in mount Ebal.” He does the same thing that Abraham and Jacob had done. Verse 31, “As Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lift up any iron: and they offered thereon burnt offerings unto the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings. And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.” Why is he doing that? This is an altar to God. This where there is this record of what man is expected to do. As they stood there on Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim they had a covenant renewal ceremony which took on a symbolic meaning. Mount Gerizim is forested and that was a picture of all of the blessings of the Mosaic law. Mount Ebal is barren and pictured the curses of the law. So there was this big visual that Joshua had which said that if you are blessed you are going to be like Gerizim; if you disobey the law you are going to be like Mount Ebal. Vv. 34, 35, “And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.” Joshua is standing there with the scroll of the law, i.e. Exodus 20-40, all of Leviticus and the book of Deuteronomy. All of the Jews are standing there all of the time it took to read this, and they are concentrating on the whole thing.
That is not the end of it. At the end of the conquest, just before Joshua dies, he calls the people back to Shechem. Here he is going to rehearse all of God’s gracious blessings, everything that God has done, and again there is a covenant renewal ceremony at Shechem. This is a staking the claim. They are claiming the land for God. This is the land that God has given them. They are not presumptuous, they are not arrogant, they understand what God has given them. Joshua 24:15, “And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” So he stakes a claim and gives a challenge to the Jews to keep their loyalty with the Lord and not to be distracted by idolatry.
Shechem becomes the focal point of the Lord’s gospel witness to the woman at the well in John chapter four. That is important because He is talking about His role there right in the shadow of this false temple that has been built on Mount Grizim by the Samaritans.
Abraham then heads south to Bethel, Genesis 12:8, “And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD.” He is in the valley between the cities of Bethel and Ai. This is in the central highlands of Israel, so he is claiming that area for God.
The he goes south to the Negev, and it is while he is down here around Beersheba that this famine occurs, and rather than staying in the land God promised him he decides that things are better in Egypt, so he heads down there. He gets into some divine discipline down there and heads home to Beersheba, and he builds another altar in this area. So what he is doing is building these altars and claiming the territory for God. Why does he do that? He does it because God has promised him the land.
Bethel was a city that was originally named Luz. It is located eleven miles from Jerusalem. Jacob, on his way out of the land to go to find his wife, renamed the site Bethel after having a dream from God there, Genesis 28:10-22. This is where he dreamed that there was a ladder coming down from heaven with angels ascending and descending on the ladder. This was a picture of blessing on him and it was a place where God reconfirmed the Abrahamic covenant with him. He called the name of the place Bethel and erected a pillar there to mark the spot of his vision, and later in Genesis 35 he built an altar at Bethel. So just as Abraham built an altar at Bethel, Jacob will come back and build an altar there. This is a sign of their trusting God for the promise that He has made. They are recognizing the divine promise and they are trusting it in terms of the faith-rest drill. They believed God and are acting upon that promise. They are claiming the land on the basis of what is already given them. It is theirs positionally but it is not theirs experientially, and that lays a basis for really understanding a dynamic on the spiritual life throughout all of Genesis and, in fact, throughout much of the Old Testament. It is what is going on between Israel corporately and the believer individually. What happens to Israel as a nation is a picture often, or a type, a shadow of what happens in the individual life of the believer.
What we start off with at the very beginning of Genesis 12 is God’s unconditional promise of the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant is illustrative of our position in Christ. That is the typological comparison. The Abrahamic covenant is first of all unconditional, something that was freely given to Abram, not on the basis of what Abram did but on the basis of God’s grace. Secondly, it can’t be lost. No matter how disobedient Israel became they could never lose the Abrahamic covenant, they were secure in that position. The Abrahamic covenant was given to them. It became the basis or the potential for blessing. On the other hand, and this is all related to the likeness of the believer’s position in Christ, the land itself is roughly equivalent to the believer’s experiential blessing or his temporal fellowship. Why do we say that? God tells the Jews that the land is theirs, but in the blessing and cursing paragraphs of the Mosaic covenant He says that if they are obedient they will stay in the land; if they are disobedient He will kick them out of the land. The land is a picture of blessing, so their experience of the land is conditional, just as today our experience of fellowship is conditional upon our obedience. The land could be lost; they were kicked out twice. The land is a picture of their ongoing fellowship; it is the place of blessing. When they are in the land it is a picture of blessing; when they are out of the land it is a picture of divine discipline. So the Abrahamic covenant becomes equivalent to us with what we have in Christ. This is what the Jew had in Abraham but it is not activated except through obedience, and when he is obedient he is in the place of blessing. This relates to the nation as a whole, not to the individual. The activation of the promise, the land promise, is there when they are obedient. That is conditional, and this is how it relates to the believer today.
Watch what happens to Abraham. When he is in the land he is in the place of blessing. Next when he goes down to Egypt he is not trusting God to supply his needs in the famine. He is saying there is a great grocery store down here in Egypt and I am headed south. The Lord is going to take care of him there, he says. He is using human viewpoint solutions to solve the problem. When he gets down there the fact that he is carnal—when you opt for human viewpoint carnality or sin will quickly follow—he gets into trouble because he is lying. He is trying to protect himself through lying. This is what happens to us. We get into stress, into problems, into difficulties, and we decide we know the correct way to solve the problem and the next thing we do is start lying about it, shading the truth a little bit to make it work, and we are trying to solve our own problems. So Abraham gets into trouble, goes back to the land and we don’t hear about him getting hungry. God takes care of him. So he fails this second test. The first test was to go to the land, the second was to stay in the land. Later on we will see another episode which is very similar. He goes to the Philistines and lies about Sarah again.
Back to the initial question. In these first four verses why does the Holy Spirit gives us this detail? Because it sets the pattern. It sets the pattern for what happens later with Jacob, later with Joshua, and in the conquest of the land. That is, that Abraham is trusting God. He is finally passing that first test. He goes to the land and finally gets there, and he goes to those key points in the land right in the middle of pagan Canaanite worship and he builds an altar to God. He is in effect staking a claim as he goes through the land that God has given him this land him and his descendants. Jacob reestablishes that claim and then eventually when Joshua invades he goes to the same places, builds altars there, and at that point the potential of the land is finally given to Israel.
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072b-Facing Adversity without Stress; Gen. 12:10-17
Abraham comes to the second test. In the place of blessing, the land, there is a test. We as believers are in fellowship with the Lord and there is a test. We are in Christ but there is still adversity and still tests. We have to face the test just as Abraham faced the test. There was a famine in the land, a famine in the pace of blessing, which meant adversity, a test. What does Abraham have to do? He has to problem-solve, just as we have to do. We have to decide how we are going to address these problems. Are we going to stay in fellowship (stay in the land), abide in Christ, or are we going to step out and handle it what we think of as our own limited wisdom, good common sense, and solve the problem in a way that seems to produce a certain amount of success and prosperity, but in doing so, instead of staying where we are supposed to (in fellowship), rather than applying the Word? What we are trying to do is apply some sort of human viewpoint solution. And as soon as we sin and get out of fellowship and are under the control of the sin nature we are either going to operate from our area of weakness and continue to sin, or we are going to operate from our area of strength and produce human good. Those are the only options.
The doctrine of adversity and stress
1) There are two kinds of pressures in life: adversity and stress. Adversity is the inevitable outside daily pressures of life that attack and seek to penetrate the soul. All kinds of things can produce adversity. The other kind of pressure comes from inside our soul, and that is stress. Stress is defined as the optional inside pressure of the soul caused by reaction to the external pressures of adversity. This is the only way the unbeliever can react to adversity, by building up stress in the soul. When the believer who is negative to Bible doctrine allows adversity to penetrate his thinking he has succumbed to the arrogance skill. Once you rely on your own resources instead of God’s you have already succumbed to arrogance and the result of that is going to be fragmentation in the soul. Stress is what happens when the carnal believer or the unbeliever try to handle any level of adversity through their own resources apart from God. It converts that outside adversity to stress in the soul which leads to a fragmentation of the soul.
2) Adversity or outside pressure on the soul has two categories: a) suffering from the law of volitional responsibility or divine discipline. This is that adversity that we bring on ourselves, self-induced misery. You make bad decisions and that compounds to more bad decisions and the consequences of that. We’ll see that with Abraham. Once he left the land and decided that he was going to solve the problem of the famine on his own by going to Egypt he is not trusting God. God didn’t tell him to leave the land, He told him (v.1) “Go to the land.” He didn’t say to leave it when times get touch. He gives the land to Abraham (v.7) and the test here is to stay in the land. You know that if you are in the place where God wants you to be, if you are in fellowship and alive, God is going to supply your logistical grace blessings. God has promised Abraham a seed and that he will be a great nation. All Abraham had to say was, “Well, there may be a famine in the land but God promised He was going to make a great nation our of me and it isn’t going to happen if I starve to death. Therefore I am going to stay here and wait on the Lord to solve the problem.” The famine probably would have ended. But because he is out of fellowship he is not going to be a blessing to anyone. It he had stayed in fellowship and trusted God he would have been a blessing and God would have ended the famine. Instead he heads down to Egypt and in a state of carnality he is going to make several decisions that are going to create cursing and discipline for others. Notice: Here is economic, health, and physical disaster taking place in Egypt. The cause of it is because of the carnality of Abraham. He is not only a blessing to anybody, he is the avenue of divine discipline on the nation of Egypt. b) The other side of adversity is suffering for blessing. We will see that there was suffering that could have been turned into blessing if Abraham had stayed in the land. So the famine wasn’t the result of his bad decision, it was just the fact of living in the devil’s fallen world. It is how he responded, and if he had responded positively it would have accelerated his spiritual growth.
3) Adversity is what the external circumstances of life do to you. You have no control over that. Stress is what you do to yourself, it is the result of your own volition, your own decision whether to trust God or whether to rely on your own limited resources.
4) Adversity is inevitable. As we live in the devil’s world there is always going to be different kinds of adversity. But stress is optional and it depends on our negative volition. Adversity is always there. Every single day there are going to be things that go wrong, there are going to be people who don’t respond, don’t perform, don’t do what you think they should do. Your wife is not going to be as beautiful as you think she should be; your husband is not going to be as thin and good-looking as he was when you first met him. Your kids are going to do stupid things and be disobedient. You are going to have all kinds of people-testing with those you work for and work with, etc. It is inevitable, but what makes the difference is how you respond. What is interesting is that when Abraham is headed south and he is leaving out of Haran to go south he takes people with him, and the people that he had acquired—bad translation. It says, “the souls he had made [asah, the word to create].” What was he doing with these souls? These are the people that he led to the Lord as he was living in Haran. He has been already a blessing to those around him. But when he gets down to Egypt where he can have a witness, what does he do? Because he is living in carnality he has absolutely blown his testimony and has no basis for communicating the gospel or the truth about God to the Egyptians due to his not living in according to what is consistent with what he believes. So when we get out of fellowship it destroys our testimony before man and before the angels and the angelic conflict. This is a result of our negative volition and what stress does to our life.
5) Stress in the soul always results in sin nature control. When you are under the control of the sin nature you are going to make one bad decision after another. What happens is that your spiritual discernment is shut down, you are quenching the Holy Spirit, and so you can’t make good decisions from a position of strength. A good decision from a position of strength in the believer’s life is in fellowship and operating on Bible doctrine. When you are out of fellowship you are operating from a position of weakness which is your sin nature. The result is that stress begins to compound, increasing carnality, you begin to reverse your spiritual growth and you begin to slide in to moral and immoral degeneracy which eventually destroys capacity for life, for love, and for happiness. It produces instability and causes neurotic and psychotic Christians, which is a pretty good description of the modern evangelical church. We don’t know how to trust God, and Abraham didn’t know how to trust God.
6) Stress perpetuated in the soul means a failure to glorify God and therefore spiritual failure. Abraham goes into spiritual failure here when he goes down to Egypt and tries to solve the problem on his own and begins by telling a lie.
7) The only solution, then, is the divine solution. The human solution is no solution. This is seen in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 when Paul had to deal with the thorn in the flesh demon. We don’t know what the exact problem was. The context suggests that it was all of the difficulty he dealt with. Abraham isn’t learning the sufficiency of grace here and as a result is falling apart. Instead of being a blessing there is going to be negative consequences.
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073b-Stressbusters Reviewed, Gen 12:10-17
In Genesis 12 we see the first two tests in Abraham’s life, and these are comparable to tests that we go through in life as believers. We see as Abraham goes through one test after another—some he passes and some he fails—that each one of these tests are related ultimately to God’s basic promise and provision in his life, which is the Abrahamic covenant. So we have to go back continuously to that covenant and the threefold promise of land, seed, and blessing. There is a difference for us, and the difference is that God has given us a tremendous number of assets which we learn when we study the New Testament. So it is not just that our lives are related to those three things, and Abraham’s wasn’t just related to those three things, but that was the focal point for what the Lord was doing in his life. For us it has to do with the unique spiritual life of the church age and all of the spiritual assets that God gave us at the instant of salvation. And we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the filling of the Holy Spirit, and God is working in our lives to create in us the character of Jesus Christ, and all of this is part of a much broader environment which is that of the angelic conflict and what God is doing in history and in the church. We tend to get focused on our own individual lives and our own problems and circumstances and forget the big picture, and we have to have that overall bird’s eye view of what God is doing in each of our lives. And it is not about time but it is about eternity, the future, our preparation for the future. In that sense this is what is going on with Abraham. God is preparing him for his future destiny and he doesn’t realize it in his lifetime. He is promised the land and he doesn’t realize it and Hebrews 11:8ff tells us that Abraham left his home because he was looking forward to that city that was built by God. He was looking to the future. His present time life was determined by future plans, and that is what faith is. As we look at Abraham we have to realize that Abraham’s life has a biblical interpretation. There are so many things that happened in Abraham’s life and the Bible covers it from Genesis chapters 12-25.
One of the interesting questions is, how does the Holy Spirit deal with the life of Abraham. One of the foundational issues when doing Bible study is not just to go to the text and ask what that means to me personally but how does God interpret these events? When we go into the New Testament Abraham is used as an example of justification by faith. For example, in Romans chapter four we have a reminder of Genesis 15:6 where we are told that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. So this is a picture of justification and imputation. Then we come to Hebrews 11:8 and Abraham is used as an example of walking by faith. Walking faith isn’t walking by means of the act of trusting but it is walking by means of what you believe. This comes from 2 Corinthians 5:7, that we walk by faith and not by sight. When we are walking by sight we are walking on the basis of what the sight is looking at, the object of the sight, the object of our empirical observations. That is what we are depending on. When we talk about walking by faith it is not the faith that is the means, it is the object of the faith. So when we walk by faith that is emphasizing the fact that we walk on the basis of the doctrine that is in our own souls. Abraham is a picture of not only justification by faith but also walking by faith. He is also a picture of election, especially in Romans 11:3-5 talking about the election by grace, that God has chosen Israel by election. This is a picture of the believer’s election in Christ. Then we have Abraham as a picture of mature sanctification. This is given in James 2:21-24, and again that passage sites the Genesis 15:6 passage. So this ties it together. What is the importance of Abraham’s life? Abraham shows what happens at salvation. He is a concrete picture of imputation and justification. Those are abstract concepts, it is difficult for us to get a hold of them. Then we see that he is called out. God elects him and chooses him, and he is going to get certain blessings, so it is a picture of the fact that God has an elected plan for Abraham. Then, as Abraham matures, he is a picture of the Christian life—walking by means of faith. Then he reaches maturity and again he is a picture of Christian maturity and how to get there. All of this is tied up in Abraham. For this reason Abraham resonates with us as we read through and we see him in all his flesh and blood in all his failures and successes.
The second test was when the Lord tells Abraham “Unto your descendants I will give this land.” Abraham understands the promise and there is an initial obedience to that promise. He marches through the land and starting in Shechem he builds an altar. In essence he is claiming the land in the name of Yahweh. What is being pictured here is positional truth, what we have in Christ. The land is his positionally but it is not his experientially. He never owned land, and when Sarah dies he has to go and buy a piece of land to bury her. An understanding of positional truth is outlined in Romans 6:6, “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed [aorist subjunctive expressing the potential, a purpose of our positional truth], that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Positional truth is a judicial reality, it is not something we experience. You don’t learn about it because you have some sort of emotion, some warm fuzzy. The problem today is that people going through adversity, instead of looking to the Word of God or how to handle the Word of God they are looking for people who will support them in their pity party. They are so self-absorbed that they can’t see and they don’t see, and they refuse to see the impact that doctrine can have in their life. The trouble is that churches are now enabling them, because what the churches are doing is picking up these worship patterns, praise and worship choruses in contemporary worship, and these are songs on your “subjective experience with Jesus.” All this does is promote self-absorption. It doesn’t promote a recognition of the fact that we are sinners, we are living in the cosmic system, and that God has given everything to us and provided everything for us in His logistical grace which is Bible doctrine. And the way to handle life which is always going to have adversity and be very difficult at times is on the basis of the Word of God, not on the basis of turning inward or finding somebody who will come along and put their arm around you and say it’s all going to be okay. The issue with Abraham in his second test was whether he was going to trust God or move into panic palace and try to solve the problem on our own. This is what most of us do. What we do when the test comes is hang around for a little while and get some ideas from somebody else, and then rather than trusting God and applying the Scripture we bail out way too early, we get caught up in fear and anxiety, we let mental attitude sins start dominating.
In Abraham’s case God is in control of the weather, and God who controls the weather allows this famine to take place in the land to test Abraham to see if he is going to trust God to supply his resources or not, because God is a God who is going to supply through logistical grace that which we need to stay alive to achieve His purposes, not to stay alive to achieve our purposes. Sometimes with logistical grace people don’t hear what logistical grace is all about. Logistical grace is not God providing everything we need to achieve our goals, logistical grace is God providing everything you need to achieve His goals. They may not be the same, and God is going to give us enough to do what He wants us to do in His plan for our lives.
There are all kinds of varieties of adversity. We will look at three, starting with what is probably closest to most of us, and that is relationships. We start off in the area of relationships with people. This can involve the most intimate relationships that we have which can relate to family, marriage, if single it can relate to having a social life because man is created in a way that he wants to have relationship with other people, so there is the need to deal with the problem of being alone, the test of loneliness and not letting that motivate and dictate decisions. Then we have business relationships, the people we work with, and often we are around people we work with and go to school with more than our own family. That can be at times a tremendous source of testing, especially if you are a believer and the people around you on a day to day basis are not believers and they operate on a world view that is completely different from your own. Then we can have financial testing, and that can come from either historical trends and what happens nationally or it can be the result of personal decisions. Then we can have weather related disasters—hurricanes, blizzards, tornadoes, floods, etc. There can be health related disasters. There are all kinds of adversities that we face. As a Christian we can know that this adversity is not meaningless. God is in control whatever the challenge that we face, whatever the rejection may be, whatever the difficulty or obstacle may be; and that test is in our life for a particular reason, either as discipline or to motivate us in our spiritual growth or to accelerate our spiritual growth. We have to understand that there is a contrast between the divine viewpoint approach as stress busting versus the human viewpoint approach of just merely coping with life’s problems. What is going on in the believer’s life is that you have to handle the evil that you encounter in your life on a daily basis—sometimes minor; sometimes major. Any time we face adversity it is the result of living in a fallen world, a fallen environment.
Ultimately, how we handle evil in our life is part of the overall problem that men have struggled with for centuries. How can evil exist? This is often a challenge we’ll get from an unbeliever. How can a loving God allow such evil things in the world? He makes it sound as if there is this tremendous discontinuity in the life of the believer, that there is this tremendous conflict. But there is no conflict whatsoever because the unbeliever has no reason to handle evil, he can’t even talk about evil because on the basis of the assumptions of the unbeliever everything is just the product of evolution and is normal. The only basic solution that the unbeliever has is to deny the reality of evil. He has to numb his mind and act as if it really isn’t there. Sometimes they do this through religious manipulation and various forms of mysticism. The second option for the unbeliever is just some sort of leap into the absurd. They just live with this tension and life is just absurd and so everything is just meaningless. The third option is to just try to escape or anaesthetize the pain, and they do all this through all kinds of methods—drugs, sex, music, relationships, alcohol, pornography, entertainment, work. Some people are successful not just because they are good workers but because they can’t face life. So they just work themselves into coping with life by pouring themselves into work. This produces various neuroses and psychoses.
The believer can’t do that, he has to have basic problem-solving skills that come from the mandates of Scripture. The first is confession, because in confession what we are doing is coming to God and in essence in our souls we are admitting that we sin and so it is a return to humility—I am a sinner and need God’s grace. There is a recognition that we got God’s grace at the cross when Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins. So the issue is not my sins, the issue is my ongoing relationship with Christ. At the instant of confession we are filled with the Spirit, but the filling of the Spirit is a passive term. Ephesians 5:18 is a passive imperative, we receive the action of the Spirit. So how do we turn this into an active problem-solving device, into a stress busting skill? We walk by means of the Spirit. We walk by means of faith and we trust the Lord. We have looked at the fact that the faith-rest drill has three basic elements to it. The first is that we mix our faith with the Word of God. This means that we need to have the Word of God in our souls. We need to be memorizing Scripture. From that we draw doctrinal conclusions derived from the direct statements of God’s Word. Then we have certain doctrinal rationales. For example, if God is for us who can be against us? As part of that, as a result of operating on the faith-rest drill, is the production of a relaxed mental attitude. The relaxed mental attitude is the consequence of trusting God. So we can relax in a situation and not give in to fear, worry, anxiety, etc. These are also coping skills. Most of the sins are coping skills: trying to cope with life’s problems by going out and getting drunk, coping with loneliness by being promiscuous, coping with economic problems by worrying and being anxious. Rather than using a spiritual skill and a problem-solving device what most people do is bail out into some type of mental attitude sin which leads to an overt sin, and ultimately it is going to be the result of operating on the arrogance skills—self-absorption, leading to self-indulgence, leading to self-deception, leading to self-justification. At this point they don’t even know that we are deceived. This leads to self-deification so that all they can talk about is their own god, which is themselves.
These five arrogance skills are in contrast to the believer who mixing faith with the Word of God, drawing doctrinal conclusions and using doctrinal rationales, has a relaxed mental attitude. As a result of that relaxed mental attitude he is then able to move into the next coping skill, which is grace orientation. When we are not relaxed we can’t be grace oriented. We are too up tight. Grace orientation involves humility. If we haven’t confessed our sins we are still operating on arrogance. So once we have confessed our sins and we have to recognize it is not us, it is God, and we have to rely upon God to take care of our sins, then we can once again operate on the basis of grace and move beyond that to the fifth basic problem-solving device, which is doctrinal orientation where we align our thinking with the Word of God. And that can’t happen by showing up at Bible class just once or twice a week.
James 2:21-26, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
That is the last paragraph in a section of James’ epistle that began back in 1:21. It has the same theme: application, that is, that if there is no application of doctrine then knowledge of doctrine does us no good spiritually. The issue is not just hearing but applying it. Applying it isn’t just Christian service in this passage, it is taking the Word and applying it in relationship to all of the adversity that comes into life.
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074b-Dr. Dean's last class taught at Preston City Bible Church before moving to West Houston Bible Church. November 10, 2004
We have come to a place in our study of Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 where Abraham is faced with his second test, the test as to whether he would stay in the land that God promised him without taking his own initiative and try to solve problems on his own. But, like most of us, we know that Abraham decided that he wanted to use his human viewpoint problem-solving devices in order to handle the famine situation in the land, rather than trusting that God would supply the necessary resources. We see in a comparison with Abraham at the end of his life when he has the test with Isaac that he is ready and willing to sacrifice Isaac because he knows that God promised him a seed and that if he kills the seed God will and can and is able to resurrect the seed. But he didn’t have that level of faith and trust in God at the beginning. God is still promising the seed in the first three verses of chapter 12. Abraham had the promise of God that he would be alive and would have multiple descendants, so why is it that he freaked out and punched the panic button as soon as the famine came along and increased to the point where he could not take care of all his employees and servants and animals and family that he left and went to Egypt?
As a result of that there are cumulative problems. When we choose to solve our problems our own way and we get into carnality it is not just the simple problem that now we are out of fellowship, now that if there is any kind of attempt to obey the Word it is just wood, hay, and straw. It is not just that we are committing sin and sin has its natural consequences—we’ve seen that it can generate its own form of adversity called self-induced misery, that whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap—it is that carnality can start manufacturing its own unintended consequences. We see a perfect example of this because what happens when Abraham goes down to Egypt he does something that he has done all along. When Abraham left Haran he took with him the things he had acquired and the people he had acquired. So he is picking up slaves along the way. He goes down to Egypt and picks up a slave girl named Hagar. If he hadn’t been in Egypt he wouldn’t have picked up Hagar; if he hadn’t picked up Hagar then Sarah would not have been saying later on that they had another human viewpoint solution to the problem of no seed. Now they had the beginning of the Arab-Israeli conflict. We have this problem today because Abraham decided to solve the problem that he faced, the adversity of the famine. One thing led to another, one decision led to another decision, and this produced unintended consequences, and the next thing what we have is a major international crisis that isn’t resolved and ultimately leads up to the battle of Armageddon and isn’t resolved until the Lord comes back. So we need to just think about the decisions that we make in like have consequences. The younger we are consequential the decisions are. So we have the face the fact that when we are faced with adversity every decision matters in some way, we can’t just treat it lightly. We must get into that drill mentality where we constantly go through it with the problem-solving devices.
By way of review what we have with the land is that the giving of the land, the granting of the land in the Abrahamic covenant, is analogous to the believer in positional truth. It is an unconditional gift. However, the enjoyment of that unconditional gift is dependant upon the ongoing volition of Abraham. So when Abraham is in the land he is positive, when he is negative he is out of the land. The same thing develops later in the history of Israel. When they are positive they are in the land in the place of blessing, when they are negative there are the cycles of discipline that always relate to the land and to the enjoyment of the land. So that in the fourth cycle of discipline they have economic catastrophe, famines, and other things of that nature, and in an agricultural society that means everybody is in trouble. There is hunger, suffering, death and disease. Then the fifth cycle of discipline is when they come under military defeat and are taken out of the land. Incidentally, the five cycles of discipline only relate to Israel. They may to some degree mirror certain trends, certain cycles of history that take place on other nations, but the key is understanding the land. God didn’t promise the land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean to the United States of America. He didn’t promise that island off the coast of France to the British. He did promise the land west of the Jordan to the Jews forever and ever, and so the cycles of discipline are directly related to the enjoyment or the forfeiture of the blessings related to the unconditional gift of the land to the Jews. Therefore you cannot take those five cycles of discipline and flip those to any other people group because they are covenantally guaranteed, related to a covenant contract with God. God did not make a contract with any other people other than Israel. You can take the concept of a client nation and apply that to other nations, because a client nation is simply a nation that is being used by God to accomplish His purposes during the age of the Gentiles. But there is no covenantal relationship there, there is no contract between God and any of the nations that He has raised up over the last 2000 years in order to promote the gospel.
Abraham faced adversity with the famine in the land. We find that adversity is the inevitable outside daily pressures of life that attack and seek to penetrate the soul. There is minor adversities which are inconveniences, things that are uncomfortable and don’t allow us to run the day the way we would like it to run. These can be minor things to major things where there are major calamities that take place either personally or historically that affect us. Stress is what happens when we do not handle that outside pressure through the utilization of the ten stress busters. All ten of these are spiritual skills. Skill is something you practice in order to make it a part of your life. It has to be practiced perfectly. If we practice it imperfectly we are a failure, so we have to go over this again and again. We just drill it into our life as a pattern. When things start going bad and we find that we have already punched the panic button, we have already lost our temper, put our fist through the wall, the first thing we need to do is stop and confess, use grace recovery and get back in fellowship so that we now have the power of the Holy Spirit on our side. Now we are walking by the Spirit and we start using the faith-rest drill. This is essentially what Abraham did and why he becomes a picture of faith and the production and maturity that comes from the application of faith.
We need to master these problem-solving devices. Every time we face something we need to just stop and ask how each one of the basic mechanics fits the problem. Where do we apply what? What promises apply? You see an inner dynamic between the third, fourth and fifth—faith-rest drill, grace orientation, doctrinal orientation—they all fit together, they feed off one another in terms of a cycle. In the faith-rest drill we are taking our faith and mixing it with promises. What are the promises? That is doctrinal orientation. In order to get doctrine what do we have to do? We have to understand grace. So these three are interlocking and interrelated and they are built off the first two, confession and waking by the Holy Spirit. In fact, if you get right down to it the mechanics, the walking, are the faith-rest drill, grace orientation and doctrinal orientation. When we are doing that, that is walking by the Holy Spirit.
What is it that keeps us walking in the light? How do we stay there? We stay there through using the problem-solving devices. Every time we face a difficulty or problem we use these and we stay in fellowship, and that is called abiding in Christ. When we fail to use one of those we are immediately relying on some sort of human viewpoint mechanism to stay in fellowship and then we are out of fellowship and not abiding in Christ but walking in darkness. When we abide in Christ we are also said to be walking in the light, and it all depends own our volition. It is how we are going to decide what we are going to do in our moment by moment walk with the Lord.
In James 1:22 James says, “But be ye doers of the word.” This is not Christian service and is not what James is talking about here. The concept of doing is based on the Greek verb POIEO [poiew] which simply means in this context to do what you have heard, or in other words, application. That is, listen to the teaching of the Word of God, to let it change your thinking (Romans 12:2), so that hearing leads to the result of doing or application. In the last part of chapter one and the first part of chapter two James takes hearing and doing, and this is analogous to faith which produces works. If we have believed that which we have heard, then that is going to culminate in application or works, i.e. production. In this case we are talking about divine good production, that which has eternal consequences.
In James 2:21ff James gives two illustrations of what he is talking about. One is from Abraham and the other is from Rahab.
James 2:21, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. My brethren, be not many masters, knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation.”
We see here that Abraham is used as an illustration of spiritual maturity in the New Testament. Abraham is talked about as being justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar. When did Abraham offer Isaac on the altar? That is in Genesis chapter 22. Abraham has been a believer since before Genesis 12. In fact, in Genesis 15:6 (quoted in James 2:23) is an event which happened a long time before Genesis 22, at least 30 or 40 years later. The saved from the penalty of sin justification occurred before Genesis 12, so James 2:21ff is talking about the fact that works justifies something else. They justify in the sense that it is a demonstration of the reality of our previous justification. So it is not salvation. The key to understand this is in James 2:24, “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” The problem here is that the last word in this verse is the Greek word MONON [monon], accusative case. The OS ending is an adverb, MONOS. The Greek adjective is MONES [monhj], just one letter difference. Why is this important? The English text makes it sounds like we are justified by faith plus works that are in keeping with that faith. This is what the Lordship crowd teaches. That is because the word “only” in English is an adverb. A adverb modifies a verb. But what it looks like in that sentence is the “only” or the “alone” as it is translated in some versions only qualifies the faith. But faith is a noun, so an adverb has to modify a verb, not a noun. The other thing that compounds it is that there is no verb in that last clause “and not by faith.” What is the verb supposed to be in that last clause? Justify. It is borrowed from the previous clause, it is called an ellipsis when you leave out the verb because it is understood. So this should read, “You see then that a man is justified by works, and not only justified by faith.” That makes it clear that there are two different kinds of justification. If this is translated with the adverb modifying the noun it makes it look like there is one justification with two phases to it, but if you are grammatically correct and have the adverb modify the understood verb “not only justified by faith” then you recognize that there are two different kinds of justification that James is talking about. One relates to phase one when we are saved from the penalty of sin, and the other is when we are experiencing phase two salvation when we are freed from the power of sin. That is what Abraham is illustrating in chapter 22 of Genesis, that he has matured to the point where his works have demonstrated his justification and he is now handling adversity apart from sin.
All through here this is talking about the kind of faith that a believer has that has value. That is why James is saying we not only need to hear the Word but also to do it. James 2:14, “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith [has heard the Word], and have not works [not application]? can faith save him?” It is not talking about salvation from the penalty of sin because this guy is already a believer, he is talking about “my brethren.” He is addressing believers and is talking about the dynamics of faith in the life of the believer. In essence he is saying, “What applicational value is it, my brethren, if someone claims to have doctrine, but he does not have production?” Then in verse 15 he gives an example. Doctrine doesn’t have any value unless you apply it. So in v. 17, “Even so faith, if it hath not works [has no application], is dead, being alone [being by itself].” A dead faith is not a non-existent faith; a dead faith is a non-viable faith. It is not producing anything. Death in the Bible never means non-existence, it means separation. In verses 18, 19 James puts in the words of an objector. The basic contention of the objector is that faith and works are totally unrelated. He uses an example in v. 19, “You believe that there is one God; you do [POIEO] well.” In other words, that is where it should end. He is commending James that he has faith, but on the other hand he says, “the demons also believe.” Okay, you believe and the result is that you have application, but the demons believe, and they shudder—no application. The point he is making is that they both believe, it produces one action in one person and another action in another person, so can you say there is an intimate connection between application and faith. This is the argument of the objector. In other words, he is like many licentious believers today who say, “I believe that but I am just going to live today the way I want to live.” No application. But James replies in v. 20, “But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” or “Are you willing to recognize, you foolish person, that faith without works is useless?” The word that he uses for “useless” is the Greek word ARGE [a)rgh] which means that it is non-productive. That is a much more precise word than “dead works,” and it gives us the idea here.
The issue here is, how do we produce in the spiritual life? We produce by using the problem-solving devices. When Abraham is walking by means of faith He is producing. Having said that, James uses the illustration from Abraham. It is not just an academic exercise, it is study to learn how to think, to learn about reality as God has described it in His Word. And we are barraged day in and day out with the cosmic system, human viewpoint to solve and cope with problems. It is embedded in everything.
The key verse that we must come back to is James 1:2: “My brethren, count it all joy when you encounter various trials.” This is what is going to happen to us for the rest of our lives. “Because you know that the testing of the doctrine in your soul produces endurance. And let endurance have its maturing work [production] that you may be mature and sufficient, lacking nothing.” This is when you realize that God has provided everything, the grace solution is the only solution, and the human solution is no solution.
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077b-Facing Adversity, Consequences of Stress. Genesis 12:10
The thing to remember when we look at the life of Abraham is that God is making a radical shift in history. Up to this point He has worked through Gentiles. It is only with the call of Abraham that God is distinguishing a specific ethnic group through whom He is going to restrict His work for the next 2000 years. And it is going to be through the descendants of Abraham that God is going to bless all the nations. So He is setting up, as it were, a counter cultural movement through Abraham. As has been highlighted there are certain things that are emphasized in the New Testament with relationship to Abraham, and it is important to understand this. It is so important to understand that as we get into the New Testament there are all kinds of doctrines that can get clearly abstract and it is difficult to bring these things down to communicate, so we have to find Old Testament examples to teach these basic doctrines. And the New Testament is very clear on this. We go to Abraham for justification by faith—Romans 4; we go to Abraham for justification in terms of spiritual maturity—James 2:21-22; we go to Abraham as an example of how to get from salvation to spiritual maturity in that walk by means of faith—application of doctrine, trusting in the Lord, active sense, what to believe—in Hebrews chapter eleven. We also get a picture of Abraham as a picture of God’s elected choices in history—Romans 9-11 makes this implicit. One thing not included in that list that we will see again and again in the life of Abraham is the aspect of missions. The Abrahamic covenant becomes the foundation for what we later understand to be world missions. It is through Abraham that God is going to bless all nations. So whenever we start thinking in terms of a missionary the foundation for world missions starts right here in Genesis 12:1-3. That passage gives us the basic outline and foundation for the Abrahamic covenant—land, seed and blessing. This is crucial for understanding everything that happens in not only the rest of Genesis but also the rest of the Old Testament.
Every episode in Abraham’s life relates to some sort of test, and test #1 was whether or not he would obey God in getting out of the land. He had a partial obedience in this test. He was to get out of Ur and leave everyone behind but he didn’t do that. He went with his father and his nephew Lot and they only got half way to the land. Even when he left Haran he still had Lot with him, and God is going to have to deal with that. That is how God works in our lives. We don’t always obey Him perfectly and it takes time, that is the whole process of the spiritual life. God doesn’t deal with every issue, every problem, every issue of sin or human viewpoint in our life all at the same time. You may learn a principle in Bible class and it may take you years before you actually get the whole thing squared away in your life. That is the process of spiritual growth. We see that with Abraham. It is partial obedience but he is moving in the right direction. He makes mistakes, like we do; he operates on the sin nature, and he doesn’t want to step out completely in faith. So he takes Lot with him and we see later that God has to come along and sort of surgically remove Lot as an influence in Abraham’s life. We have seen that Abraham goes through a geographical process as he goes through the land. He goes to Shechem and from Shechem to Bethel where he constructs an altar, and from there he moves down to the Negev. These sites become crucial in the future history of the nation. Again and again we see these same sites brought out. Basically what Abraham is doing is staking his claim and he is recognizing what God has given him in the covenant positionally. But it is not his experientially. The main idea of application is that God has given us as believers everything that we need positionally. He has given us all the assets that we need spiritually. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing—Ephesians 1:3. But the reality is that it takes us the rest of our lives, and even then some, before we come to understand how that works its way out experientially.
Romans 6 is the foundation of the spiritual life. Romans 1-5 deal with what the believer has in salvation, but when we get to chapters 6-8 the subject is no longer justification the issue is no longer justification, it is now sanctification. Sanctification is just a theological term for the process of spiritual growth. We talk about two different kinds of sanctification—positional sanctification and experiential sanctification. Positional sanctification relates to everything that we have in Christ, those absolute realities that were given to us at the instant of salvation. They are non-experiential. The only way that we can understand them is through a study of God’s Word when we begin to realize the vast amount of blessing and provision that God bestowed upon us at the instant that we were saved. We are indeed new creatures in Christ with a vast array of spiritual assets.
Foundationally for the Christian life Paul says that we have to understand that at the instant of salvation we became dead to sin. We still have a sin nature. No matter how sweet and wonderful somebody who is an unbeliever is they are just a sinner and that is the only thing they can produce. But once we are saved we are freed from that dominion, that tyranny of the sin nature. This is what Romans 6 is talking about and Paul begins to focus on this in verse 6: “Knowing this [because you know this], that our old man [sin nature] is crucified with him, that [in order that] the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” He is assuming that his readers understand this principle. When something is crucified it is gone, it is no longer operational. In a real sense our sin nature is nailed to the cross and it is dead, but it is dead positionally. What does death mean? When it talks about being crucified with Him the concept of death has to do with separation, not ceasing existence. It is separated from that positional of power or tyranny. Death in the Bible always refers to separation, not cessation of existence. So at the point of salvation there is a separation from the sin nature in terms of its power over us. So Paul says, “Because we know this, that our sin nature was crucified with Him, in order that”—and even though this is an aorist tense it has the idea of something that will take place in the future—“our body of sin [sin nature] might be done away with [in the process of sanctification, losing its influence].” That is the idea, that eventually it will be a removal of the sin nature. That doesn’t happen until phase three when we are absent from the body and face to face with the Lord. We are going to have a problem with our sin nature all of our lives. This is something that so many Christians just can’t quite accept. They just can’t understand that after 20 years of being a Christian they still have a problem with lust or with lying or with mental attitude sins, or whatever it may be. Then they start questioning whether or not they were ever saved. The reality is that our sin nature, and whatever the proclivities of our sin nature are, is still going to be there 20 years from now. The reality of this passage is that we don’t have to follow the leading of that sin nature. This is what Romans 6 is all about and it is based upon, first of all, knowing something—because we know some doctrine; “so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.” Prior to salvation we are slaves to sin; afterwards we either enslave ourselves back to sin whenever we let the sin nature control, or we get back in fellowship and make ourselves slaves to righteousness.
The second point to be made in this verse relates to the concept of sin. Sin is the Greek word HAMARTIA [a(martia] which in this passage is a singular, and when it is in the singular it frequently has the idea of the sin nature, not individual personal sins but that capacity to sin. Here it has the idea of that which departs from the standard, misses the mark, and hence it means to sin, to violate the character of God. From here we look at the last phrase, “slave to sin,” which is the verb DOULEO [doulew] meaning to be a slave or a servant. It indicates a lack of volition. Before we were saved there was no volition to stop sinning. We just couldn’t do it, and that is what Paul discovers in Romans 7. After salvation we do make a decision not to go back under the sin nature, but once we are out of fellowship it is just like we were in that enslavement all over again. We do whatever the sin nature has us do until we make that one and only decision to stop it which is to confess our sin. Then we are back in fellowship and become a slave to righteousness. This is why sometimes Christians seem to be hypocritical. We have this struggle between two natures. Though we are walking by means of the Holy Spirit we can be very different from the kind of person that we are when we start letting that sin nature lead us around all the time. That is where we see the struggle in the Christian life. The only thing that resolves that is to start operating on Bible doctrine and letting thought control our lives.
We have looked at the Abrahamic covenant in terms of positional truth. In the Old Testament the Abrahamic covenant in the history of Israel speaks of their position before God, what they had as an absolute. For the believer in the church age, we are in Christ. That is our positional truth. They have three things in common. The Abrahamic covenant is unconditional; our position in Christ is unconditional. We didn’t get “in Christ” on our own—because of our own effort, our own personality, or because of anything that we did. It was all on the basis of God’s unconditional promise and His unconditional love. The second thing about both the Abrahamic covenant and being in Christ is that these can’t be lost; they are ours permanently, they can’t be reversed. The Jews can’t lose the promise that God made to Abraham. No matter how disobedient the Jews had been God will eventually fulfill that promise. Third, it is the basis for blessing. The basis for blessing in the Old Testament is the Abrahamic covenant; the basis for blessing in our lives as believers is our position in Christ.
Romans 6:7, “For he that is dead is freed from sin.” Here Paul gives a principle. The verb “is freed” is the perfect passive indicative of DIKAIOO [dikaiow], the verb for justification. In the perfect tense this always emphasizes completed action, and the emphasis here is on the fact that it is an intensive perfect which puts the emphasis on the completedness of the action, not necessarily on the present results of the action. So it should be translated: “That he who has died has been justified.” It is not “freed.” DIKAOO means to be justified; justified means to be declared righteous. So the issue here is focusing on what happened at that instant of salvation, that when we put our faith in Christ alone, at that instant we were declared righteous and just. Everything in the spiritual life, then, flows from that. But the spiritual life is distinct from justification; it flows from it but they are not the same. The reason we emphasize this is because that was the basic error that entered into theological history and shaped Roman Catholic theology. If justification and sanctification are cotemporaneous then we only know that we are justified by means of our sanctification. So the only way we can know that we are saved is if we are living the so-called Christian life and if we are not living the Christian life than maybe we are not saved. This is the same problem that there is today in so-called Lordship salvation. They don’t distinguish between justification and sanctification. A person can be justified and be living as if they are not justified because they still have a sin nature.
What Paul is pointing out in Romans six is the fact that we have a positional reality, and that is that we have been justified and at that same moment in time we died to sin. It is a real death to sin, not hypothetical, but the sin nature still operates. We have three stages or phases of salvation: 1) We are freed from the penalty of sin; 2) We are saved from the power of sin; 3) We are saved from the presence of sin. We are talking about phase two, being saved from the power of sin. The power is broken positionally at the cross, we are no longer under the tyranny of the sin nature. Before we were saved the only thing we could do was operate on the sin nature: either human good or sin. But after we are saved we have a real choice, it is a volitional issue. We have to think about that. That is why Paul says in v. 6 “Because we know [something]” and then he comes back again in v.9, “Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more.” Once again it is knowledge, it is knowledge, it is knowledge. In v. 8 Paul says, “Now if we died with Christ [and we did], we believe that we shall also live with him.” Verse 10, “For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he lives, he lives unto God.” There’s the analogy. Christ’s death was once for all. Therefore when we trust Christ as our savior there is a permanent break with the dominion of sin, that tyranny is broken.
In verse 11 Paul gets to the real issue. “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” In verses 1-9 he is talking about the positional reality. Now he says, “You don’t realize this in your life, you don’t feel like you are freed from sin? Then you have to reckon yourselves dead to sin.” What in the world does that mean? This is an imperative. The imperative mood is Greek is not emphasizing reality, it is emphasizing choice. So the emphasis on any kind of imperative is directed immediately to our volition. What is important to notice in looking at an imperative is what the tense is. Here it is a present tense, and in Greek a present tense means this is supposed to be standard operating procedure. This is the general habit pattern that should characterize our life day in and day out. The verb here in the Greek is LOGIZOMAI [logizomai] which has an active meaning even though it has a passive or middle form, so that means it is directed to the believer’s volition and he has a choice to make as to whether or not he is going to fulfill this mandate. This word is talking about thinking, about putting together a series of premises and coming to a conclusion. It is talking about thought. “Reckon” is a mandate to think about all of the issues that we are facing at any point in time and come to a specific conclusion that is related to what Jesus Christ did on the cross. It doesn’t matter how much outside pressure I may feel or experience in order to do something. It doesn’t matter how much internal pressure I am feeling in the sense of being tempted. What the Word of God is saying here is, Stop and think. Stop and think in terms of what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross and what happened to you at the instant of salvation. This is why it is so important to go over positional truth again and again and again. Paul says, “Likewise come to the logical, rational conclusion that you are indeed dead to sin.” In other words, you have to think about it. The Christian life is a life of thinking. We have to know something; we have to know doctrine; we have to understand all of the dynamics that took place on the cross; we have to understand all of the dynamics that happened to you at the instant of our salvation. Then when we hit various problems, issues, adversities in our lives the first thing to do is stop and think. If we would just stop and think two or three times a day, what a difference that would make in our application of doctrine! As soon as we stop and think about something it means that we have to be able to evaluate what is going on. As soon as we use the word “evaluate” it implies some sort of norm or standard, some sort of overall grid through which we are able to interpret the details of our lives. That means we have to have either our biblical grid or we are going to have a human viewpoint grid. Those are the only two options. How are we going to get that biblical grid? Are we going to put our Bible under our pillow at night and pray that somehow it leaks in? No, we have to virtually reprogram our thinking because we spend a vast amount of our life being inadvertently programmed by the human viewpoint, worldly, cosmic system around us.
For Abraham, what he had to do was think in terms of that Abrahamic covenant. For us we have to think in terms of something that seems a little more complex, and that is, what we have in Jesus Christ, all that we have as part of our position in Him. In terms of the Abrahamic covenant Abraham had seven realities that are outlined in that covenant. We get them from just breaking down the basics phrases of those first three verse. 1) God said He would make him a great nation. 2) God said He would bless him. 3) I will make you name great. 4) You will be a blessing. These first three all start with God and what God was going to do. So ultimately in terms of Abraham’s position in the covenant he had to start with God. So whenever we are going to think in terms of dealing with these reactions in life, situations in life, we have to think in terms of God. That is why we have to understand the essence of God first and foremost. Always start with God, not the situation, the experience, not with feelings. This was the basic test in that first command when God said to get out of Ur and to leave his family behind. It was a test of whether Abraham was willing to trust Him, a test of whether Abraham would utilize the faith-rest drill with reference to the essence of God. 5) “I will also bless those who bless you.” Once again God is making a specific promise. 6) “Him who curses you I will curse.” Again, it comes right back to the person and character of God. 7) “In you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” That is the basis for missions. So Abraham is being told that he has to go to a specific piece of real estate. This is where we are going to have our relationship, Abraham. How Abraham is in the land is comparable to our relationship, abiding in Christ. When Abraham is obedient and he is in the land, that is the place of blessing; when he is disobedient and is out of the land, that is a place of cursing, a place of divine discipline. When we are obedient and in fellowship, walking by ,means of the Holy Spirit, abiding in Christ, we are in fellowship. And that is a place of blessing. When we sin we are out of fellowship and in the place of divine discipline.
In Genesis chapter twelve Abraham has finally headed out and is moving through the land. The interesting thing is how this works itself out in other passages. For example, Joshua 24:3. God is speaking to Joshua: “And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the river, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac.” So God reminds the people of how He took Abraham through the land. This was a recognition of all that God had given him in the covenant unconditionally. It wasn’t his experientially but it was his positionally. This was his reality, comparable to our reality of being dead from sin even though it is not real in our experience yet. As Abraham walked through the land he is learning what God has already given him. There is a similar passage in Genesis 41:46, “And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt.” This was typical. He is taking control; he is realizing what his dominion is.
Genesis 12:10, “And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.” Immediately we have a problem. Abraham is now in the place that God has commanded him to go to. Verse 7 gives a specific promise: “Unto thy seed will I give this land.” So there is a test now. He gets into the land, the place where God wants him, and now there are problems. The first thing that we have to deal with here is to understand how to deal with adversity. We get a picture of it here. But first we need to review two basic definitions. First, adversity is the inevitable outside daily pressures of life that attack and seek to penetrate the soul. But stress is optional, it depends on our volition. Stress is the optional inside pressure of the soul caused by reaction to the external pressures of adversity. As soon as we react with the sin nature to some adversity we are immediately out of fellowship and it causes problems in the soul. What we need to be as believers is experts at using the problem-solving devices. Abraham is in a situation that is a major adversity.
The first thing we need to do when we hit adversity is to think, but what most of us do is react. The first thing is volition, we always make a choice. We may not be volitionally conscious of the choice that we are making, we may just instantly react—in anger, frustration, whatever it may be. At some point we were making a choice and we learned how to respond to those kinds of circumstances. Sometimes people respond very differently to circumstances. Some get mad and angry; another person seems to get very calm. What they have done over the period of their life is that for various reasons they chose various approaches to problems. There is a decision that certain problems are best handled in certain ways. These strategies are chosen. The options are either to trust the Lord and operate on the faith-rest drill and use the problem-solving devices—divine viewpoint; or we don’t use the faith-rest drill, we deny any promises and provision of God, we try to solve the problem on our own, and there are a multitude of human viewpoint strategies that we can adopt. This is exactly what happens with Abraham in Genesis 12. There is a famine in the land and rather than staying where God put him and trusting in the Lord Abraham finally decides that the best way to take care of everybody is to go down to Egypt and to live there. So he is going to take the human viewpoint solution. And what happens here is he leaves the land which was what God gave him, which means that he is no longer going to think in terms of his positional reality. Secondly, when he gets down into the land he lies about Sarah, she almost gets taken into be the wife of the Pharaoh, and he puts the seed at risk. Third, he brings divine discipline on the house of Pharaoh and so he is failing to be a blessing for all nations, and he is going to be a source of judgment for those around him. This is what happens in our life. Every time we choose that path of trying to solve the problems on our own we forget our positional reality in Christ, we put our future growth as believers at risk, and we fail to be the blessing God designed us to be to those around
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078b-Self-Protective Strategies. Genesis 12:10
The doctrine of adversity and stress
1) There are two kinds of pressures in life: adversity is the inevitable outside daily pressure of life that attacks and seeks to penetrate the soul; stress is what happens inside the soul. God takes us from the instant of salvation through a series of tests in order to reveal the flaws and failures of our own carnal, sinful creatureliness, and we have to learn to be dependent upon God and His provision. We have to learn to utilize the ten problem-solving devices so that we can grow from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity. So adversity is the outside pressure; stress is the inside pressure of the soul caused by reaction to the external pressures of adversity. When the believer who is negative to Bible doctrine allows adversity to penetrate his thinking he has succumbed to the arrogance skills.
2) We have to remember that adversity or outside pressure has two categories. There is suffering from the law of volitional responsibility or divine discipline. Galatians 6:7, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” In other words, there is a certain amount of suffering we go through and we have to ask the question: Is this my own doing or is this just the result of living in a fallen world? Because we live in a fallen world we will encounter a certain amount of adversity that is not related to our own volition. This second type of suffering is that which is not related to our own volition. It is suffering that is the result of living in the cosmic system, suffering that God allows to come into our lives and is classified as suffering for blessing. Suffering for blessing is designed to accelerate spiritual growth. When we go through suffering for discipline we can convert it into suffering for blessing when we confess our sins, get back in fellowship, and then start applying the ten problem-solving devices to that particular adversity. Abraham is going to go through both classifications. He starts off in suffering for blessing. That is why the famine occurs. God is going to teach Abraham certain things about himself. Principle: Whenever we go through adversity the bottom line of the test is to learn to trust the character of God. It always has something to do with the character of God and learning to recognize that God is in control, learning that we must be dependent upon Him, learning that He is trustworthy in His righteousness, learning that He is fair in His justice, learning that He is more powerful than our circumstances in His omnipotence, learning that He is never surprised by any problem or heartache or difficulty that we face in His omniscience. As we learn these, our ability to trust Him strengthens and increases. This accelerates spiritual growth.
3) Adversity is what the outside circumstances of life do to you; stress is what you do to yourself. Stress is always the result of our own volition. We react to that stress in some way where we are calling upon our own resources, our own ability, our own intellect to solve the problem in contrast to dependence upon God. So we just bring the stress upon ourselves. Every time we try to solve the problem on our own we have already made a negative decision toward Bible doctrine, and the sin nature is in control. Once the sin nature is in control then we are in trouble.
4) Adversity is inevitable. Job says that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. We can’t avoid it. Stress is optional and the result of our own negative volition to doctrine. James 1:2 is a key verse for understanding this. “Count it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter …” The word there for ‘encounter’ is the idea of falling into it. It just happens. For Abraham it is a famine.
Genesis 12:10, “And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was severe in the land.” The word ‘severe’ in the Hebrew is the word kabod, the same word that in some passages is translated ‘glory’ for the glory of God. The literal meaning of the word is something that is heavy or weighty. So when we talk about the glory of God it is that the presence of God is a serious weighty matter. It is used only a couple of time in the Old Testament to describe a famine. So we have a serious or severe famine, one of the worst in the ancient world. So as Abraham hits this adversity he has to make a decision. It was not an instantaneous decision but one he had to come to over time.
Abraham’s situation: He is living 2000 B.C in the land of Canaan. This was a land that had a pantheon of deities oriented around the fertility cult. The key god in the Canaanite pantheon was Baal, the storm god. There were other female deities such as Astarte who was the goddess of fertility. All of this revolves around the agricultural cycle and how to get more produce out of the ground. Abraham doesn’t have as much of a frame of reference for a God like we know in the Scripture. He is learning about this God. The gods that he has been familiar with and has seen in the religious pantheons of Babylon and Canaan were gods that were gods [e.g. weather gods] that frequently failed. Abraham is in that kind of a situation. He looks around at the famine which gets worse and worse. He has a human viewpoint frame of reference of deities that can’t really solve weather problems, and so what is the solution? Well God really can’t help me, so I must come up with a solution myself. His problem was too great for God! This is what happens when we hit that adversity and it is a decision point. Any time we have a decision to make about how to apply doctrine it is a test. It may be a minor test; it may be a big test. Every time we have to make a decision on handling a problem it is a test of doctrine. That is what James is talking about in James 1:2-4. We are able to count it all joy because we know that the testing of our faith produces endurance. Faith there is PISTIS [pisitj], and it has the idea of a passive sense, of what we believe. It is a testing of what we believe. If we are growing and applying doctrine we take the divine viewpoint route and trust the Lord, and ultimately everything builds off the faith-rest drill and we are using one of the ten problem-solving devices.
We often take the no-trust route, the no-faith-rest-drill route—we are going to handle it on our own. We have all sorts of ways of trying to rationalize our own handling of the problem. This is the human viewpoint strategy and we develop hundreds of these strategies to deal with the problems of life. Ultimately they are designed to protect us—self-protective strategies, because ultimately they are designed to somehow give us a strategy or methodology to make life work, to find peace, stability, harmony, success and happiness apart from dependence upon God. And what we see happening whenever we hit any of these tests is that the test is a personal threat to my stability, to my peace, to my happiness, to basically my ability to control life in a world that is out of control so that I can have a measure of peace and happiness and stability. It goes right back to our sin nature. This is one of the most important things to understand.
We believe that no matter what the problem is in life, no matter what the difficulty is, the solution is always found in the Word of God. We need to learn how to solve our own problems through doctrine, and to do that we have to have a framework for understanding human behavior. When it comes to counseling we need men and women who come to the table with a biblical understanding of human behavior. That starts with understanding the sin nature. That is usually something that is not given a whole lot of understanding in human viewpoint models of behavior, because they don’t have a biblically developed doctrine of hamartiology.
At the core of the sin nature we put two categories of sin: fear and arrogance. This is at the very core of motivation for much behavior. Think back to Genesis chapter three. There was the fall, the sin. Eve eats the fruit first and coyly introduces this wonderful delicious fruit to Adam. Adam looks at Eve and the fruit and decides that he is going to follow her in the sin, so he falls. Then God comes to walk in the garden, and the first thing we read about Adam and the woman was that they were afraid. Why are they afraid? For a number of reasons. They are afraid because they are going to get caught. They had disobeyed God and are going to be exposed. But they are afraid because at a fundamental level they have lost everything. When they realized that they were naked they tried to cover it up. They tried to solve the problem through their own human viewpoint strategy. That is what is meant by a self-protective strategy. They thought they could solve the problem through their own efforts—human good. But it is motivated by fear and it is motivated by arrogance. Arrogance is the idea that man is going to operate autonomously from God and that he can solve his problems without being completely and totally dependent upon God. So the basic core of the sin nature is fear and arrogance. Then, of course, we operate on the arrogance skills. We are self-absorbed from day one, and as we develop self-absorption we move to self-indulgence—we want to fulfill everything that we are absorbed with, we want to indulge all of our wants, all of our whims. The biggest problem a parent has is to teach a baby that they can’t have what they want when they want it the way they want it. That is why the role as a parent is to teach discipline to children, to teach good manners. That is one of the reasons we have etiquette, because we are all basically selfish and if we are going to get along together as human beings, and if we are going to function together in society, we have to have some code of conduct that brings some measure of control to that self-oriented sin nature. So arrogance moves from self-absorption to self-indulgence, and then self-justification. We are all masters of self-justification. It all flows out of the sin nature, that from the very time we were infants we started developing habits of handling problems, and they are so much a part of our nature that we think that is just who we are. That is how we justify them: Well, that’s the way I am; that’s the way my parents were. Then we move from self-justification to self-deception: That’s really not a problem, that’s how my mother taught me.
What we see is an interesting pattern here with Abraham. Abraham has a certain trend in his sin nature that means he is going to handle pressure by lying, by deception, and buy getting somebody else to take the heat. That is what he does with Sarah, basically. As he goes down to Egypt to solve the problem he is going to leave the land where God told him to go and in the process he is putting the seed in jeopardy. So one we make that decision to go negative and try to solve the problem ourselves what happens is one bad decision develops into another bad decision and they start to snowball.
Genesis 12:11-13, “And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon: therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.” Saying Sarah was his sister was a half-truth. He is oblivious to the fact that he is going to put her into a vulnerable situation that could create danger and problems for her. He is just concerned for himself—self-absorption and self-deception. He is oblivious as to what the consequences might be for others. He also does this later on with the Philistine leader. Not only does he do it, but what we also discover is that Isaac does it as well—Genesis 26:7. Self-deception then leads to self-deification. This is the whole process in Romans chapter one. We are ultimately deifying ourselves: we are the ultimate source of values, not God. We are going to determine what is right and wrong. Abraham begins to rationalize his own behavior but his strategy is wrong for a number of reasons. It is wrong because it is a violation of God’s directive will. God specifically directed him to go to the land. He didn’t say to go through the land and go to Egypt. So he is violating specific, revealed directions from God. It is also wrong because he is only concerned about his own hide and it puts his wife in jeopardy and the promised seed in jeopardy. He is wrong because he is looking to his wife to be the source of his blessing, protection, and stability rather than God.
Principle: When we get out of fellowship we start failing in our personal responsibilities. Eventually we will start looking to others to handle them for us or we will start blaming others for our failures.
Then what happens is that our arrogance operates through our lust patterns. We have two areas of strength in the in nature: an area of weakness which produces personal sins, and then we do all kinds of good things and that is what trips us up. We develop these strategies to make life work apart from God and we wrap it up in human good. We come up with all kinds of justification for our behavior and how we react under adversity because from the time we were a toddler we behaved that way, and we don’t even want to admit to ourselves that we are doing it because if it is a violation of God’s Word then at a very core level of our personality we have to change, i.e. repentance, then sanctification. The aim of the spiritual life is to learn to handle problems, not the way that makes us most comfortable but by using God’s problem-solving devices so that we can grow and advance spiritually. So we are either operating on sin or human good and this tends to lead to one of two trends: either a trend towards asceticism or legalism which is moral degeneracy, or towards licentiousness, lasciviousness or antinomianism, which leads to immoral degeneracy. But we have to understand the sin nature and what is at its very core is fear and arrogance and the idea that somehow I can make life work apart from God.
These are the self-protective strategies. They involve emotional sins—anger, anxiety; they involve overt sins—trying to control people, manipulate them, micro-manage them, make sure they do things just the way you want them to, to bring some level of stability there. Then we use sins of the tongue to destroy people.
Abraham’s strategy was to lie and to use deception. The result is that he is discovered because God isn’t going to let this happen. God is protecting the seed, protecting the promise. Genesis 12:17, “And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.” Finally, Pharaoh confronts Abraham and this is where Abraham goes through suffering as a result of his own bad decision. The interesting thing here is that Abraham is also blessed at the same time. “And he [Pharaoh] entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.” His personal wealth increased. Can we hear Abraham’s reasoning here? This is working out pretty good, God is really blessing me! This is how we justify our arrogance. We look at the positive things that have happened and use them to reinterpret the entire scenario so that we don’t have to face our own sin and our own failures. But God ultimately is not going to let us get away with it, which is what happened to Abraham. Pharaoh kicks him out of Egypt. So he has lost respect, lost an opportunity to be a blessing to the Gentiles in Egypt, and he has been a complete failure. Nevertheless he has learned from his failure and he advances and goes forward in the spiritual life. And that is the same thing with us. If we are still alive God still has a plan for our life. We can learn from our failures as much as our successes. For most of us we can learn more from our failures if we have true teachability than we do from our successes, because we realize how much we have blown it and how greatly we were blessed by the grace of God. God blesses Abraham in the midst of his failure, not because of his failure but because of God’s plan.
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079b-Dynamics of Spiritual Advance
Adversity and prosperity testing
There are two forms of testing that we encounter: direct testing and indirect testing. By direct testing is meant that the testing is somehow directly related to decisions that we make in life. Indirect testing is situations that come up that are indirectly related and which you can’t tie to any decision that you make. For example Pharaoh is going through some testing but it is not related to any decision he has made, it is related to a decision that Abraham has made.
Direct testing is the result of sinful choices and actions. We get out of fellowship by making a sinful choice. We can’t get out of fellowship through human good, the first decision we make to get out of fellowship is always a sin. This is the simple principle of volitional responsibility, that whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap. So we get certain negative consequences. A second problem is foolish choices, and this is what happens once we are out of fellowship. We are not going to operate on divine viewpoint, we are going to operate on human viewpoint and produce human good. This is the contrast that is seen in Proverbs, the contrast between wisdom and foolishness. Wisdom is the result of that accumulation of doctrine in the soul, and the believer who advances and grows and learns doctrine makes wise decisions because he has a reservoir of truth in his soul. Whereas the carnal believer and the unbeliever has a reservoir of human viewpoint in his soul, and what comes out of that are foolish choices. Those foolish choices eventually come back to hurt us. We can classify this as self-induced misery but the Lord gives us suffering for discipline for the believer and it is directly related to our own decisions.
On the other hand we have indirect testing. It is not directly related to a volitional choice on our part. In indirect testing we face adversity because we live in the cosmic system, we live in Satan’s world. Because we live in Satan’s world we are going to experience all of the flaws and problems that are the consequence of Adam’s original sin. We are going to face health problems, meteorological disasters, geophysical disasters, financial problems, problems in warfare, problems in poverty, and many others. This is simply because we live in Satan’s system and it is a fallen world.
A second category of indirect testing has to do with suffering by association. We live with fallen creatures. Because others make sinful choices we are going to have to suffer along with them. We may work in a corporation where the management makes foolish decisions and therefore we suffer the consequences. We may live in a nation where the leadership is going to make many decisions that out are out of carnality and foolish choices and we are going to suffer the consequences. It is indirect testing and if we are in fellowship, walking by the Spirit and applying doctrine then it becomes a blessing. All suffering for discipline can be converted into suffering for blessing by using 1 John 1:9.
The thing we never talk about is prosperity testing, and this is the second aspect. This also has direct and indirect categories. Direct testing can be traced back to specific decisions we make, wise choices based on divine viewpoint and functioning in the realm of divine good. This is based on application of doctrine. On the other side we may have indirect testing. We may have prosperity that comes our way simply because of common grace: you may have been born in a country that is going through a period of affluence. This is common grace, logistical grace. God gives us many things to survive and which have nothing to do with the decisions that we make but have everything to do with God’s decision—where He wants us in life, the ministry He wants us to have, the impact He wants us to have. Then we have blessing by association. We are married to somebody who has good business sense, or we went to work for a company and the leadership in that country is making good decisions and consequently we are blessed by that. Or we may be just living in a nation going through a period of blessing. So this testing can be indirect or direct, and as we go through prosperity testing it is another opportunity for spiritual advance.
The key issue is that every time we have a decision to make that involves application of doctrine or not, it is a test. It may not be a big test. We tend to think of tests as something major, but a test is any decision. It may involve getting irritated with somebody or just remaining relaxed, trusting the Lord, utilizing a little grace orientation and a relaxed mental attitude. Ninety per cent of the tests that most of us flunk are the little ones that seem to be a bit inconsequential.
When we look at Abraham we see that he has devised a strategy, like we all do, in order to make life work apart from God. That is the subtlety of the sin nature. The strategy is always directed toward a goal, and the unstated goal of our sin nature is to make life work apart from God. Whether we want to admit it or not that is the drive of every one of our sin natures. That is exactly what Abraham has done. He is motivated by fear: fear of death, fear of suffering through hunger, fear for those around him perhaps. So he devises a strategy which involves deceit and lying.
Note that Abraham has quite a bit of prosperity while he is out of fellowship. But when we have prosperity that is a consequence of being out of fellowship what is going to happen inevitably is that part of that prosperity is going to come back and kick us in the rear. What we see here is that Abraham increases in his physical possessions—sheep, oxen, male donkeys, and male and female servants. One of those female servants is Hagar. When he goes back to the land he has Hagar with him and that is one of the consequences of his being out of fellowship. If he had never gone to Egypt he would never have picked up Hagar. There would not have been the whole problem of Ishmael. All of this is a consequence of Abraham heading south and trying to solve his problems through what appeared to be a good solution but was the production of his own carnality.
We have building blocks in our spiritual life and we relate them to the problem solving devices or the stress busters. In essence they become the means by which God strengthens our soul and builds spiritual Christ-like character in our souls, so that we can then further handle greater and greater tests. In spiritual childhood there are five of these problem-solving devices that are foundational: confession (1 John 1:9), filling of the Holy Spirit, walking by means of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18; Galatians 5:16), the faith-rest drill. The faith-rest drill is where Abraham is being tested, and he fails. Also in grace orientation because he is failing to trust that God in His grace is going to take care of him in the midst of the famine. So it can be seen that at this fundamental level we have to apply these problem-solving devices. This is where we need to focus as we go through the life of Abraham. We will see how these are lived out in a person’s life.
Life doesn’t flow in logical patterns, it is rather messy, dynamic. In spiritual adolescence we develop a personal sense of our eternal destiny. Then is spiritual adulthood we build on grace orientation and doctrinal orientation, we develop a real love for God. We develop impersonal love for all mankind and occupation with Christ. It culminates in a genuine peace and stability. That is the logical relationship but we don’t all grow that way. For example, we come into Bible class and hear teaching on occupation with Christ, so we begin to learn there before we learn something else. It is rather messy. So we build some kind of foundation and then as time goes by we learn a little of that doctrine, a little of this doctrine, and we build this whole spiritual soul fortress one brick at a time, but not on a logical order. It is dynamic. Abraham recovers through confession, and we see this in the first three verses. We see this where he goes back to Bethel and Ai where he erected an altar to the Lord before, and there we are told in 13:4, “…and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.” That is his return back to reliance upon God. And what happens as soon as he gets back in fellowship? There is another land test, v.6, “And the land was not able to support them.”
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080b-Test: Application of Grace-Orientation. Genesis 13:1-18
The core mechanism by which God matures us is under the heading of testing. This is the word that is used in James 1:2-4 where James outlines the fact that it is through testing that we have the opportunity to apply doctrine. It is not the testing of faith in the sense of trusting, but faith in the sense of what we believe; that when we encounter various trials or tests it is for the purpose of testing our doctrine, testing what we believe, to give us an opportunity to take what we have learned and then apply it in the day to day vicissitudes of life. That comes under two categories, either tests of adversity or tests of prosperity. What we see as we make the transition from Genesis chapter twelve to Genesis chapter thirteen is that Abraham has gone from his second test—a logistical grace test related to the promise of the land. Is Abraham going to be able to rely upon God to supply his basic needs of food and water in the midst of a famine in the land? At the very core of this is the promise to the seed, that of Abraham dies there won’t be a seed, there won’t be a world-wide blessing, so he is being tested as to whether or not he is going to reply on God’s promise no matter what is happening experientially. This is the challenge for us because we want to base our decision-making and our values and conclusions on the information we derive empirically from the environment around us. What we will see here is that faith is just the opposite. Faith is a form of knowledge that is superior to that. Hebrews chapter eleven gives us an orientation at the beginning: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” So faith is a form of knowledge that goes beyond empirical data. This is important because in our modern world people want to classify faith as some sort of lesser knowledge, some other form of knowing things that is more subjective and has to do with one’s psychological orientation, that faith is just another psychological process and isn’t knowledge at all. As Christians we have to understand that faith is a more sure form of knowledge than that which we get from empiricism of rationalism. This is because empiricism, which is basing your thinking on what you see or feel, and rationalism which is basing your understanding on reason or thought, are both limited because man is finite. As son as you see something, touch something, hear something, as soon as you have empirical data, your mind is instantly interpreting that data. It is never just raw data, your mind is interpreting that and there is a framework that is being imposed on that. As Charlie Clough has said regarding the cosmic system, that the basic orientation of the sin nature in the cosmic system is to express this agenda that we want to reinterpret the world in terms of human autonomy, human independence, to define it the way we want it to be as opposed to the way God has said that it is or that God has created it. So faith becomes a form of knowledge that is more certain because the object of faith is the revelation of God. So when God says something and has communicated and spoken objectively in His Word we can take that and rely upon it in a way that is more sure, more certain than anything we can discover on the basis of empiricism or rationalism. In terms of empiricism there is always the chance that tomorrow you are going to find a new piece of data that invalidates the interpretation of the previous five thousand pieces. So there is never certainty when it comes to empiricism. All of this has an important role in terms of what is happening in Genesis chapters twelve and thirteen.
Genesis chapter twelve is a picture of Abraham’s failure. He fails to trust God in the midst of the crisis so he is going to create his own attempt to solve a problem. This is what we do when we are under the control of the sin nature. We are constantly developing strategies in order to survive in the current world without relying on God. The basic orientation of the sin nature as arrogance is asserting independence from God. This goes all the way back to Satan’s fall. This is one of the primary characteristics: I am going to make life work on my terms. I am going to trust God but as soon as things get a little difficult and there seems to be a real threat to my continued existence, then I’m going to figure out some way to bypass trusting God and I’m going to make sure there is a safety net somewhere. That is what Abraham does.
What we should notice is that while Abraham is out of fellowship, while he is creating all kinds of problems for Pharaoh and all of the other difficulties that develop, he is personally still being blessed by God. Principle: Whether we are prospering or not has nothing to do with our own spiritual status. You can be walking consistently by the Holy Spirit, growing and advancing, and be unemployed, lose everything you own, go through incredible adversity, and it doesn’t mean that God is not happy with you. On the other hand you can be in carnality and prosper, and this is what happens with Abraham; but it has ongoing consequences. Another thing we see is that not only does Abraham prosper but Lot prospers. We don’t see Lot mentioned at all in chapter 12 but in chapter 13 it is obvious that Lot is with Abraham, and Lot prospers. When they come out of Egypt they are wealthy. They have had an excellent business time down in Egypt and when they come back they are both in a tremendous position of financial strength. But that creates the next test.
Chapter thirteen looks again at the whole issue of grace. There is this inter-connection between the faith-rest drill—trusting God in relation to His promise that this land is yours and I’m giving it to you—and the gift of the land which brings in the concept of grace. What we should get out of this as we go through our study of Abraham is to shake loose some of the cobwebs in our thinking in terms of how to use the problem-solving devices. The primary way in which Abraham is going to solve the problem here is what we would call grace-orientation, but it is grounded on a certain understanding of doctrine and it is grounded on the faith-rest drill. He is trusting in the promise of God, and so he is using these basic skills to handle the difficulty that arises.
An overview of the chapter: It starts with a note that Abraham comes back from Egypt and he goes into the southern part of Israel, the Negev. The first thing that he does is move on up through the country to Bethel and Ai, and he builds an altar there and calls on the name of the Lord. After his excursion into self-reliance instead of God-dependence he now comes back, and this is indicative of his rebound. He has reoriented himself to his relationship with God so he goes back up to where he has been before. If we look at the end of the chapter we read, “Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the LORD.” So what we see is that Moses in writing this episode brackets it with an altar-building at the beginning and at the end, which tells the reader that we have what is called an inclusio here. He sets it up where there is an event at the beginning and an event at the end showing that the author is including everything as one coherent whole expressing one idea. The center of this whole episode is what takes place in verses 6-8, that the land was not able to support them. Seven times in these eighteen verses is the word aretz, the Hebrew for land. The Holy Spirit is putting the attention in this chapter on the land.
Genesis 13:5, “And Lot also, which went with Abram, had flocks, and herds, and tents.” The next thing you know they are having a major conflict because the land was not able to support them. What land is this? It is the promised land, the land that God has promised to Abraham and that he is going to live there, and his descendants will be like the sands of the seashore and the stars of the sky. Think about this. If his descendants are going to be that numerable then why is it that it can’t support Lot and himself? God is using this to divest Himself of Lot. God is promising Abraham a special heir from his own loins, the seed of Abraham. At the very beginning God is going to get rid of Lot so that there is no temptation on the part of Abraham to try to make Lot the heir. So God is coming in and doing a surgical strike to remove this option from Abraham’s life. The next time we see mention of the land is in verse 7, “…and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land.” The word paraz in the Hebrew is the word for village, and the idea is that the Perizzites were probably village dwellers. But this note at the end of verse 7 is to make us realize that the and can’t support Abraham and his slaves and servants and Lot and his entourage because the Canaanites and Perizzites are in the land. It is crowded. We have here a picture of typical family dynamics gone sour and there is strife.
This word for “strife” used in v. 8 is a fascinating word in the Hebrew. It has two meanings. The first meaning is a more general meaning of just having a quarrel, antagonism, argument between people. The more technical meaning has to do with presenting a law suit, a legal case where you are arguing against a particular position. What is fascinating here is how the Holy Spirit through Moses gives us a foreshadowing of what is going to happen in the future. This Hebrew term for strife would resonate with the Jews later on in the context of the Abrahamic covenant. It also had significance for the Jews sitting out on Moab awaiting entry to the land because their fathers and mothers were the Exodus generation. Exodus 17 describes a test that the Exodus generation went through just after they went through Egypt at a place called Meribah. That r-i-b in the middle of Meribah is our word “strife,” and it is the place where they contested with God and complained to Him that He was not going to take care of them. What was the issue? Logistical grace provision in the midst of the desert. What did the Jews do? They are contesting with God, they are entering into a strife with God that He is not going to provide for them. This is an event that goes on down through Israel’s history and lives in their memory, that they argued with God at that particular point. So all of this gives us a background.
This is a logistical test for Abraham. This second test brings about almost the same conditions as the first one: the land can’t support the people. It can’t support all of Abraham’s people and all of Lot’s people so strife enters the picture. Abraham has a problem, a family problem. People in the family can’t get along with each other and it is a situation that is creating anger and hostility, bitterness and resentment. There is this charge and counter charge atmosphere which all comes out of this word “strife.” So in verse 8, “And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren.” When is the first time we run across this concept of brother in the Scripture? Back with Cain and Abel, the challenge to God, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Embedded in there is the concept of impersonal love: yes, you are your brother’s keeper. You are to love your neighbor as yourself, as it is later expressed in the Mosaic law. The standard changes in the New Testament: we are to love other believers “as I have loved you,” John 13:34, 35. This can’t be done apart from walking by means of the Spirit. Abraham is now operating on the promise. He is recognizing that what under girds this, the foundation for this, is that he is trusting God’s promise that God is going to give him the land. This land is his positionally. When you are operating from a position of strength like Abraham is now operating, what can you do? You can easily apply the Word because you are trusting God. That gives you the strength to do what is right because you are not out there trying to keep the land for yourself. That is God’s job, therefore I can just relax. So it brings to bear a movement from the faith-rest drill on into grace orientation.
The problem is this family strife, this family problem. It can be literal family members, it can be between you and somebody else in the body of Christ, it can be any kind of situation, but the solution is not to operate on arrogance which seeks to control the situation to protect yourself. Instead of operating on arrogance and the arrogance skills—self-absorption (what is mine), then to self-obsession, to self-justification, self-deception, and eventually self-deification—the situation is God’s responsibility. And since God is taking care of the assets Abraham can then be generous with Lot in this situation, and so he operates on grace orientation: v. 9, “Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left.” He indicates a principle, that sometimes it is necessary under the concept of impersonal love to separate from another believer or a family member in order to avoid the antagonism and the resentment and the bitterness and strife that is going on.
Genesis 13:10, the picture of the carnal man. He is operating on sight, not faith. “And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.” The believer is to walk by means of faith and not by means of sight. Walking by means of sight is empiricism, it is operating on the finite resources of the human intellect. What we are to walk by is by means of faith, that is, by means of what is believed. Lot is just focusing on the physical and he chooses for himself all the plain of the Jordan and they separated from each other.
Verse 12, “Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.” And then we get the note from the Holy Spirit: “But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.” We are like every Jew who read this for the first time, we know what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah. What Moses is pointing out here under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is that there is another dynamic at work here, that right now for God’s sovereign purposes Sodom and Gomorrah are economically prosperous. It is fertile, the weather is just what they would want it to be, and everything is perfect. But the other dynamic at work here is a spiritual-moral dynamic, and as a result of that they are going to be destroyed. There is a foreshadowing here in this verse as to what is going to happen. You can’t go through life and compartmentalize the different areas of life. You can’t say you are going to study literature, or science, or business, or economics, or politics, or law, and you are going to study that over here, and then on Sunday you are going to study the Bible over there. The Bible is God’s Word that addresses all aspects of reality. It defines reality for us and it provides the information to interpret all rational endeavors, all cognition, logic, empirical studies. Everything must ultimately be embedded in this reality that is defined by the Word of God. So it is the Word of God that is the starting point of all knowledge. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Lot is a picture here of the person who has rejected the revelation of God. He is operating on an autonomous interpretation of reality. Where that always leads is to arrogance, and in arrogance what happens is that he is just taking advantage of someone as opposed to grace orientation. Abraham operates on grace, a position of strength; Lot operates on self-centeredness and he makes what appears to be a good decision on the surface but because it lacks spiritual perspicacity it is a devastating decision.
But God in His sovereignty is working in all of this because what He is doing is surgically removing Lot from Abraham’s frame of reference and from having influence on Abraham. After this happens we get the conclusion in verses 14-18, “And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.” What does Abraham do? He told Lot to take whatever he wanted; now God says the same thing to Abraham. What Abraham was doing in grace orientation is imitating God. Remember, Abraham was in the image and likeness of God. We are all in the image and likeness of God, and as we are saved and are being renewed according to the image of Christ we see this process in sanctification. The creature is to imitate the creator. That is exactly what happens with Abraham, he is imitating God in His grace orientation. Abraham has learned a lesson from the last chapter. He has earned that God has made him a promise, has given him a gift, and because this is an unconditional gift he doesn’t have to worry about losing the gift. Therefore because he is operating from this position of strength he can then be generous towards Lot. It is not his responsibility to keep what he has. All the blessings we have, all the physical, financial, material blessings that each one of us has comes from God. It is not because we were so smart, so industrious; all of that can be taken away from us by the Lord tomorrow. It is a matter of recognizing that all that we have is from God. So grace orientation has certain elements to it. One of these is a recognition that God has already given us what we need; God is always going to supply what we need in terms of logistical grace, and this frees us up, then, to be generous. So God comes back, reiterates the promise, and He expands on the promise a little bit. Verse 17, “Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.” In other words, start learning the dimensions of your positional reality. His positional reality was the Abrahamic covenant: explore the land.
The application for us is that we have a lot that is given to us positionally. Every time that Paul discusses the spiritual life his starting point is always what happens to us at salvation in terms of the positional blessings. Romans 6-8 is the centerpiece discussion in the New Testament concerning the spiritual life. Ephesians 5, Galatians 5, Colossians 3 are other crucial chapters. The first seven or eight verses in Romans six deal with positional grace blessings that come from the baptism of the Holy Spirit. What we need to do is really understand what that means. What are we given in terms of our position in Christ? Everything flows out of that. If you understand who and what you are in Jesus Christ everything dominates. So what God is saying is that we need to understand the dimensions of His grace provision for us. Walk the land; claim it in His name. This is what Abraham is doing and what is part of the dynamic of building these altars is that he is staking a claim, as it were, that this is the land that God has given to him. And part of it is that there is a contrast with the pagan idolatry that is there. What we see here is really a picture for us in terms of sanctification, that at the time we are saved we have all kinds of garbage in our soul, and we need to take that positional truth that we learn through the Scripture and walk through the corridors of our thinking and challenge all of the human viewpoint thinking. This is taking every thought captive for Christ.
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081b-Faith Rest Drill & Grace Orientation Mechanics
Like so many people Lot is looking at circumstances and finances and prosperity to be the solution to problems and the source of happiness. But the text goes on to say that the area is not only well watered and like Paradise, but it is “like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar.” We don’t know where Zoar is but it is down toward the south obviously. Today that area is brown and dry, so it is obvious that there is a tremendous difference in the topography and meteorology at that time in earth’s history. The Bible isn’t restricted to teaching truths about salvation and the spiritual life. There are elements throughout the Scripture that give us the information we need to accurately interpret everything around us from history, to geology, to biology, to law, science, philosophy, ethics; it addresses every area of intellection known to man. The point of all this is the spiritual failure on the part of Lot but the spiritual success of Abraham. Lot focuses on the superficial, the empirical, and he fails to take into account that the most vital positive element in history is spiritual. There is an underlying positive feature that relates to spiritual reality and this is what moves history. Abraham has learned that true knowledge is based upon the Word of God and includes a spiritual dimension, and Lot hasn’t learned that. The key is in verse 13, “But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.” This is foreshadowing what is going to take place when we get over into chapters 17-19.
What is going on in Abraham’s development spiritually? We saw that he had a failure in his test in chapter twelve but he is passing this test. So what can we learn from this? First of all, Abraham is now successfully utilizing three problem-solving devices. We need to understand how these work together, and this is true for all of us. The foundation is the faith-rest drill, and the principle is that the faith-rest drill focuses first on the trustworthiness of God to do what He has promised. The ultimate focus when we are utilizing the faith-rest drill isn’t on the promise per se, it is on the God who gave the promise. The question on the mind is, is God trustworthy? Can I rely upon Him to do what He says He will do? When we are in the midst of crisis, when the circumstances around us seem horrible, when we are overwhelmed by the pressures of a job, the financial pressures of paying bills, whatever those pressures or adversities may be what we have to learn to work through is how to take these promises and so utilize them in terms of our mental attitude dynamic that we are able to find stability and calm in the midst of the crisis. Sometimes that happens fairly easily, other times it is a moment by moment battle as we constantly wrestle with those promises and the circumstances seem to overwhelming. As soon as we ask the question, how can God let this happen to me? We are in trouble. We have assumed that God is not in control, that God is His sovereignty isn’t overseeing the circumstances of our life. If we ask certain questions they will predispose us down a certain path of reasoning, and we just get more and more enmeshed in self-pity and focusing on ourselves, the arrogance skills start taking over and the next thing we know we in a spiritual spiral to be destroyed. We have to focus on the God who is behind the promise. Is He really trustworthy? The issue in the faith-rest drill is always the character of God, the essence of God. Is He reliable? So when we start functioning in this area we need to think through the attributes of God. In the lament psalms David starts off with the complaint and then he moves through a series of reasonings and concludes with a confidence in God. Again and again in the psalms what happens in that movement is that he starts focusing on the character of God.
That is often what we need to do in the midst of a crisis: pull ourselves up short and start thinking in terms of the essence of God. God is sovereign means that God rules over the creation. It doesn’t mean that He overrides people’s individual volition but it means that He rules the creation. That means that God has oversight over the circumstances and situations and people that come into my life. It is not so that I blame God for the problems and suffering that is there but realizing that God has designed things in such a way as to brig that to bear in my life so that I can learn to trust Him in areas where I am weak. Second, we think of God as being righteous. That means that God is always going to do the right thing. He is absolute justice, so that ultimately there will be a resolution of the problem. If we have been dealt with unfairly, unjustly—we all live in the cosmic system and are all victims—God is going to resolve the problem of evil eventually. There will be justice. God is love. This doesn’t mean He is an emotional, sentimental, warm-fuzzy being, who just wants to wrap His arms around you and talk about how much He loves you. The word that is usually used for God’s love in the Psalms is the Hebrew word chesed. It has the idea of faithful loyal love, loyalty to a covenant or a contract. So when we go through the Scriptures we see that God always structures His relationship with man in terms of a contract. That becomes the ultimate model for marriage. There are two different Hebrew words in the Scriptures for love. There’s the word ahab which usually refers to the kind of love of a more romantic, sentimental type, but the post-wedding love is chesed. It is loyalty to a contract. That is what marriage is, a contract sworn to before God. When we talk about the love of God that means that God is going to be loyal to His word, loyal to His covenant, loyal to His promises. He is not going to go back on them, and that is tremendous comfort in the midst of the vagaries of life: that God doesn’t change but His love focuses on that steadfast loyalty. He is eternal life, which means that He has no beginning and no end and no surprises, He is infinite with respect to time. He is omniscient, which means He knows every detail and has always known every detail. God doesn’t acquire knowledge, so He is not surprised when we are surprised. He is omnipresent, and that means that He is just as present with us today as He was at sometime in the past. He is equally present in every part of His creation at the same time. He is omnipotent, and that means He is greater than any problem or difficulty than we could ever face. When we work through the ten attributes and apply them to our problem and we are still rattling because of the circumstances then we need to start over. It is the doctrine that will stabilize us.
When we look at the essence of God we want to isolate four of them: righteousness, justice, love, truth. Righteousness and justice are two sides of the same coin. Both of these words, whether we are talking about Hebrew or Greek, translate the same root word. In the Hebrew it is sadiq and in the Greek it is DIKAOSUNE [dikaiosunh], and it depends on the orientation of the word in the context. Righteousness has to do with the standard of his character and justice has to do with the application of that standard. That standard is always done in a way that is consistent with His contracts, His statements. The Scripture links these attributes together. We come to the psalms: Psalm 97:2, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.” What gives stability to the throne of God? The throne there stands for His presence but all that flows from it. Then Psalm 85:10, “Mercy [grace in action] and truth have met together.” See this connection between grace and truth; “Righteousness and peace have kissed.” Notice the attributes that tend to get linked together by the psalmist. Then Psalm 89:14, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne: mercy [chesed] and truth shall go before thy face.”
When we come to grips with God’s integrity we come to a realization of a truth that Abraham is not going to articulate until we get into the eighteenth chapter. But in Genesis 18:25 at the end of a long verse he says, “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” That is the truth that we grasp in the midst of the crisis. We think that the cosmic system is unfair, we feel that we are beaten around by circumstances, by economic trends, by history, by events beyond our control and think it is horrible. It is right to think it is horrible sometimes. We are living in the cosmic system; it is horrible. But when Jesus looked on the crowds when Lazarus was dead in the grave we are told that Jesus wept. Jesus didn’t weep because Lazarus was in the grave. He knew that in three minute He was going to say, “Lazarus, come forth” and Lazarus was going to come out. Jesus looked on the crowds, the mourners, the people who were suffering the pains of loss and grief because their dear friend and relative was now dead. Jesus had genuine, true compassion on the crowds because they are suffering, living in a fallen world where there is pain and misery and heartache, and Jesus had compassion on them because man was not created originally to suffer. He was created to have perfect fellowship with God. It is only because of Adam’s sin which introduced sin into the human race, changed the whole nature of reality and began the cosmic system that there is misery on the earth. So it is right to recognize at some level that life is pretty miserable sometimes because we are living in he cosmic system. But don’t stop there. You move past there and recognize that ultimately there is resolution as Abraham articulates, that the judge of all the earth will do what is right. So this is the root of utilizing the faith-rest drill. Abraham is beginning to recognize and to grasp this principle of God’s integrity here. God has made a promise. Abraham is beginning to wrap his thinking around the integrity of God and so he is beginning to trust in the integrity of God and thus trust in God’s promise, even in the midst of this personnel problem that he is encountering. Because his focus is on God and the integrity of God Abraham is in a position of strength. From that position of strength he can then turn to Lot and he can utilize grace in the way he deals with Lot.
This moves us to the next problem-solving device that is being used here, and that is grace orientation. Grace is not simply something we receive from God but grace is also a means of spiritual growth. 2 Timothy 4:1, “You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” This is a dative of means and should be translated “Be strong by means of the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” It is grace and understanding of grace that gives us strength in the midst of crisis. 2 Peter 3:18, “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Again, it is an instrumental dative. “Grow by means of grace, and by means of the knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.” Grace is a means of spiritual growth. That means that when we are facing certain problems, certain adversities, even prosperity, we are to grow by means of grace. So we have to utilize grace to solve the problem, the situation. When we grow as a believer there is a sense in which our soul is edified and strengthened, and there are certain things that strengthen it. We have seen that Paul told Timothy to be strong in the grace of the Lord. So as we exercise these problem-solving devices they strengthen us. And there are certain of these spiritual skills that we utilize in spiritual infancy that are the foundation for everything else. The two that are most foundational are confession of sin which gets us back in fellowship, and then the filling by means of the Holy Spirit and walking by means of the Holy Spirit. That is the mechanic for the spiritual life. It is not enough to simply be born again. The faith-rest drill, grace orientation and doctrinal orientation are foundational.
Then in our adolescent stage we begin our personal sense of eternal destiny, we begin to live in the light of the next day and the next day and maybe eternity. We begin to realize that God has a plan of us that goes beyond this life into the Millennial kingdom and into eternity, and so we have to develop a personal sense of our eternal destiny and recognize that the decisions we make today will affect who we are and what we do in eternity.
Then as we move into spiritual adulthood we master those three skills related to love: personal love for God the Father, personal love for all mankind, and occupation with Christ. Then we have inner happiness.
What we have to recognize is at that basic level we have to master those skills: faith-rest drill, grace orientation, doctrinal orientation. They interrelate, they are interdependent. As we begin to trust God we begin to understand things about grace. As we study His Word we learn more about grace. When we study His Word we orient to the doctrine that is there which gives us a greater understanding of grace. As we learn more doctrine we have something else to put our faith in. So they work together. This is what we see with Abraham. As he is trusting God with the faith-rest drill he now is able to exercise grace towards Lot, and as he exercises grace toward Lot there are certain things that are taking place, certain elements that are a part of grace orientation.
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082b-Utilization of Grace Orientation. Genesis 13
We have to understand that grace orientation is built on the faith-rest drill. Ultimately, all the problem-solving devices function off the faith-rest drill. The faith-rest drill in itself focuses on the trustworthiness of God to do what He promised. We need to understand that the promises of God need to be implemented on a regular basis. Do we really believe God when He makes those promises? That we should not be anxious for anything, but that we should go to Him in prayer expressing a thankfulness for the situation, knowing God’s peace which surpasses all comprehension will guard our souls. Sometimes we do and sometimes it is an effort, a struggle. In the midst of certain crises in life, certain pressures, it is a moment by moment wrestling sometimes just to come to grips with that promise and make it a reality in terms of our own thinking. That is the process of spiritual growth. We need to focus on the essence of God. It is a good exercise just to go through each attribute of God and to think in terms of how that applies to our problem, whatever it may be, and what it means in terms of a solution. God’s integrity is the foundation of His relationship with man and it is from this foundation that God’s grace flows to us in the period of time between the fall of Adam and the new heavens and the new earth. As we look at that we understand that grace then becomes a problem-solving device, it becomes a way in which we can look at certain adversities and handle them by application of grace.
What does that mean? We often talk about the application of grace. How do we use grace as a problem-solving device? Paul and Peter talk about it in this way in two passages: 2 Timothy 2:1, “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” So by understanding grace we can have strength in the midst of certain pressures and adversities in life. 2 Peter 3:18, “But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
What are the mechanics of utilizing grace? What are the characteristics that we run into in grace orientation? In spiritual childhood we master five different spiritual skills—confession, filling of the Holy Spirit and walking by the Holy Spirit, the faith-rest drill, grace orientation and doctrinal orientation. Then as we master these skills we move on through the next level of spiritual growth which a personal sense of our eternal destiny, learning to live today in light of eternity. We see the same thing happen with young people as they grow up. As they go through the adolescent years as teenagers they make decisions and never think about the consequences. As they grow older they begin to realize that there are consequences to their decisions and they begin to postpone gratification, certain activities until later so that they can achieve what they want to achieve in terms of longer goals than just what is going to please them today or tomorrow, and this is a sign of maturity. Spiritual adulthood is when our whole concept of love begins to mature. Biblically there are three categories of love. There is personal love for God. This doesn’t means that a new, young believer doesn’t have some measure of love for God, because he does. To the degree that he has understood his salvation and to the degree that he understands what God’s grace meant at salvation he has that measure of love. Then there is impersonal love for all mankind and occupation with Christ. These three spiritual skills are all built on the three basic skills of the faith-rest drill, grace orientation and doctrinal orientation. There is a logical structure there. If we don’t understand grace orientation and the elements in grace orientation we can’t have a mature love for God and we can’t learn to have impersonal love for all mankind. We can’t learn to implement what Jesus said in John 13:34-35, “…that you love one another as I have loved you. By this all men will know that you are my disciples.” So there are certain prerequisites to the more advanced spiritual skills and the ultimate spiritual skill is sharing the happiness of God or inner happiness.
While we look at the five basic spiritual skills in terms of a logical relationship there is a dynamic relationship. They interconnect and interrelate. The all blend together. You don’t just learn one, then the other, and another; they all function interdependently. So that as you learn certain promises that is doctrinal orientation, you believe them. You learn something about the essence of God and so you enter into a problem and you are claiming that promise or principle. You latch on it to it, you know that God is omnipotent and therefore is greater than any problem you face. You know He is omniscient and therefore aware of that problem from eternity past and that in His grace He has provided a solution for it. So you see, you have learned some doctrine about the essence of God, now in terms of the faith-rest drill you are latching on to that doctrine, mixing your faith with that doctrine, and then you are applying that to the situation. In the same sense, as we understand the grace of God we begin to understand how God’s grace was demonstrated to us and that that becomes the basis for our social skills, as it were, how we relate to people is in the same way that God has related to us in grace orientation. So these skills are interrelated.
By way of introduction grace was defined as unearned favor or unmerited kindness. This is the basic meaning of grace. It is the expression of God’s love to creatures who do not deserve it. Therefore grace can only be demonstrated to fallen creatures who have –R, lack righteousness. When Adam and Eve were in the garden before the fall, when they had perfect righteousness, God related to them on the basis of His perfect love because His perfect righteousness has affinity with their perfect righteousness, God is giving them everything out of His love. It is not unmerited, not unearned, because there is affinity between His righteousness and their righteousness. But as soon as there is the fall and they have lost righteousness, then God’s dealing with them is no longer based on their possession of righteousness, it is based solely and exclusively on His character: who he is, not on who they are. To understand that is the foundation for being able to move beyond the basics of grace orientation into impersonal love, because impersonal love is not based on who somebody is or what they have done. That is removed from the equation. In grace orientation the focus is on the character of God. In God’s grace towards us the issue is His character, not who we are or what we have done. When we in turn are exercising grace orientation towards others it is not based on who we are, it is based on who God is. The model that is given in Scripture is that we are to forgive others as God for Christ’s sake forgave us. So the model becomes what God did for us. We are to deal with others in grace in the same way that God dealt with us. It always comes back to the character of God.
As we try to wrap our minds around what grace orientation entails we can break it down into several elements. First, we have grace in salvation. This is the source of understanding what grace is. Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrated his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” This is the expression of His grace. It is fundamentally rooted in His righteousness. He is going to do what is right for us despite the situation. How did Abraham understand grace? Because what is happening in Genesis 13 as he has this conflict between his servants and Lot’s servants and this great interpersonal problem has developed, is that Abraham takes Lot up on a hillside and shows him all the land. And he makes this magnanimous gesture and tells Lot to take whatever he wants. Abraham is operating from a position of strength, he is not trying to keep the best back for himself. So in his generosity he is handling the problem, he is using grace toward Lot. How did he come to understand grace? If we look at the Old Testament the word grace has only been used one time so far, and that was in Genesis chapter six when we were told that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Even though the word has only been used once up to that time obviously God has been dealing with man in grace. So historically Abraham would know about the grace of God, first of all by how God dealt with Adam and Eve at the fall, that He provided a means of salvation for them, and he understood the whole dynamic of sacrifices that had been laid down in the previous dispensation. And we have seen that he had gone through the land and built altars, so he understood the whole principle of grace. He would understand grace historically through the fall, through the flood, from his own salvation (Genesis 15:6), and he would understand it from the Abrahamic covenant. He would think about the fact that this land wasn’t his to begin with, he didn’t have an inherent right to this land. In the same way, we don’t have an inherent right to anything in life. As fallen creatures if we got what we deserved we would be sent to the lake of fire immediately. But God in His grace gives us a lifespan and an opportunity to trust in Him and come to salvation. That is grace. In Abraham’s case, not only does he have a grace based salvation but on top of that God gives him this covenant, gives him this land, and it is not based on anything Abraham has done or on his character. But what we see is that he is understanding the fact that the and is his by a free gift, even though he has no right to it, and it is up to God to fulfill the promise. Once he understands that in fellowship, that all that he has is really from God, then he is free to be generous with it because he knows that God is going to sustain him and provide for him. This is our basis for understanding grace orientation towards people, to be magnanimous to those who don’t deserve it, to treat people with kindness.
As we think through everything that God has given us and how He supplied everything, that in turn leads us to developing genuine humility. We see the connection here in James 4:6, “But he gives more grace. Wherefore he said, God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble.” True genuine humility is related to grace orientation. In humility we recognize that we don’t have anything that is ultimately the result of our own efforts or who and what we are; everything comes from God. This begins to impact our view of the details of life. Most of the time we fall into the trap of thinking that happiness comes from people, circumstances, or events. If circumstances were just a certain way, then I could do thus and so … if only. But the real source of stability, meaning and happiness is our relationship with Him, and that only comes from having doctrine in the soul that we can rely on and which provides that foundation and stability. In James chapter one we see that as we develop true humility it leads to gratitude, gratefulness for all that we have, and even if we don’t have it. This develops the mastery of the details of life. We don’t have to worry about getting or keeping or changing the circumstances to have happiness and stability. This gives us a position of strength to operate from. This is why Abraham is able to tell Lot to take whatever he wants. He is so secure in the knowledge of God providing for him that he recognizes that it is not up to him to get, to acquire or to change the circumstances. Because he is resting in God’s promise that God is going to give him the land he is now free to be generous towards Lot and to treat him in kindness, even though Lot may not deserve it.
James 1:9ff, “Let the lowly brother rejoice in his exaltation.” The word here for the lowly brother is the brother who is in humble circumstances, it is talking about someone who doesn’t have the details of life. He is to have as the basis of his glory what God has given him—glory in his high position, literally, not exaltation. Our high position is what we have in Jesus Christ. In contrast we have the rich person, verse 10, “and let the rich man glory in his humility [not humiliation, as in the KJV].” So the wealthy man is not to glory in his wealth, it is not the fact that he has all the details of life, he is to glory in his humility, his grace orientation, not in the possession of the details of life. Then we have the illustration: “because as the flower of the grass will pass away.” The rich person needs to glory in his humility because in the same way the flower of the grass will pass away. This isn’t an attack on wealth, it is a recognition that grass produces the flower, the extra benefit. The grass is always there but there are only flowers at certain times and seasons. So sometimes it is there and sometimes not there. In the same way the wealthy person may have the details of life this decade but the next decade he may not have the details of life. They may pass away; they are temporary. The illustration continues in v. 11, “For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withers the grass, and the flower thereof falls [the person is still there, not the details of life which disappear under the heat of adversity], and the grace of the fashion of it perishes: so also shall the wealth [not the rich man] fade away in his ways.” So this is talking about the fact that the one who is wealthy in the details of life needs to have humility because the details of life may disappear. It is only when we are grace oriented that we can have a proper understanding and appreciation for the details of life that God gives us. This is the same attitude expressed by the apostle Paul in Philippians 4:10-11, “But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” In other words, whether I have the details of life or I don’t have the details of life I am just as happy. This is the expression of inner happiness as a problem-solving device. What is it built on? It is built on genuine humility and grace orientation.
James 1:12, “Blessed is the man who endures testing.” This is what is happening with Abraham, he is learning to endure testing and to handle the testing by using those spiritual skills that God has supplied. When he does that he builds endurance. That is the theme of James chapter one. “…he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”
Every test boils down to the sin nature, to the question as to whether we are going to try to handle the circumstances through our own efforts, ability, through some kind of sin or human good, or whether we are going to handle the situation by relying on promises, principles, and provisions of God, and the faith-rest drill, and then utilization of various other spiritual skills. So those who endure by staying in fellowship pass the test and move forward and advance to spiritual maturity. Grace orientation involves understanding what happened at salvation, thinking about it, reflecting on it, on God’s goodness and kindness to us in salvation and in providing everything we need logistically and in grace as we advance. It is related to genuine humility. In genuine humility we develop gratitude for all that God has given us, and then we are not concerned about the details of life, that is in God’s hands. That frees us, then, to have a relaxed mental attitude. We are going to relax in the circumstance, just as Abraham relaxes in all of the turmoil going on around him between Lot’s servants and his servants. He relaxes and makes an objective decision and utilizes grace in how he handles Lot. He deals with him in generosity.
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O83b-Blessing by Association. Genesis 14: 1-17
In chapter fourteen we come to a transition paragraph. In Genesis 13:14 the command is to look and then in verse 17 it is to arise and walk in the land in its length and is width, “for I have given it to you.” So again we see the reiteration of a promise. What is that going to do? It tells us that God has made a promise and the next step is that God will test Abraham on the basis of that promise. Principle: God is going to teach us doctrine and then He is going to test you on the doctrine. He is going to teach each of us the various promises and as we learn He tests us on the basis of that doctrine.
The thing that we have to go back to with Abraham is that these promises that God is making to Abraham have to do with the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant is to the Jew what positional truth is to the church age believer. What Abraham is having to do is learn to live on the basis of those iron-clad unconditional promises that God gave him in the Abrahamic covenant. God has contractually obligated Himself to certain things irregardless of how Abraham behaves. It is not based on what Abraham is or what Abraham does. Abraham was freely given this contract by God which contained the provisions for the land, seed, and the blessing. So the application we have to think of here as Abraham is learning to live on the basis of the promises in the Abrahamic covenant, you and I as church age believers are learning to live on the basis of everything that God gave us at the instant of salvation. At the instant of salvation we have salvation related blessings that are ours forever. We have been redeemed from sin. God the Father has been propitiated. His character has been satisfied by the death of Christ, so that is a one-time for all action. We have been justified. Justification takes place in a point in time. At the instant we put our faith in Christ alone God the Father imputes to us the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ and when His righteousness and justice looks at the righteousness of Christ in us He declares us justified, not because of anything we have done but because of who Jesus Christ did on the cross. Beyond that we have various other things that take place. We have various ministries of God the Holy Spirit that transpire at the instant of salvation which relate to sanctification. So the foundation for the Christian life is what took place in terms of positional realities at the instant of salvation. So positional truth has to do with everything that we have because of our position, our identification with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, and being part of the body of Christ. In the same way in the Old Testament a Jew, when they are saved and become part of that spiritual seed of Abraham, they become a Jew indeed and heirs to all those promises in the Abrahamic covenant. That is their positional reality and they can’t ever lose it. So the test for Abraham was to live in light of those positional realities, one of which was the land, and that is why the first three tests in chapters twelve and thirteen all relate to the land.
Genesis 13:15, “For all the land which you see, to you will I give it, and to your seed for ever.” Notice there are no conditions on that promise. God doesn’t say that as long as Abraham is obedient he can have the land. In the Mosaic covenant which was a temporary covenant God said Israel would only enjoy the blessings of the land if they were obedient. If they were disobedient He was going to take them out of the land, but “you will return to me and when you do, then I will bring you from the four corners of the earth back to the land.” That is a promise that has yet to be fulfilled.
Then there is an expansion on the seed element of the Abrahamic covenant in verse 16, “And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall your seed also be numbered.” So God promises to Abraham that through this line there will be an innumerable amount of descendants.
Then in verse 17 & 18 is the conclusion of the chapter. “Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee. Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the LORD.” His walking through the land is a sign that he is taking dominion over that land. He is marking it off, examining the dimensions of what God has given to him. In other words, God is telling him that he needs to become familiar with the realities of this covenant. In the same way the believer is to become familiar with the reality of what he was given in positional truth. We should be as familiar with the doctrines and terminology of propitiation, justification, imputation, baptism of the Spirit, indwelling, filling of the Spirit, priesthood of the believer, and all of the other things that were given to us at the instant of salvation. We need to be aware of them and should be so much a part of our thinking that it affects how we make decisions and what we do every day. Verse 18 gives the transition statement that sets things up for the next chapter. Mamre is not a location, he is a person, and Amorite chieftain who has staked out his property in the area near where what later becomes Hebron. It was at Hebron that he built an altar to the Lord. So through chapter thirteen we see that Abraham was in fellowship, he is worshipping the Lord, he is passing the tests, and now in chapter fourteen we come to the next test.
The tests up to this point have been related to the land paragraphs of the covenant. This test is going to be related to the blessing paragraph of the Abrahamic covenant. He moves down to Mamre as a result of God’s promise and lives there and begins to associate with these Gentile Amorites there. Genesis 12:2, “…. you shall be a blessing.” It is an imperative. In other words, Go be a blessing. Abraham failed to be a blessing when he was out of the land and living in deception in Egypt. He brought a plague and cursing on the house of Pharaoh. Now he is going to get another opportunity to be a blessing by association to those who are around him. A test comes up and this is going to involve a military test. It also involves the land because the land is invaded by a foreign power, a foreign coalition of four kings.
Genesis 14:1, 2, “And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations; that these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar.” So what we see is a detailed account of a military campaign that extends down through verse 17. What we will see in these 17 verses is that God gives the blessing of victory over evil for the believer. It is God who is the hero of Old Testament narrative. Because of God’s provision for Abraham there is blessing by association to his pagan neighbors.
Why do we have such a detailed account of this military campaign? Why has the Holy Spirit chosen certain events to put in the Word and not other events? Because He is demonstrating something. It is history, real genuine history but it is editorialized history, because the prophets are writing this to demonstrate that the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is a God who is unlike all of the other gods. He is a God who speaks and reveals and a God who intervenes and interferes in the life of man. And He is always true to His covenants. So the underlying theme throughout the Old Testament is that God is always faithful to His covenant. That is a principle of application for us. God is always faithful to His promises. That is why we as conservative evangelicals believe so vehemently in the doctrine of the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture. If the Scripture isn’t inerrant, if it isn’t the inspired Word of God where God has objectively revealed this to us, then how do we know we can count on it? How do we know which promises are for today and how do we know that God is going to fulfill His promises? How do we know that we can trust Him? So we have to start with an inerrant, infallible Bible. If we don’t start with an inerrant infallible Bible, then the Bible is just another piece of religious literature that is no better and no worse than the Koran, the Book of Mormon, or any of the other religious books that are out there. But if the Bible is the infallible Word of God, if God has spoken to us, then nothing else in life matters ultimately than to know what He has said to us. God has spoken, and if God has spoken then we can understand what he has said. It is not a guessing game. It is like a radio signal. He not only built the signal but He built in each one of us the receiver so that we can understand the signal. It is not a guessing game.
In verse 1 we have some names of kings of what were mostly city states. Unfortunately we can’t tie any of these in with anyone known in history at this time. There is no known connection. But we can identify the geographical areas that they are associated with here. Amraphel king of Shinar which, according to Genesis 10:10 is the area around Babylon. Arioch king of Ellasar, but there is absolutely no reference anywhere in any ancient documents to such a place. Based on his name and the etymology of his name many scholars would link this to an area in eastern Asia Minor, connecting it to the region of Pontus, just south of the Black Sea and down into Cappadocia. In fact, the Vulgate and a Greek translation of the Old Testament both translate Ellasar as Pontus. The Genesis Apocryphon translates it as Cappadocia, which is to the south east of Pontus. The third individual mentioned who ends up being the military leader of the group is Chedorlaomer king of Elam. Elam is located just off the Persian Gulf and to the east. The last person identified here is Tidal who is said to be the king of the goyim. There is no known person of this name in the period of Abraham. Tidal seems to have been a ruler of a coalition made up of Hittites and Luvians. The point here is that if we look at the map of these areas we have a coalition of four major powers at that time. This is not just three or four bandits who gathered together a few hundred men and went on a rampage down through the Dead Sea valley area, this is something comparable in their age to a world war: four strong military powers aligning themselves together and involved in an assault down through the Jordan valley. It seems that their ultimate reasons are economic related to the bitumen pits.
Verse 3, 4, “All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea. Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled.” In the first list in v. 1 Amraphel was mentioned first. That would indicate that he had priority of leadership. By verse 4 Chedorlaomer seems to have risen to prominence, maybe because he had the military talent to conquer this area. On the shore of the Dead Sea is the location of the five cities of the plain. They had been conquered and were to send a tribute every year back to this coalition, and it would have been not only natural resources but also money. After twelve years they decided they weren’t going to do it any more. That is what is means by “in the thirteenth year they rebelled.” So the coalition got together again and embarked on their second military campaign down to discipline all of the little groups that were in rebellion.
Verse 5, “And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim.” The Rephaim are part of a group of pre-Canaanite or pre-Israelite inhabitants in the land of Canaan. They were renowned for their height. These were giants. One of the most renowned of their descendants was Og, king of Bashan who have a nine cubit bed. A cubit was 18-inches. That makes him close to thirteen and a half feet tall. He has an ancestor of Goliath. Cf. Numbers 13, “giants in the land.” In the second battle they defeat the Zuzims in Ham. It is not certain exactly where Ham was located but it is going to have to be in the same area. The Zuzim were also a group of giants. So in both groups a group of physically larger soldiers was defeated and it indicates that the armies of Chedorlaomer were well trained, well disciplined, and were experienced. They are not going up against experienced armies though. The next battle takes on a group called the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim. This is in the Trans-Jordan area, and the Emim also were a group of giants. Then we come to the last battle, v. 6, “And the Horites in their mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness.” It is evident from Scripture that these were a distinct group of people who were also part of the land and they lived in Sier which is the mountainous region later known as Edom where the Edomites would dwell. So these, too, were defeated by the coalition. Then they headed south to Elparan which is on the Gulf of Akabar. They head north and at Kadesh-Barnea they defeat a coalition of Amorites and Amalekites. Verse 7, “And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezontamar.” Enmishpat means the well or spring of judgment, and it was the ancient name for what latter became known as Kadesh-Barnea. There is a coalition there made up of Amorites and Amalekites. The Amorites were a large people group in the ancient world. In fact, they become one of the major ethnic groups making up the Canaanites and are a problem for the Jews all through the period of Joshua, Judges, and on into the period of David and later because they didn’t completely destroy them. The Amalekites were also a continuous problem for the Jews. They were a sort of roving band of land pirates who wreaked devastation everywhere they went in the ancient world, and as a result of that they carried with them a tremendous amount of booty. This is the first group of people that the Jews faced when they came out of Egypt. They were a continuous scourge all through the period of the Judges until Saul defeats them in a major battle when Saul does almost everything that God tells him to do. But he didn’t kill their king. They are not ultimately defeated until David defeats them later on.
Verses 8-10, “And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim; with Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five. And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain.” So the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah got away but they lost all their goods and possessions. Chedorlaomer and his group takes it all and captures Lot and his family along with it. Abraham is in Hebron and he is going to ally himself with the Amorites who are living there with Mamre and his brothers, and they head north to a place called Hobah where they ambush Chedorlaomer and his armies and defeat them. This sets the stage for one of the most interesting meetings in all of the Bible, the meeting of Abraham with Melchizedek.
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084b-Blessing by Association Part 2
In Genesis 14 we run into two tests in the life of Abraham. A test is always related to a volitional decision, so one of the things we are paying attention to as we go through the life of Abraham is, where do we find situations where Abraham has to make a choice to apply doctrine? As we see this his life just sort of unfolds. Each of these episodes in his life from Genesis 12 through 24 relate to Abraham having to make some sort of decision related to something that God has promised him, something that God has told him, and he has to apply doctrine. Within the framework of the Bible this ultimately goes down to the Abrahamic covenant and the threefold promise that God makes to Abraham there in terms of land seed, and blessing. Notice that there is a promise, a test, a reiteration of promises. So that tells us as believers that the key elements in the Christian life is to learn those promises, provisions and principles that God has given us because that is what we are tested on on a daily basis. We are not going to keep our mental attitude strong and sharp and firm if we think that we can just be in Bible class once every now and then. We can’t be in class every day but we need to be listening to the Word every day. We have to do that so that the mind keeps focused on the Word of God as the priority. We are barraged day in and day out by human viewpoint. Most believers delude themselves into thinking that we really have arrived at a level of knowledge where we are doing okay. That fact is that until we are absent from the body and face to face with the Lord, and the sin nature is no longer present, that is not true. We need that constant reminder because the wiles of the devil are extremely subtle and deceptive and it is very easy for us to get into complacency and self-sufficiency.
Chapter fourteen is a test related to the blessing provision in the Abrahamic covenant where God commanded Abraham to be a blessing to those around him. That is true of the church age as well where we are to be a blessing to those around us. The chapter revolves around two tests and both of them are related to Abraham fulfilling that command to be a blessing. Whenever we have a volitional decision that relates to application of doctrine, that is a test. Abraham’s first test is covered in the first 17 verses, and this has to do with the invasion of the four kings from the east.
Genesis 14:12, “And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.” Lot was an extremely wealthy businessman, as Abraham was.
Then we come to Abraham’s test in verse 13, “And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram. And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan.” Abraham is living in Hebron at this time, just south west of Salem, and he has allied himself with some Amorites. Notice here that he is identified as “Abram the Hebrew.” This is the first reference to Hebrews. In the Old Testament the Jews are rarely referred to as Hebrews, they are referred to as the sons of Israel. There was another group of people in the ancient world that were known as the Apiru who seem to have been some kind of marauding band of Bedouins. It is possible that they may have been identified with the Amalekites. But the term “Hebrew” is probably derived from Abraham’s ancestor Eber, but there was a certain similarity of sound between Hebrew and Apiru and so the Jews did not like to be identified as Hebrews because they didn’t want to be confused with the Apiru who brought much trouble and devastation in the ancient world. This is the first time we have Abraham identified as “the Hebrew” which indicates he is well known, and has a stature in his community and in the world at that time where he is known by those around him. So he is found now in close association with three Amorite brothers and they are going to aid him in the protection of the land.
Abraham has a choice at this time. When he hears that Lot has been taken captive he could just say it was tough luck and that there was not a whole lot he could do. So he has a test at this point. It is related to the mandate of God, and the question: Am I going to be a blessing to those around me or not? So he makes the decision based o the doctrine in his soul and based on the moral courage that the doctrine has given him, to gather his men together, along with the servants of his allies—Mamre and his two brothers—and they go after this experienced army that has just wreaked havoc all the way through the ancient world. They make a decision. He takes his servants who, it will be noticed, were trained. They went in pursuit as far as Dan, but at this time there was no Dan. Dan is a term that is applied to the northern part of the promised land after the Jews came in and took the land after the conquest. The armies meet at the site of Hobah. The battle is described in verse 15, “And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus.” So once he catches up with them there is a night assault. He divides up his forces and probably hit them from at least two sides, if not from three, and with the night attack and surprise on his side, even though the opposition forces outnumbered him, he was able to rout them. Verse 16, “And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.” Imagine all the plunder that these armies had amassed going through all these various battles. It must have been a tremendous sight, and Abraham comes along and rescues all of it. He is functioning as a blessing to the ancient world. This takes us right back to Genesis 12:2, “…and you shall be a blessing.” So Abraham is passing this test.
But the test then turns into a second test. This is what we often find happens in our own spiritual life. We get in one set of circumstances where we are forced to make a decision as to whether or not we will apply the Word or not. We apply the Word and as a result of application of the Word we then move into another test. Because of what Abraham had done in defeating these enemies he now moves into another form of the blessing by association test.
The doctrine of blessing by association
1) Definition: Blessing by association is the extension of benefits of divine blessing to those in the periphery of either a) a Jew, or b) a Christian. Therefore it is a consequence of divine grace. It is undeserved and unearned but nevertheless there are those who receive the overflow of blessing.
2) Certain logistical blessings of God go to all Jews wherever they are on the basis of the Abrahamic covenant. The Jewish race is going to continue down throughout history because God has certain promises that He has made to Abraham that have never yet been fulfilled. The provisions of the Abrahamic covenant are still in effect.
3) Blessing by association in relation to Christians is the result of God’s blessing provision or protection for believers which overflows to those in his periphery. So it is a different dynamic functioning for church age believers. So for the church age believer the basis for blessing differs because it is a different contract. We are not under the Abrahamic covenant, we are beneficiaries of the new covenant. The believer receives blessing from God on the basis of grace because he has the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. As we advance and mature then God distributes these blessings, and when God distributes these blessings to the maturing believer there is always going to be benefits to those around him.
4) The biblical basis for understanding this is seen in two cases, both in Genesis: the provision of the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 12:2, and the episode on Genesis 18.
5) Blessing by association may also extend to historical heritage. An example is in 1 Kings 11:12 after Solomon has been so disobedient to the Lord and is told that the kingdom will be torn away from him. “Notwithstanding in thy days I will not do it for David thy father's sake: but I will rend it out of the hand of thy son.” There is historical heritage blessing by association. The same kind of thing is seen in the history of western Europe. The Reformation heritage has extended from the early part of the sixteenth century down through the twentieth century in providing stable institutions. What we have to recognize is that divine blessing is based on grace, never on works, and the blessing is based upon the righteousness we possess from imputed righteousness. Blessing by association in the church age is an extension of John 13:34, 35—through the operation of impersonal love for all mankind. Romans 12:14, “Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not.”
So what we see in these two episodes in Genesis 14 is that Abraham understands that he is to be a blessing to those around him. The principle is to love your neighbor as yourself.
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085c-The Truth About Tithing, The Test of Gratitude. Genesis 14: 17-24
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086c-Is Tithing for Today? Genesis 14: 17-24
Genesis 14:18, “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine.” It will be pointed out later that this is not some sort of precursor to communion. There is nothing stated in the text that this has anything to do with any sort of ritual or religious observance. Just because Melchizedek was a priest does not mean reference to bread and wine has to do with some sort of fellowship meal with God. He was simply providing logistical grace to the men who had followed Abraham.
Tithing, continued…
7) From creation to the Mosaic law (which includes all of the pre-Israel dispensations) there is no mandate for giving. All giving was free will giving—grace giving. Giving under the Mosaic was not part of the spiritual life because the Mosaic law was addressed to every citizen of Israel, believer and unbeliever alike. What is meant by grace giving is that it is not mandatory. Under the Mosaic law there were voluntary offerings and there were mandatory offerings. What we see is that throughout history there are these two categories of giving. What we have to understand is that grace doesn’t mean that there is no obligation. Another misunderstanding is that people think that grace means it is free. It doesn’t mean it is free it just means it is free to you. Somebody has to pay. The model is salvation. Salvation is free to us but Jesus Christ had to pay.
8) The next mention of tithes is in Leviticus 27, and there it is related to the Mosaic covenant and the giving of the tithe to the Levites. The references in the Pentateuch are all related to the Mosaic covenant. Remember a covenant is a contract, a legal binding document between two people. God is the party of the first part in all the biblical covenants, and we have to determine who the recipient is. The Mosaic covenant did not include Gentiles.
9) Gentiles were not under the Mosaic law and therefore were never under the Mosaic laws of tithing. Nevertheless, the free will offerings that characterized the human race from Adam to Abraham were still in effect. Gentiles could give out of their own determination. They could give to the temple in Jerusalem, they could give to a priest, they could give to a prophet, they could give to whatever they wanted to, but they were never mandated to give to support the Levites, the priests, the temple, the widows and orphans in Israel. Gentiles were never held accountable for that aspect of the Mosaic law.
10) What we do see as we look at the Mosaic law is that it recognized two categories of giving: free will giving and mandatory giving. Mandatory giving in the Bible is generally related to taxation to support the local government, whatever it may be. We see a recognition of free will giving in Deuteronomy 12:6, “And there [the treasury in the temple] you shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and contributions of your hand [physical offerings, fruit of produce], and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks.”
11) Under the Mosaic law there were actually three mandates for tithing or giving ten percent to the state. Israel was a theocracy. What she had in terms of a bureaucracy was the Levites and the priests who ran the state. They were the ones who were teaching the law to the people, the ones who take care of the treasury in the temple, who oversee the administration of the sacrifices. So the first category of tithe went to support the Levites. Numbers 18:21ff gives the basis for this tithe. It was a ten per cent mandate on every Jewish citizen. In Numbers 18 God is talking to Israel only within the context of the Mosaic law, i.e. the constitution that He is giving to Israel to rule in terms of both the civil government and the ritual of the state. Verse 21, “And, behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation.” The word “inheritance” means a possession. Why does He do this? It was for the work they performed and this was their pay. It is legitimate to pay the priest for their work. This isn’t in practice today. There are no Levites practicing in the temple, therefore this tithe is not relevant to anybody. So three points of observation here: a) Israel was a theocracy under the Mosaic covenant, therefore the Levites were the bureaucracy of the theocracy; b) Levites were not given any portion of the land as an inheritance, so the tithe of the rest of the nation was their inheritance or possession. It was equivalent to the land that God gave everybody else in Israel; c) The Levites in turn took one tenth of everything they received and gave it to the Lord for the support of the high priest. The next tithe is given in Deuteronomy 14:22-26. This is a slightly different tithe. “Deut 14:22, “You shall surely tithe all the produce from what you sow, which comes out of the field every year. You shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God, at the place where He chooses to establish His name [the tabernacle and then the temple], the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. If the distance is so great for you that you are not able to bring {the tithe,} since the place where the LORD your God chooses to set His name is too far away from you when the LORD your God blesses you, then you shall exchange {it} for money, and bind the money in your hand and go to the place which the LORD your God chooses. You may spend the money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household.” This tithe is for celebrations. This was a great visual lesson on the spiritual condition of the nation. They would measure their blessing by their physical or economic prosperity. Then every third year there was a third tithe and this was the charity tithe to take care of the Levites and the widows and the orphans. This is described in Deuteronomy 14:28, 29, “At the end of every third year you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in that year, and shall deposit {it} in your town. The Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance among you, and the alien, the orphan and the widow who are in your town, shall come and eat and be satisfied, in order that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hand which you do.” So there is a basis for some sort of national welfare in the law. God is a compassionate God. We all know there are situations beyond our control, not matter how responsible we may be all of our lives, things can happen in the cosmic system where we can lose everything. So God does have a safety net in the Mosaic law. Those are the three mandatory taxes on every citizen.
12) There was also free will giving. This was the basis for constructing the tabernacle, described in Exodus 35:29; 36:3. “The children of Israel brought a willing offering unto the LORD, every man and woman, whose heart made them willing to bring for all manner of work, which the LORD had commanded to be made by the hand of Moses.… And they received of Moses all the offering, which the children of Israel had brought for the work of the service of the sanctuary, to make it withal. And they brought yet unto him free offerings every morning.” It wasn’t because they were manipulated by guilt, it was I gratitude because had just brought them out of Egypt. They made their own decision as to how much they were going to give to the Lord. There is no percentage related to this. There are a number of other passages which talk about free will offerings: Leviticus 22:28ff.; 23:38; 27:30-31; Numbers 15:3; Deuteronomy 12:6; Ezra 1:4; 3:5.
13) When Israel were apostate they quit giving. They didn’t pay the tithe and they didn’t bring free will offerings. The tabernacle fell into disrepair and temple also fell into disrepair after the apostasy of Solomon. During Hezekiah’s reform there was a return to the tithe, 2 Chronicles 31:5, 6, 12. Hezekiah’s reform saw a return to the tithe. The coffers were full again and people joyously gave. After this both the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom goes out under discipline, until there were various returns under Zerubbabel and Ezra and Nehemiah. In Nehemiah we are told that they reinstated the tithe. This is because they were going into the second temple now and they need to have the support for the Levites. Nehemiah 10:38, “And the priest the son of Aaron shall be with the Levites, when the Levites take tithes: and the Levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes unto the house of our God, to the chambers, into the store house [the temple, the house of God].” The temple was the house of God because it was the place where the Shekinah glory dwelt. There are no houses of God today. A church is not the house of God. The believer’s body is the temple where the Holy Spirit dwells, and that is the only real sanctuary around. The Hebrew word for “storehouse” was the otzar. Note: There was a mandate back in Numbers and Deuteronomy to give those three tithes. It was in the imperative mood. But here there is no imperative mood here in Nehemiah, this is just describing their obedience to the law. Then again in Nehemiah 12:44, “And at that time were some appointed over the chambers for the treasures [The place inside the temple where the money was kept], for the offerings, for the firstfruits, and for the tithes, to gather into them out of the fields of the cities the portions of the law [law of Moses] for the priests and Levites: for Judah rejoiced for the priests and for the Levites that waited.” This shows their positive volition and they are glad to support the priests and Levites. Nehemiah 13:5, “And he had prepared for him a great chamber, where aforetime they laid the meat offerings, the frankincense, and the vessels, and the tithes of the corn, the new wine, and the oil, which was commanded to be given to the Levites, and the singers, and the porters; and the offerings of the priests.” This is the application of the Mosaic law. Then in Nehemiah 13:12, “Then brought all Judah the tithe of the corn and the new wine and the oil unto the treasuries.” This is the storehouse in the temple. After their return to the land there is this initial euphoria where they are all excited about supporting the temple, the Levites, and paying their taxes. Ten per cent is not an onerous tax, so they are pleased to do that, but after a while they started falling apart. In Ezra we have the same terminology we have in Nehemiah. Ezra 1:4, “And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.” Notice that these aren’t tithes. These are free will offerings for the temple.
14) We have laid out this case to understand one of the most abused verses in the Old Testament: Malachi 3:8, 10, “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.” This is God speaking. Tithes were the mandatory offerings for the free will. God is just saying they were disobeying the law. Verse 10, “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and prove me now herewith, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” The storehouse is in the temple. The food in the house is the welfare programs so that the widows and the orphans and the Levites can be taken care of when they are destitute. Is there a temple today? No, there is not. Are there Levites today? No, there are not. In terms of the church age we can’t talk about it because this is all part of the Mosaic law. The promise of blessing for obedience goes directly back to the promises in the Mosaic law that “if you obey me I will bless you materially, physically and financially; and if you don’t, I won’t.” But that doesn’t function that way in the New Testament at all. Romans 6:4, you are not under the law but under grace. There is a shift in contract. The contract is no longer the Mosaic covenant. Romans 10:4, “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness for everyone that believes.” The Mosaic law was terminated when Jesus Christ died on the cross. That ends the priesthood, therefore there is no tax for the priesthood. In 70 AD when the nation Israel was wiped out there was no more annual tithe for an annual party. There was no need to support the widow and orphan in Israel. All those commands were tied to these. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the church age, they have nothing to do with Christianity in the church age. However, the principle of free will giving certainly continues and this is the emphasis that we see in the New Testament.
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087c-Grace-giving: Gratitude and Generosity. Genesis:14:18-20
Much of this lesson was review of the previous lesson and has not been repeated here.
The Mosaic law didn’t recognize just tithing, it also recognized free will or grace giving that was important for the sustenance of the temple and for the people. So there were these two categories of giving. There are several verses in Proverbs that emphasize this. Proverbs 3:9 10, “Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase: so shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.” Notice the emphasis there. It is from the first, it is not giving the Lord from whatever you have that is second class or used. In the Old Testament economy there seems to be this material/physical connection between spiritual obedience and material prosperity. That is not true in the church age. For one thing, we are not living in a Christian nation. They were living in a nation that was a theocracy under God and so God built into this these concrete barometers for self-evaluation. We don’t have this today. We have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we have the completed canon of Scripture, we have so much more. So a principle like this can’t be taken as a promise. (A proverb is a wise saying that is generally true but not always altogether true; it is not the same as a promise which is an unconditional statement of reality that is backed up by the integrity of God) Proverbs 11:24, “There is one who scatters, and {yet} increases all the more, And there is one who withholds what is justly due, {and yet it results} only in want.” The one who scatters is the one who is giving. We all know people like that, they are very generous and not only with money. Giving doesn’t just have to do with money, it has to do with time, with energy, with whatever talent God has given us in serving and helping others, and it also has to do with whatever financial resources the Lord gives us. If you are a person who has that attitude of gratitude and generosity from grace orientation, then it works itself out in all these areas. It is not just a matter of giving money to the church, it has to do with giving of yourself and time in many different ways and it may be in ways that are not seen by others. So there is the one who scatters, the person who is giving of himself and yet increases all the more because as he gives God is going to supply that which is necessary. There is also the person who withholds. This is the person who is relatively tight and even though it is justly due he holds on to it, but it results only in want. Giving, even under the Mosaic law, was not part of the means of spiritual growth but part of the outworking of genuine grace orientation and gratitude in the soul for all that God has provided.
In the Gospels Jesus never talks about tithing in a positive way, He only condemns the Pharisees for their false tithing system. They would tithe from their excess, not from what they had. They followed the letter of the law but not the spirit of the law, Luke 11:42; 18:12. There was no generosity of grace orientation among the Pharisees. There is no positive instruction in the Gospels or reaffirmation of the Old Testament principles of tithing. Secondly, our Lord taught that giving was to be a private matter, it wasn’t to be done in public for show, Matthew 6:2-4. The New Testament recognizes that free will giving is based on gratitude in the soul and not on the basis of a prescribed value, not on a set percentage. For example, Luke 21:2-4, “And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: for all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.”
Abraham’s tithe involved three things. He gave of not simply his possessions but from the recovered plunder that belonged to everybody. This is because he recognizes that God gave the victory for everybody. Secondly, he didn’t give a tithe of his possessions but a tithe of everything from the battle. He has a lot of possessions, but that is not what he gave a tithe of, he gave a tithe of everything from the battle. There are italics added in the translation of Hebrews chapter seven that “he gave from all of the spoils.” It is an active interpretation but it is not in the original which just says that he gave of all. When we look at the context of Genesis chapter fourteen, right after he gives the ten per cent to Melchizedek Bera the king of Sodom pipes up and says, You keep the possessions, I’ll take the people. It is clear from the context that this is talking about the plunder from the battle, not all of Abraham’s possessions.
New Testament principles are given in four central passages. 1 Corinthians 16:1ff; 2 Corinthians 9:4-15; Matthew 6:1-4; Luke 21:2-3. In 1 Corinthians 16 Paul is going to be on his third missionary journey and he is taking up a collection from each of the congregations of financial aid to take back to the church in Jerusalem because they were going through some financial distress. We get some principles for giving from this. “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I have given order to the churches of Galatia, even so do you.” So it is very clear that Paul is going to do some teaching about taking up a financial collection. The first principle we should learn about that is that Paul was not afraid to talk about money to the congregation. This isn’t talking about the normal monthly contribution to support the local church at Corinth or the pastor there, this is talking about the special collection that had a special focus for the believers in Jerusalem. This is something that Paul has been telling all the different churches so that he can swing by and pick it up on his next journey. This tells us that he believed on planning ahead of time and setting aside for the future. Verse 2, “Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.” There are two other principles here: that it was to be regular. They met each week and saved for that eventual time when Paul would come; and then the next clause gives us the standard for giving in the church age. It is the Greek word EUODOO [e)uodow], and it is the present passive subjunctive. The present tense emphasizes the ongoing nature of the prosperity. The passive voice emphasizes that the prosperity comes from the Lord, not from the individual. The subjunctive mood indicates its potentiality. The word euodoo means to be led along a good road of a good path. The prefix EU has to do with something that is good or beneficial—we see that in the word “eulogy” where eu is the prefix and logos means words: good words. So EUODOO to do with being led along a good road. In other words, it is an idiom for having the road of life go well, to be successful, and it expresses the standard for giving which is proportionality. How much a believer gives is between him and the Lord, so it is not a standard of ten per cent, it is as the Lord has provided. The purpose here is so that Paul doesn’t have to take up a collection when he comes, because he wouldn’t get as much as was needed to take care of the believers in Jerusalem.
New Testament grace giving follows the same pattern as the Old. There is mandated giving in the New Testament in terms of the support of a government or national entity in taxation. This is clear from Romans 13:6. Just as the Israelites gave tithes to support the divinely ordained system under which they lived, so we are to pay taxes to support our government. Then there is free will giving, and that is giving to support the local church and giving for missions. We are to give to the Lord according to whatever we purpose in our heart, according to 2 Corinthians chapter nine where there is the ideas of being generous and grace oriented. 2 Corinthians 9:5, “Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren, that they would go before unto you, and make up before hand your bounty, whereof ye had notice before, that the same might be ready, as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness. But this I say, He which sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which sows bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loves a cheerful [generous and grace oriented] giver.”
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088b-The Priestly Order of Melchizedek. Genesis 14:17-24
“And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.” In contrast to Abraham we have the empty-handed king of Sodom. He comes out to meet Abraham and has nothing with him. What he is looking for, we find, is he just wants to get his people back and perhaps some slaves, and work a deal. In contrast to that we have the generous Melchizedek who is coming with bread and wine. This just seems to fit Near-Eastern practices of welcoming troops home and brining food and refreshment to them after the battle. Melchizedek is thinking in terms of the needs of Abraham and his allies and servants, not what he is going to get out of it. So he is generous and a picture of grace orientation. The corrected translation of verse 18 should read, “But Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine.” There is the contrast between his generosity and grace orientation versus the lack of such on the part of the king of Sodom.
Now we are introduced to this somewhat enigmatic figure in the Old Testament, Melchizedek. What is so tremendous about this is as we go through the narrative in Genesis there is all of a sudden this meeting with Melchizedek. He is mentioned in about three verses and then we move on and never hear from him again until we get to Psalm 110:1, 4 where we once again get an indication and a signification and an interpretation of the interpretation of Melchizedek. Psalm 110:1, “A Psalm of David. The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand…” Then Psalm 110:4, “The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” Those two verses are some of the most oft-quoted verses in Hebrews, and they all tie into helping us understand that this little episode that we often tend to just pass over in the two or three verses in Genesis really sets the stage and the foundation for understanding the present time royal priestly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Hebrews chapters five and seven the entire structure of the argument is built upon the fact that Jesus Christ is designated a priest not after the order of the Levites in the Mosaic law but after the order of Melchizedek. So we have to understand something about Melchizedek because it helps us understand who Jesus Christ and what He is doing in this dispensation. One of the great things about this is it shows how God is working behind the scenes in history. Abraham has no idea of what the bigger picture is in this meeting with Melchizedek, and nobody else does at that time. It is not until the later references that its significance is understood. But this meeting that takes place is designed by God the Father in history in order to picture for us a tremendous event that is transpiring in history at that point, and it has a spiritual and theological significance that goes far beyond what is actually happening physically at that time.
A point of application here is that most of the time we don’t understand what God is doing in our own life. We are too close to it, we don’t see the dynamics, but nevertheless we can see from this instance as well as many others in Scripture that God is working behind the scenes in an incredible way to produce His desired outcome in history. It is just another reaffirmation that all these books in the Bible just didn’t happen haphazardly, they are not just the product of man’s imagination, but they are all inspired by God and integrate with one another, even though they have been written over a 2000-year period of time by over 50 different authors with no contradiction, no discrepancy, and things that are mentioned in one book by one author are then brought out and developed and God the Holy Spirit gives them new application in other places.
To understand Melchizedek we must understand that all we have is just a couple of verses here that mention him—verses 18 and 19. There are three suggestions for the name or title Melchizedek. The first is that the meaning is my king is tsediq, and tsediq is the Hebrew word for righteous. So this would be translated “my king is righteous.” A second meaning is, “Milku [a title of maybe some pagan deity] is righteous.” But the correct meaning of the name is “King of righteousness.” So there is this contrast between the king of perversion on the one hand and the king of righteousness on the other hand. We know that this is not his proper name but that it is a title because of Joshua 10:1, “Now it came to pass, when Adonizedek king of Jerusalem …” Adonai means Lord, and it means the same thing: “The Lord of righteousness.” Later on when David is the king he has a faithful priest named Zadok, and that name comes from this same root as zedek, meaning righteousness. So this is a name or title that is passed on for royalty and priests throughout that period in Israel’s history. Melchizedek’s identity is not revealed in Scripture and we really don’t know who he is but it is probable that we can have a pretty good idea. Some people think that this is a theophany. In Hebrews chapter five it says that he is without father and without mother, with no genealogy and this is like the Lord Jesus Christ, and they take that literally to mean that Melchizedek didn’t have a mother or father so it must be a theophany, the pre-incarnate Christ. However, there are a number of things that prevent us from taking that interpretation. A theophany is an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ—from the Greek THEOS [qeoj], meaning God, and PHONEO [fonew], meaning to appear or become manifest. There is also another term “Christophany” which is an appearance of Christ, and that is what is used after the resurrection. The second thing we must recognize is that theophanies are always referred to by a title of deity within the context of the passage or somewhere else. For example, when the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon in Judges chapter six, Gideon addresses the angel of the Lord by the title Yahweh. Hagar in Genesis referred to the angel of the Lord who appeared to her as Yahweh. So the Scripture doesn’t leave us to guess who this is. Thirdly, theophanies are not given different names, not given formal names. Their names are titles of deity, such as the angel of the Lord. But here we have this individual with a formal title, Melchizedek, and that is not characteristic of a theophany. Fourth, Melchizedek is said to be the ruler or the king in Salem, thus he is not a theophany. That doesn’t fit. Theophanies were just temporary appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ for purposes of communicating special revelation in the Old Testament. Rabbinic tradition in the Mishna, the collected writings and sayings of the rabbis at the time of Christ, the Talmud which was the later rabbinical commentary on the Mishna, the Midrash which was commentary on the Scripture, and other rabbinic writings up into the middle ages, are unanimous in identifying Melchizedek as a historical figure, Shem the son of Noah.
We can’t rely upon that as we can on Scripture because the Scripture does not make that point. But what is interesting is that if this is Shem who is the one identified by Noah as the one, “blessed be the God of Shem,” that we studied back in Genesis chapter nine after they came off the ark, now it is Shem who is saying Blessed is Abraham.” The spiritual blessing that Noah passes to Shem is now being passed from Shem to Abraham and to Abraham’s descendants. That is remarkable because it reinforces the dispensational shift that is taking place in these chapters. When we talked about Genesis 12:1-3 we usually talked about that as the Abrahamic covenant, but that is really God’s mandate to Abraham to get out of his country to go to the land that He is going to show him where He will make his name great, etc. That is the foundation for the Abrahamic covenant, but the Abrahamic covenant really isn’t cut. The initial ratification of the Abrahamic covenant is in Genesis 15, but right before that happens we have, as it were, the passing of the torch from Melchizedek who, even if it isn’t Shem, clearly represents the Noahic civilization worship of God because he worships El Elyon, the Mighty God, the possessor of heaven and earth. That title is significant. He uses it, Abraham uses it, and we are told in a couple of verses that Yahweh is the identical to the name El Elyon. So El Elyon is the title used by gentiles in the worship of God, whereas Yahweh is associated with the giving of the Abrahamic covenant and specifically the Mosaic covenant to Israel. That is the name that to a Jew represents covenantal loyalty and the God of the covenant.
Melchizedek’s actual identity is not mentioned but his significance is that here is a Gentile royal priest who now blesses the head of the Jewish race. What the writer of Hebrews is going to come along and say is that this shows that Abraham is inferior to Melchizedek because he receives a blessing from Melchizedek. That shows that he viewed Melchizedek as his spiritual superior. Because Abraham is inferior to Melchizedek anyone who is born from Abraham, any of his descendants, are by virtue of their coming from Abraham also are inferior to Melchizedek. His great grandchildren include the twelve sons of Jacob, including Levi. Therefore if Levi as a descendant of Abraham is inferior to Melchizedek, then the Levitical priesthood is inferior to the Melchizedekian priesthood. This is what the writer of Hebrews picks up on. This shows that Jesus had to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. He couldn’t be a priest after the order of Levi because that would limit His priesthood to Israel. Furthermore, Jesus Christ could not have been a priest after the order of Levi because He wasn’t born from the tribe of Levi, He was born as the greater son of David of the tribe of Judah. Because He comes from Judah he is not qualified to become a priest to Israel. But because He flows from a greater priesthood, the priesthood of Melchizedek, He can be a priest to all nations. The priesthood of Melchizedek is based on regeneration and one’s spiritual condition, whereas the Levitical priesthood had to do with one’s tribal birth, genealogy. The only qualification to be a Levitical priest was to be born in the tribe of Levi, there were no spiritual qualifications listed. There was no need to be saved, to be in fellowship, to be anything; only to go through the ritual. But to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek required being regenerate. So the Melchizedekian priesthood as a Gentile priesthood is a priesthood for all the nations, whereas the Jewish priesthood is limited. So what God is doing here in this event is laying the foundation, 2000 years before Christ, for the unique royal priesthood that Jesus Christ is going to practice in the church age, and that lays the foundation for the royal priesthood of every believer in the church age.
Genesis 14:19, “And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth.” “Possessor of heaven and earth” is the qal participle of qanah, which has the idea of acquiring, buying, or purchasing something. It is the idea that God is the one who owns everything. Some translations say, “And he blessed him, saying.” Literally, he did two things: He blessed him, and he said. The word for “blessing” here at the beginning, “And he blessed him,” is the piel imperfect of barach, which means to bless. The piel imperfect is the intensified stem and here we see that Melchizedek blessed Abraham. The word “blessing” in the qal stem means to kneel down or to praise. It comes to mean in the piel stem to bless. The idea here is that Melchizedek first praises Abraham for what he has done in his grace orientation and what he has accomplished. Then he shifts from what Abraham did in his spiritual life to the God who supplied the victory. So he starts with what Abraham did and then goes to the source of the victory.
Genesis 14:20, “And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered your enemies into your hand. And he gave him tithes of all.” Here we really have to understand the nuance of blessing here. It is praise. In praise to God we render praise for what He has done for us. Praise to God is an attitude where we express our gratefulness for everything He has done for us. And this is what is at the core of this whole episode: grace orientation and the gratitude that is demonstrated by Abraham toward God for the Abrahamic covenant, and as a result of what God has given him he is able to go out and be a blessing to others around him. And because of what God does in giving him victory then Melchizedek comes out and blesses Abraham and passes on the blessing that is handed down from Noah. As a result of that, then, Abraham expresses his gratitude and he gives a tithe of all the spoils to Melchizedek.
Genesis 14:21, “And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.” The king of Sodom puts all the focus on what he is going to get out of it.
Genesis 14:22-24, “And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up my hand unto the LORD, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is yours, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich: save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.” Abraham shows a tremendous principle it terms of giving, and he shows something else that is important here. Abraham declines the offer, but what we notice here is that Abraham is prepared for the offer. He isn’t just bouncing through life thinking God is just going to take care of things for him, he recognizes he has to think, he has to plan, he has to think in terms of what might happen. This is the mark of a good leader. A good leader is a planner, he thinks in terms of what happens if this happens? What happens if things don’t work out positively? What happens under this situation? What happens under that situation? Abraham has thought this through. What happens if I go back and somehow have to interact with this perverted king of Sodom and he wants to get some of these possessions or he wants to get the credit for this? He has clearly thought that through, otherwise why would he have sworn this oath to the Lord? He has prepared himself for that situation. Before he ever got there the text says he raised his hand to the Lord and the verb there is a hiphil perfect, and the perfect tense in the Hebrew is used here in the perfective aspect referencing the present results of the completed past action. He has thought through the circumstances that might occur and has made a decision, so he made a vow to the Lord that he would not give up the spoils to the king of Sodom, but that he would give a certain amount to the Lord God most high, the possessor of heaven and earth.
In terms of application we have an important principle here: We must learn to think, plan and forecast situations that may come up in our lives and how we are going to handle them. Usually we need to learn how to handle adversity, but often we need to know and think through what we are going to do and think through what we if have something positive happen, of suddenly God dumps prosperity in our laps. Prosperity can destroy an individual and that often happens with folks who win the lottery. We need to think in terms of opportunities to witness. How are we going to work the gospel into a conversation? What are some of the things I could talk about that could turn into an opportunity to talk about spiritual things? In other words, if we are not prepared to turn the conversation to the gospel it won’t happen. We also ought to give thought to opportunities to give, opportunities to serve, opportunities to have a ministry in the local church. We ought also to understand that there are various threats to our spiritual life. Abraham thought about that, he realized that this would be a threat to his spiritual life, a threat to the glory of God. He wanted God to get all the credit for the victory and he wasn’t going to share it with the king of Sodom. We need to think in terms of various crises. We have to prepare ourselves before hand. Think it over and over. What doctrine are we going to apply? What promises are we going to claim? How are we going to think it through in terms of doctrinal rationales? We have to be prepared for these things ahead of time? This is what Abraham has done. His vow is given in verses 23 and 24. Abraham will take nothing lest you take the opportunity to claim some role in this victory.
The principle here is that the plans of God and the purposes of God are not going to be funded by the unsaved, the unregenerate. We are always going to trust in the provision of the Lord through those who are saved and those who are part of the body of Christ. The only exception is in verse 24, “only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me.” In other words, those who went with him are going to take the spoils enough to survive and take care of their basic needs. And he is going to provide for the logistics and the supplies for his allies who went with them.
This brings us to the basic importance of Melchizedek, and that is that Melchizedek sets a standard. As a royal high priest, as a Gentile, who has the basis for a priesthood for all of the human race in contrast to the Levitical priesthood which is only for Jews. This, then, becomes the basis for the royal high priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and thus is becomes a type of the kind of priesthood that every believer enjoys in the church age because we are all royal priests in the royal family of Go
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089b-Imputation; Justification. Genesis 15:6
The New Testament tells us how to understand the Old, not that it reinterprets the Old but that it fully develops what is being said in the Old Testament. So that as Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter ten, “these things happened as an example.” The Greek word there is TUPOS [tupoj], and example, a type for us. It is to picture things. The right way to use the Old Testament when we are teaching in the New Testament is that these events don’t just and are not told us because they are interesting stories or because they “speak to the human experience” or because somehow they represent all mankind. These episodes reveal to us and are recorded in the Scriptures for us by the Holy Spirit because they teach us key principles about God, about man, and about how God is working in human history. That pretty much sums up the whole thing.
When we look at how Abraham is used in the New Testament we point out six things: a) Abraham is used in the New Testament as a picture of justification by faith alone in terms of phase one salvation—Romans 4:1-8; b) the working out of our salvation in terms of phase two. So it is not being saved from the penalty of sin (phase one), it is being saved from the power of sin (phase two)—James 2:21; c) With reference to spiritual growth—Hebrews 11:8-19, where he grows by means of faith, i.e. trusting in the revealed Word of God. So that is the process of going from phase one to spiritual maturity, it is by means of testing. As we go through episode by episode, chapter by chapter in the life of Abraham we see that each of these events surrounds some sort of test related to Abraham’s spiritual life; d) Abraham is a picture of election, and this is what under girds Romans 9-11. It is God’s selection of Abraham in contrast to the rest of the human race, that now He is going to work through Abraham and not through all of humanity. He chooses Abraham and his descendants. That, of course, is based on the Abrahamic covenant which God makes and which is spelled out in detail in Genesis chapter 15 and 17; e) This is the foundation for missionary activity and evangelism because through Abraham’s seed all nations will be blessed. That ultimately comes through the Lord Jesus Christ. So these elements really under gird everything in Abraham’s life in Genesis chapter twelve down through chapter 23.
Genesis 15:6 is the foundational Old Testament passage to understand justification by faith alone: “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted [imputed] it to him for righteousness.” This foundational verse for Genesis 15 is quoted in Romans 4:3, Galatians and James. It is the foundational verse for understanding imputation, which is clearly a word that is used there, but imputation is foundational for understanding justification.
Genesis chapter 15 can be subdivided into two parallel sections that are separated by 15:6 which is a parenthetical verse. The reason it is stuck in there is because it lays the foundation for both sections. There is a parallelism between verses 1-5 and then verses 7-21. They both involve dialogue between God and Abraham. What we see in verses 1-5 is God’s declaration of His promises to Abraham. He promises Abraham that he will have an heir that comes from his own body and who will be a physically-related descendant and is not going to be through some other means. In verses 7-21 God institutes a unilateral [only one permission involved in committing himself] covenant, a synonym for unconditional covenant, to guarantee those promises. So it is not just a matter of God speaking these momentous promises to Abraham, that he is going to have a descendant who is going to be physically related to him and come from his own loins, but God is going top bind Himself to this legal contract in order to give weight to this promise because in the future there are going to be numerous assaults on Abraham’s descendants, and the core provision in that promise relates to the land. So God binds Himself in this way in order to give weight to His promise that this is a unilateral, unconditional grace gift to Abraham.
In Genesis 15:1 we begin with God’s protection and reward. “Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.” What He is saying is, “I protect you, and I am going to provide for you.”
In Genesis 15:2 Abraham responds and we see what is bothering him. “And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?” The promise of protection and provision is preceded by the command “Do not be afraid,” and apparently Abraham is fearful of something, and it is the fact that he doesn’t have a child yet. So he questions God about that, expresses his concern and comes up with his own solution to the problem. How typical of all of us! Then in vv. 4, 5 God reiterates the promise that Abraham’s heir will be his own son and his descendants will be like the stars.
Then we have the foundation in verse 6, that Abraham believed God, but what we see in this verse is a disjunctive thought. What that means in grammatical terms is that the writer brings something in from left field. What you have in Hebrew is that the sentence is begun with the conjunction “and” to show the flow of the narrative. In English it is not necessary to put the “ands” in there to communicate the flow of the narrative, but that was the way that the Hebrew mind worked. But when you want to break the action, instead of following the typical conjunction, verb, noun pattern you break it by going conjunction, noun, verb. That is called a disjunction. It is the same thing as found in Genesis 1:2, it brings in a totally new thought and it is not flowing out of the previous thought. This is important because when it states in verse 6 that Abraham believed in the Lord, what he is believing is not the promise given in verses 1-5. It is not related to that at all, it is a parenthetical statement. What is means it, “Now remember Abraham had already believed God and it had been counted to him as righteousness.” It is a reminder of the basis for the blessing, the basis for the promise. God isn’t blessing Abraham with a child and the Abraham believes him, but Abraham has already trusted God, has received imputed righteousness, and it is on the basis of that imputed righteousness that God graciously blesses him with the Abrahamic covenant. So verse 6 hangs in here like a hinge, and the first five verses and the next verses are all built on this foundation that Abraham had already trusted God, indicating his salvation which occurred before Genesis chapter twelve, had already believed God, and he had already been imputed with the righteousness of God.
Genesis 15:7, “And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.” God reiterates a promise, just as He did in verse 1. In the first five verses the focus was on the seed and in verse 7 it shifts to the land, to inherit it. This is such a real promise that even though Abraham never owned any land other than the grave where he and Sarah were buried this promise is so foundational and so real and literal that Jesus uses it to ground His argument for resurrection. God said that Abraham would possess the land. He never possessed it then so there must be a resurrection so he can come back and actually possess it in the future. This is one reason we know that there is a future for Israel in the land.
But in verse 8 Abraham, like most of us, wants a little conformation: “And he said, Lord GOD, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” So starting in verse 9 God instructs Abraham to prepare a sacrifice. Abraham has to kill each of these animals, butchers them and splits them in two, except for the birds. So this is an extremely bloody scene. He lays these animals out side by side with a walkway, a path in the center, which was the standard operating procedure in the ancient world for two people who were going to cut a covenant. If you were going into a contract this is what you did to indicate the seriousness, the solemnity of a covenantal agreement. It is sealed with the lives of these animals. Then vultures come down on the carcasses. This is a picture of the fact that the Abrahamic covenant will be attacked down through the generations.
Genesis 15:12, “And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.” This again is a picture of the oppression the Jews will go through in the future. And God interprets this. Verse 13, “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years.” This is a prediction of the slavery in Egypt for four hundred years. Notice how literal this prophecy is. Here is the principle: If God’s promise to Abraham about the literalness of the 400-year oppression between Joseph and Moses, then why do some people want to allegorize the promises about the land when it comes to the present return of the Jews to the land? This is a shift in the hermeneutic.
Genesis 15:17, the finalization of the ceremony, “And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.” It is dark now and there is a smoking oven and a burning torch. It is fire, a picture of purification in the Scripture, a picture of the holiness of God. These two symbols of God in His integrity passed through the animals alone, Abraham doesn’t. If it had been a covenant between two humans they would walk next to each other between the animals indicating that they had both bound themselves to the contract. But Abraham can’t do it because he is sound asleep; God alone passes through between the animals using symbols that emphasize His integrity, that He is true to His Word and will not go back on His Word. He concludes, v. 18, “In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” The covenant here emphasizes the land. Even at its greatest extent under Solomon the Jews never controlled all the land, which means that for God to be true to His Word there must be a future return of the Jews to the land at which time they will fully control it. Of course, that happens at the second coming when they return as a regenerate people and the kingdom is established under the Lord Jesus Christ.
That completes an overview of the chapter, so we go back to the beginning. Verse 1, “After these things.” This initial phrase ties the events of chapter fifteen to the events of chapter fourteen. There is a close connection here. It is after Abraham has gone to battle against the four kings of the ancient axis of evil. After he has gone to war against them and defeated them, now he is having second thoughts. This happens to us all. Things get going well and we have certain victories and are excited about everything that is going on in our life, then the next thing that happens is that we go through some testing, things may happen that are completely different from what we expected, and it is very easy for us to give in to fear and to worry and through anxiety to think that somehow the circumstances are going to be too great for God to handle. So God calls us right back to doctrine. This is what God does to Abraham. “After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.” A vision is different from a dream, you are awake when you have a vision. Abraham is told not to be afraid. Why would Abraham be afraid? He could be afraid for a number of reasons—because he didn’t kill Chedorlaomer and the other kings, so they might put their alliance back together and come back for revenge and something could happen that would keep God’s promise from being fulfilled. But nothing can ever break the promise of God! Our problem is that we have preconceived notions of how God’s plan will work itself out in our lives, about what success might be in the Christian life, then when it doesn’t look like God is going to do it that way we get involved and try to make it happen that way just to protect God, and to get things done the way we want them to. “…thy exceeding great reward” is a poor translation, the verse is not saying that at all. What is being said is, “I am your shield, and your reward shall be great.” When He uses the word “shield” He uses the Hebrew noun magen. This is just another literary clue showing the tight connection between what is happening here and what happened in the previous episode with Chedorlaomer. If we go back to Genesis 14:20 when Melchizedek is blessing Abraham, Melchizedek says, “And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered your enemies into your hand.” And there he uses the cognate verb—magen was the noun for shield, and the piel of magan is “delivered.” So He uses the verb back in 14:20 and uses the noun form here and this ties the two episodes together, that just as God protected and functioned as a shield to Abraham in the battle against the four kings, so God is going to be the ever-present shield and source of strength to Abraham. David in the Psalms uses any number of metaphors to describe the protection that God provides for us in this life. In the Christian life that comes through in what has been developed as the soul fortress, the utilization of doctrine that we strengthen and protect the soul from the assaults of adversity. The solution for adversity is to come back to the Word and to the promise of God that He is our shield, and “you shall have a great reward.” If we rest in God’s promise then there will be great reward for us at the judgment seat of Christ.
But we often say, “Yes Lord, but”! We always have to watch that, and that is what Abraham is doing in verse 2. He is thinking of the child as a reward and he is thinking about the same idea as Psalm 127:3, “Lo, children are an inheritance from the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.” That shows the divine viewpoint on having children. It runs completely contrary to the modern notion of just having 1.5 children. Psalm 127:5, “Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.” This is a picture of a soldier who is sending out numerous arrows against the enemy. So the picture in Scripture is that the more children you have to inculcate with Bible doctrine you send your influence out into the world, and the more children you have the more influence there is against the human viewpoint in the world. This isn’t the mentality of population control, this is the mentality of taking over a culture by raising children who are imbued with Bible doctrine.
Genesis 15:2, “And Abram said, Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?” He has a better idea. This is what we want to do, solve God’s problems. Abraham hasn’t got the picture yet that God can bring life into the dead womb of Sarah and into his own sexual inability. Eliezer of Damascus is probably a slave that he picked up on his migration down from Haran. The standard operating procedure in the ancient world was that if a man died childless then his inheritance went to his chief steward. This was a culturally accepted way of passing on the inheritance. But notice, it is not God’s way. This is something we have to be aware of, and there is a principle here, i.e. there may be many moral and culturally acceptable ways to solve problems in our life but they are not God’s divine viewpoint ways to solve the problems in our life. We have to search out the Scriptures to determine how we should solve certain problems in our life so that we can handle them not in the power of the flesh but in the power of God the Holy Spirit. Abraham is focusing of Eliezer as the solution to the problem. This is how we often rationalize the choices in our life. We are going to try to convince God that there is a better way and we came up with the solution. Genesis 15:3, “And Abram said, Behold, to me you have given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is my heir.” Abraham’s human viewpoint solution to the problem, his first, and he will have another more interesting one later on which Sarah comes up with—to have a child through Hagar.
Genesis 15:4, God responds: “And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This one shall not be your heir; but he that shall come forth out of your own body shall be your heir.” He is emphasizing this natural descendancy from Abraham. Then God brings Abraham outside, tells him to look toward the stars and asks if he is able to number them. Here is Abraham, sexually dead at this point, can’t have children, Sarah is too old to have children, and God is saying this is how it is going to be: Abraham’s descendants are going to be more numerable than the stars. This focuses on the seed promise of the Abrahamic covenant.
Taking verse 6 out of it for a moment: V. 7, “And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.” So God in the conversation immediately reminds Abraham of who he is and what He has done. God is the God of history, He wants us to be aware of how He has historically acted in our lives. Can we look back in our lives and see the way that God has answered prayer, to see way that God has worked circumstances that we didn’t think could be worked out? These are the things that we need to rely on. If God was strong enough to solve that problem I faced ten years ago, why am I struggling with this problem now? We need to have a historical understanding of God’s work in our life that is not just in terms of national history but in terms of our own personal relationship with God. God just says to Abraham,. “Just remember what I did in bringing you from Ur, up to Haran, down to the promised land, and then got you out of a jamb you got yourself into down in Egypt, and brought you back here, then gave you victory. Why do you think that giving a child from your own body is such a hard thing to do?” We forget who God is, we have a small view of God and we think that somehow God is too small for our problems, that He is too distant to be concerned about the things that are getting us upset. But God is the one who is intimately involved in our lives. That is why Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “There is no testing taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tested above that you are able; but will with the test make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.” In other words, God provides the solution to every test, and that solution is found in the ten problem-solving devices.
Genesis 15:6 is the foundation for all of God’s work in our life. “And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.” This is the basis for understanding all divine blessing in our life and how divine blessing operates. The word translated “believed” is the Hebrew word (noun form) aman, and the root meaning of this world group—in fact, it is used in one place in Chronicles for the foundation stone that was set on which the columns of the temple rested—refers to something that is stability, dependability, something that is unshakeable, foundational. So it came to mean in the hiphil stem (causative) to be firm, to be trustworthy, to be safe. It means belief indicating that we are trusting and relying on something that is firm, unshakeable and dependable. When used of Abraham in this verse it is in the hiphil perfect, and the perfect tense in Hebrew indicates completed action: Abram had already believed in the LORD. It is indicating completed action in the perfected sense. Then we read the next statement that “he [the LORD] imputed it to him for righteousness.”
At the instant we put our faith alone in Christ alone, God imputes to us the righteousness of Christ. That perfect righteousness, then, is the basis for all blessing. It is not our own righteousness, it is not a righteousness that we generated on our own, it is a righteousness that comes from the outside. And this is where the battle lines are draw, this is where the confusion has been for centuries in Christianity. There is a confusion of justification with sanctification.
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090b-The Doctrine of Imputation. Genesis 15:6
Notice Genesis 15:12, “And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.” Notice he starts off with this command not to fear, and then as soon as he does what God says he is put into a deep sleep and he is terrorized in the midst of that sleep. The word that is used for fear here is a word that is used for the most intense kind of fear possible. Fear is not a thing that is a stranger to any of us, but what is the solution? The solution is the faithfulness of God, and that is the theme of this whole passage, that everything is being grounded in the faithfulness of God. So God reminds us about Abraham in verse six, that he had already believed in Yahweh, and the word that is chosen in that passage among several possible Hebrew words for faith is the word aman in the hiphil stem, meaning to rely upon something that is steadfast, something that is solid, something that is immovable and unshakable. And so the undercurrent of this whole chapter is that God is faithful to His promises. He reiterates the promises related to the seed in the first part of the chapter and in the second part of the chapter He is going to reiterate and define even more precisely the promise related to the land. But what under girds all this is that no matter how uncertain things may be for Abraham, no matter how much he might fear today for his safety because of potential threats from foreign enemies, no matter how he may perceive a threat to his own personal safety and security, his plans, his hopes, his dreams, God is saying, “I am always there, I am always faithful and am not going back on my promises.”
Abraham had learned this when he was saved, Verse 6 is just a reiteration of this and in verse 7 God is going to strengthen that foundation through the Abrahamic covenant. But what we have already mentioned is that verse 6 sits in the center of this passage as the anchor point for the first conversation, verses 105, and the second conversation, verses 7-21. In verse 6 there is this reference which is picked up and commented on and utilized by Paul in Romans chapter four as the foundation for understand the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and we are told that he believed or trusted in Yahweh, and this is a significant statement here because of a couple of things in the Hebrew text here. He believed in Yahweh, and Yahweh, the sacred tetragrammaton for a Jew is always reminiscent of God as the covenant God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the God who gave the covenant on Mount Sinai, because it was to Moses God revealed the significance of His name, I AM THAT I AM, and so that is always tied to His faithfulness and stability. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob understood that that was God’s name and they used that name, but they didn’t understand its significance in the way that the later Jews understood it in terms of the meaning given and revealed in relationship to the Exodus event. And that deliverance at the Exodus event, interestingly enough, is rooted and grounded in the prophecy made by God right here in Genesis 15. That shows how the Bible connects all these things together.
The issue that underlies this is anxiety that Abraham feels about his own life, his own security, his own destiny, and God is going to show what that is based on; that he can have certainty and stability even when the details of life are very loose and fluid and uncertain. All certainty in the Christian life is grounded on the character and person of God. The underlying doctrine here is the doctrine of justification and the doctrine of imputation. To understand the doctrine of justification we have to understand the doctrine of imputation. This is an important doctrine, it underlies our whole understanding of salvation, it underlies our whole relationship to God. Everything is built on this doctrine.
The doctrine of imputations
1) The doctrine of imputation is the action of the justice of God whereby either condemnation or blessing is assigned, credited, or attributed to a human being. It is the action of the justice of God, which means that is flows from His holiness. The foundation of this is His integrity, His holiness—His righteousness which forms the standard of His character, and the justice which is the application of that standard. It is fascinating that in both languages that God used to reveal Himself to man, in both Greek and Hebrew, the word for righteousness and the word for justice are the same word. In Hebrew that word is tzaddeq, and in Greek it is DIKAIOSUNE [dikaiosunh]. Each of these words, depending on the context, can either mean righteousness or justice, which indicates that when we are talking about these things, because they are represented by that same word, we are talking about the same thing but we shift in terms of its orientation. So that when we are talking about the standard we talk about righteousness; when we talk about the application of that standard to creatures we talk about justice. At the very root of man’s whole problem with God is the problem of failing to meet a standard. That is why when we get over in to the New Testament one of the major doctrines related to salvation is the doctrine of reconciliation. Reconciliation means to have something be re-conformed to a standard. That standard was breached when Adam sinned. So at the very core of everything is the issue of God’s righteousness and His justice so that before anything can happen in terms of our relationship to God this has to be resolved. The important thing is to understand how it is resolved. It is not resolved through our own personal ethics or morality because essentially that is not the problem. What we will see is that the reason we are condemned has nothing to do with our personal sin, it has to do with Adam’s sin. Once we really understand that (very few Christians do) it starts to change our perception of what happens at salvation. At its very core imputation is a legal concept. Genesis 15:6, talking about imputation as a legal concept, is wrapped right into this covenant context where God is making a legal contract with Abraham. There are two categories of imputation: real imputations and judicial imputations. The term “real imputation” isn’t contrasted to something that is unreal. It is in contrast to a judicial imputation. This distinction, interestingly enough, originated with Dr. Chafer at Dallas Seminary.
2) Real imputations credit something to a person which truly belongs to him, i.e. there is a similarity, there is an affinity between what is imputed and something that is possessed by the person to whom it is imputed. Therefore, when you say that eternal life is imputed to a regenerate believer there is an affinity there because he is already regenerate. When we say that the personal sins of man have been imputed to Jesus Christ there is not an affinity there, there is no relationship between our personal sin and the perfect Savior. So because we are fallen and our sins are imputed to Him that is called a judicial imputation, whereas a real imputation exists, for example, as when Adam’s original sin is imputed to our sin nature. That is a real imputation because there is an affinity between the two, a correlation between the two.
3) Judicial imputations occur when the justice of God credits to a person what is not antecedently his own, in other words, there is not this correlation or affinity between what is imputed and the person receiving it. That is referring to the imputation of our sin to the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.
4) What is the meaning of imputation? The English word “imputation” derives from the Latin word imputare, which means to reckon or to charge to one’s account. The English means to charge someone with a fault or responsibility, or simply credit something to someone. It means to reckon, to charge to one’s account, to assign something. It is a legal concept. The Old Testament word has a root meaning which means to think, and from this concept of thinking we get calculating, the idea of assigning value. It is an economic term, which is interesting because sin is often looked at as a debt. The New Testament Greek word is LOGIZOMAI [logizomai], which comes from logic, [logoj]. These are terms which have to do with thought. It is not a concrete thing, it is an abstract assignation or assigning of something to something else.
5) There is an example of the secular usage of the word in the New Testament, in Philemon 1:18 where Paul tells Philemon: “If he has wronged thee, or owes you in anything, charge that on my account”—impute it to me: logizomai.
6) The basis for justification is the character of God. We can’t understand justification without understanding the character of God, the character of God relating to His justice and his righteousness. That has to be resolved.
7) Man, therefore, is ethically worthless, not ontologically worthless. We have value because we were created in the image and likeness of God, but we are ethically worthless because we have violated God’s standard. Man isn’t just neutralized, we don’t move from a positive value to zero, we move into, negative territory. We don’t just lose righteousness, we acquire an unrighteousness. Isaiah 64:6, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” It doesn’t say our unrighteousnesses, it says all our righteousnesses, i.e. the very best that we do is viewed by God as filthy rags. That is the deficit that we approach God with. We are not in a position of neutrality, we are in a position where there is an ethical deficit.
8) Therefore, there must not only be forgiveness of sin in the process but there has to be a positive addition of righteousness. Where this is important is that if we are ever witnessing to a Roman Catholic or someone who is out of a Roman Catholic background, their view of sin going back to the Middle Ages is that sin is a privation. Privation simply means you are missing something. As far as they are concerned evil is just the absence of righteousness, it is not the presence of a substantive evil or substantive unrighteousness. So they diminished at the very core of their understanding of man’s being , what evil and sin is, to where it is merely an absence of righteousness and absence of good. That ends up making man neutral, and if man is neutral what can man do? He can do something to please God! All this fits together, and that is why it is so difficult.
9) Because the essential problem is a legal problem, not experiential, man can’t solve the dilemma through ritual or through works. The problem is Adam’s sin, and because of Adam’s sin we are condemned, not because of our own sin. Because of that we can’t solve it by doing something ourselves. We can’t turn back the clock on Adam’s fall in the garden. Romans 4:10, talking about Abraham’s faith, “How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.” Circumcision was the ritual which was the sing of the Abrahamic covenant, and circumcision isn’t introduced until Genesis chapter seventeen. So in chapter fifteen we just have the formal cutting of the covenant between God and Abraham, but the sign isn’t given until chapter seventeen, and we have already seen that Genesis 15:6 predates even chapter twelve. So Paul’s argument is, how was righteousness imputed? It is whether it was circumcised or uncircumcised. Not while circumcised but while uncircumcised. In other words, it is imputed before he does anything, before there is any ritual on Abraham’s part. Romans 4:11, “And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also.” So it can be seen that it is completely apart from ritual, it is completely apart from obedience on the part of the believer. Man can’t solve the legal dilemma through his own ritual or through works, it is a total reliance upon God. He is the one who gives us the righteousness.
10) Legal justification requires a perfect righteousness, an absolute righteousness, there can’t be any flaws, any failure or any other problem, it has to be perfect. Therefore, we can’t produce it. It can’t be experiential.
11) God in His wisdom came up with a plan called imputation which is crediting one person someone else’s perfect or positive righteousness. That is how God solved the dilemma.
12) The justification that we have is based on a perfect righteousness that comes outside of man, not inside of man. It is not based on some ethical improvement that takes place. It is not even exemplified by some ethical improvement that takes place, that is the error that came out of Roman Catholic theology, it is the error that is present in Lordship salvation, it is the error that is present in a lot of holiness theology—that somehow, if you are really saved, there is this ethical difference. But, you see, where do you get ethical out of legal? We are talking about a legal concept, not an ethical concept. The ethical concept belongs under sanctification.
13) This distinguishes justification from regeneration and sanctification. Justification comes first, and then because we have this legal standing before God He can regenerate us. Sanctification is subsequent to that. We have to distinguish these. If we connect them too closely we end up saying, “Well the spiritual life [sanctification] is how you know whether you were saved.” It’s, well so and so doesn’t live like a Christian; he can’t be one. The whole presupposition of that is that if you are really saved you are ethically changed on the inside so you won’t do certain things. That confuses sanctification with justification.
14) Thus, justification must precede both regeneration and sanctification.
15) It is distinct from regeneration and sanctification. This isn’t understood today. It was understood by Martin Luther, it was understood by the Reformers, and that is what gave birth to the Protestant Reformation and the historic position of the Anabaptists in the 16th century, the Lutherans in the 16th century, and the Reformed Calvinistic Huguenots in the 15th century. They understood this and they died for this. For them this wasn’t abstract theology.
16) Attempts are often made to try to base justification on some inner quality of the sinner. That is what happens in Lordship salvation, i.e. How do you know whether you are saved? If you are saved you are going to exemplify a certain kind of behavior. Therefore, if you claim to be saved and you lie or commit murder or some sexual immorality then maybe you weren’t really saved. And if you renounce Christ then you definitely were never saved, because if you were really saved there would have been this inner ethical transformation. That is just false. It ignores grace and it is a back-door legalism.
17) The first real imputation was Adam’s original sin to the sin nature at birth. Historically there have been four different views related to imputation or how Adam’s original sin affects the human race. In the early church there was a first class heretic by the name of Pelagius. He said it is not imputation, it is imitation and every person is born just as neutral as Adam was created. He was opposed by Augustine. Pelagius denied original sin and he was declared to be so. Another attempt was Jacob Arminius, the man from whom we get the school of theology known as Arminiainism. He is almost as bad as Pelagius. Pelagius said they were fully alive, they were neutral; Arminius said they are just partially dead. Calvin came along and his contribution to this theology was called federal headship, and that is that Adam was the federal head of the race and that he represented all of us. Augustine, going back in time again, introduced the concept of seminalism, that we were actually seminally, physically participatory. Both of these last two views are true.
18) The first judicial imputation is the imputation of our personal sins to Christ. The second judicial imputation is the imputation of His righteousness to each believer at the point of faith alone in Christ alone.
19) The result, then, is that man is declared righteous; he is not made righteous. It is not just as if I had never sinned. We are covered, we are given someone else’s righteousness.
20) The model is Abraham. The picture of Joshua the high priest in Zechariah 3 gives us this picture of righteousness. The Old Testament always gives us those images. Zechariah 3:1-6, “And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan [Satan is the accuser of the believer] standing at his right hand to resist him. And the LORD said unto Satan, The LORD rebuke you, O Satan; even the LORD that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke you: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments [picture of the sinner], and stood before the angel. And he answered and spoke unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused your iniquity to pass from you, and I will clothe you with robes.” It is that clothing with robes that is the picture of imputation. We are clothed with Christ’s righteousness. It is His righteousness, not our righteousness. It is His righteousness that God looks at and declares us to be just.
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091b-"Cutting" the Abrahamic Covenant. Genesis 15:7-20
We know that the only source real dependency and day to day stability is the Lord Jesus Christ, that God is the same today, yesterday and forever. So that the solution to our fear in all the problems that we face is in the character of God. This is what we see when we come to Genesis 15:7, “And he said unto him, I am the LORD that brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give you this land to inherit it.” The first point that the Lord is making is a reference to His own character. Remember that in this chapter we have an ongoing dialogue between God and Abraham. But what under girds this conversation are two doctrines. The first is that man is oriented to fear apart from God, and the second is that God is faithful and dependable, and when man trusts God there is stability in the life.
What the Scripture shows is that doctrine is important, that imputation, the crediting of Christ’s righteousness to the believer, is the ultimate foundation for all stability in life because that is where our salvation begins. That was the starting point of stability for Abraham, Genesis 15:6. The verb that is used in that verse, “he [had] believed in the Lord,” is from the Hebrew verb aman, and it has as its root the idea of that which is steadfast or stable, putting focus on that which is unshakeable. And so we have this idea of faith. Faith isn’t this wishy-washy kind of thing that modern man claims it is, that after you get past all empirical knowledge and all human reason and just you can’t have any certainty, then you just sort of make this existential leap of faith, and so faith isn’t really knowledge. Human viewpoint systems always juxtapose faith to knowledge. But the Bible doesn’t, the Bible sees faith as another form of knowledge, it is the evidence of things not seen, the assurance of things hoped for. It is as sure and certain as anything we might see, but because the source is God we know that we have a certainty that goes beyond even the knowledge to be gained from empiricism. Doctrine really matters, it really makes a difference in life, but we have to learn how to think it through. So that when we go through life and get hit with these things that blind-side us and suddenly we are aware of the uncertainties and vagaries of life in ways that we haven’t been before, and all of a sudden we realize how tenuous things really are, we have to have the mental discipline to go back to the Word and say, Okay what is my starting point? The starting point, first of all, is God and His character. That is what God is saying to Abraham in verse 7, “I am Yahweh, who brought you up out of Ur of the Chaldees.” He reminds Abraham of how he has trusted Him in the past. It is not just this sort of empty faith in faith, it is not just believe me in a vacuum. It is, See, I have a track record, Abraham; I am the God you trusted when you left Ur of the Chaldees and went to Haran. I am the God who continued to provide for you. All of the other things in Abraham’s life that have transpired since then have been overseen by God. There is a promise there related to possession. God brought Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees for a purpose and He is going to accomplish His purpose. The same thing is true for us, that God has saved us to accomplish a purpose.
So when we think about fear we should recognize, first of all, that the solution for all fear is the begin with the character of God. We need to just work our way through the essence of God—His sovereignty, righteousness, justice, eternal love, etc. When we think about the fact that God is eternal and our problems are temporal, then our problems begin to shrink in size. When we think about omniscience we realize that God knew about all of these problems from eternity past. We know that God is omnip[resent, so we know that He is just as much present with us today in the midst of a crisis as he was yesterday when everything was going well. God is omnipotent, which means He is more powerful than any problem I can face. So the next time we hit something that is a crisis and feel that sin nature want to shift into the fear mode and the panic mode, the place to start is a focus on the character of God. Read the Psalms sometimes. It is amazing how many times when we read the Psalms David starts off with what theologians call a lament, he is focusing on his problem. That’s where we all are, we start off focusing on that problem, that self-absorption, the problem is bigger than us, woe is me, etc. Then as David presents the issue before God he begins to talk about God as his rock, his fortress, God has the one who has worked in his behalf in certain situations in the past. And as you go through the psalm you can see David’s attitude shift as he moves his focus from the problems to the God who is greater than the problems.
We have to recognize that Jesus Christ controls history. We have seen this in Hebrews 1:2, He is the one who made the ages. This is indicated by the purpose clause that God brought Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees to give him the land to inherit it. That is future tense. Abraham never possessed the land in his lifetime. The writer of Hebrews refers to that in Hebrews chapter eleven because Abraham constantly looked forward to that city that was built without hands. He never got there in his life so he knew eventually there would be a resurrection and he would eventually possess it. But we can only have that level of certainty when we recognize that Jesus Christ controls history, but He also superintends the circumstances of our lives as individuals. God has this remarkable way of bringing circumstances to bear in our lives that put the pressure right on that sin nature arrogance that easily besets us. God has that ability to bring to bear in our lives just the right circumstances, problems and tests that are specifically designed to challenge our sin nature in its area of operation where we are most likely to succumb to sin, because He is trying to teach us at that point to trust in Him and not to rely on our comfortable sin nature reactions.
Just as God brought Abraham out of Ur for a purpose, God saved each of us for a purpose. He has a purpose of bringing us into conformity with the image of Christ, so there is a design behind the apparent chaos of our lives at times: that no matter what happens, no matter how unplanned things may be, we know that Jesus Christ is in control.
We also know that there will be times of testing, times of adversity, times of hardship. We can count on it. Nevertheless, God is in control. No matter how chaotic things may seem, no matter how unjust things may seem at times, no matter how irrational life may appear, we know that ultimately there is a purpose and a reason and a guiding hand behind everything.
The issue has always been to teach us doctrine, to give us opportunities to evaluate the doctrine that is in our soul, to see what we learn, to watch Him provide in the midst of those circumstances.
But the greatest hindrance to success when we get into any test is always arrogance. We get caught up in our own circumstances, we obsess on the details of our lives, our own plans, our own agendas. What happened in the garden was that Adam chose an alternative plan than God’s. When he ate the fruit he suddenly realized how flawed his reasoning was. He comes face to face with his own inability to control the details of life and he sees the chaos that he has brought into his life. But at the same time there is this fear and anxiety that we can’t accomplish the agenda that we have, but in arrogance we hold on to that agenda; we just don’t want to release it, so we get into operating on the arrogance skills.
The arrogance skills include five aspects. The first is self-absorption. We just focus on our own plan, our own agenda. When we get hurt we focus on our hurt. When we are disappointed we focus on our disappointment. When somebody maltreats us or doesn’t respond or behave the way we think they should, or if they reject us, whether it is real or perceived rejection, what happens is that we focus on that rejection, that hurt, how they failed us. At the very center of the pain is this focus on who we are. That leads to self-indulgence. If we are absorbed with our agenda then we focus on that agenda, and that agenda becomes more important than Bible doctrine. It is incredible how few people as Christians really come to understand that once they become saved, if they are positive, doctrine becomes their life. It is not just something they do on occasion. But we have to learn to think doctrine, we have to learn to think biblically. It is an overhaul of our life, not just something we pick up by going to Bible class once a week or listening to a tape every now and then, or showing up when we don’t have something better to do.
So we start indulging our own agenda. Before long that leads to a certain blindness and we get into self-justification. We rationalize our behavior and we are experts at this. Every single one of us becomes an expert at rationalizing and justifying our sin patterns—to the point that by the time we have reached our teenage years most of us a pretty blind to the sin patterns in our own lives. They are so comfortable, those are our habits; that is how we make things work, that is how we handle uncertainty and insecurity, and how we handle the environment around us.
Then we start believing this we are then in self-deception. In self-deception we don’t know how to accurately apply the Word. That is why spiritual growth takes time. The more we grow the more we realize all of the different layers of self-deception we have in our life.
The next arrogance skill is self-deification. We put ourselves in the place of God. We have fulfilled the temptation that caused Adam’s original fall. The serpent said, “If you eat of the fruit you will be like God.” As we get into self-absorption and when we are cranking on our arrogance skills we get caught up into a complex of mental attitude sins. Mental attitude sins are the most devastating of all the sins that we get involved in. Other sins are simply the manifestations of what is going on inside the soul.
In self-absorption, what happens is that we start generating mental attitude sins. Mental attitude sins all flow out of arrogance. Arrogance is the primary orientation that drives the list patterns inside the sin nature. These mental attitude sins develop in several different areas. There are four complexes. First there is the fear complex. Fear is motivated with the sense that our security, our stability, our future, our physical safety is threatened, our emotional safety is threatened, our future plans and hopes and dreams are threatened. Fear often goes along with several other mental attitude sins such as worry, anxiety, and dread. We obsess that things can go wrong. So fear links up with worry, anxiety, dread, and then often if we feed it and don’t deal with it instantly in terms of confession and application of doctrine, claiming promises, then it can develop into a general pessimism about life. As fear develops we think that things are just going to go wrong, and when things do go wrong it is just a self-fulfilling prophecy and we are convinced that everything will go wrong. And yet the Scripture constantly challenges the believer to hope. Hope is positive; hope is a confident expectation of a glorious future. That doesn’t mean that we have our heads in the clouds somewhere, thinking that everything is just going to be wonderful, but the believer has a true realism because of understanding of the world, the cosmic system, and what is going on, but at the same time he knows that God is in control and can have an optimistic confidence in the midst of negative circumstances. It is a true and real confidence based upon Bible doctrine.
Fear often operates at core level, along with anger or frustration. When people feel like their life is threatened or their agenda is blocked, they don’t get their way, how do they respond? They get irritated. If irritation is not dealt with through application of doctrine it leads to anger. When serious things occur in life that prevent us from achieving our goals, whatever they may be, then fear can develop into anger.
Another complex of mental attitude sins that often plague us are related to envy. Jealousy and envy develops from a covetousness, lust for material things, lust for money, lust for the things that money can buy, like the status, the prestige. The materialism classified in the Bible as covetousness and greed are linked with idolatry in two passages: Colossians 3:5 and Ephesians 5:5. When we are operating on material lust and money lust that is putting money and material things in the place of God.
Then comes the vengeance complex. This is what happens when we perceive that someone rejects us or maltreats us, and perhaps they actually have, but instead of relying upon God to handle things from the Supreme Court of Heaven we give in to revenge, we nurture thoughts of hate and malice, we look forward to certain ways that they will suffer so that we can enjoy their suffering because of the suffering that they have brought into our own lives. We become resentful when they seem to do well and we don’t.
There is the bitterness complex. There is a progression here. We go from fear and anxiety and it is often expressed in one direction toward the envy complex. In another direction that can be expressed in the vengeance complex, and then when nothing seems to happen or this state of affairs goes on and we continue in carnality, nurturing our mental attitude sins, then what happens is bitterness. Bitterness destroys the soul. Bitterness generates even more intense hatred. We become resentful of others, and negative and pessimistic about others’ happiness or success. We become resentful of those who are applying the Word and seem to have stability in their lives. We become angry at God and angrier at other people, and then we begin to blame others for personal problems.
At the core of all this is that we are just absorbed with our own live, our own problems, our own circumstances and our own failures. And we are blaming everybody in the world but ourselves and our own volition. God never promised us a life without problems, heartache, or difficulties, but He said in the midst of those difficulties and disappointments He would teach us where the real source of security and happiness and stability was to be found; and that is in His character. So that is what we see going on at the foundation of this passage in Genesis 15. God is reminding Abraham of His faithfulness. He reiterates the promise of a seed in the first five verses, and then starting in verse 7 He is reiterating the promise of the land, that no matter how uncertain and unstable things may appear at times for Abraham, He was giving this land to him to possess it, to inherit it.
Genesis 15:8, “And he said, Lord GOD, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” It is interesting that God has just made this promise, twice He has stated it, and Abraham wants a little confirmation. Just give me something just a little more stable than just your word! God in His grace doesn’t rebuke him. He always meets us where we are. God in His omniscience knows the threats that are going to come into Abraham’s life and so He gives him confirmation. This confirmation is such that even now, some 4000 years later, we still know that this is true. We still know that the promise, though not fulfilled, will eventually be fulfilled. God is going to establish a contract with Abraham on a legal basis. It is set up according to the standards of the ancient world.
Genesis 13:9, “And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” There is a problem in this passage. The first problem has to do with the meaning of the word “three” in the Hebrew. Among the Rabbis from the time before Christ up through the Talmudic period there was intense debate over whether or not this was three-year-old animals or whether it was three animals. What the debate was over was that it was unusual to find a three-year-old heifer (an un-bread female calf). So it is very unusual to find a three-year-old heifer. But what is interesting is the animals that are used here. The word used for the heifer is a Hebrew word which is different from the word used for the red heifer. The heifer was also used in a couple of different sacrifices, specifically in the cleansing ritual in Deuteronomy 21:1-9 when there had to be a cleansing of a town when a murder had taken place. In order to cleanse the area they would sacrifice a heifer. The heifer could also be used as a peace offering—Leviticus 3:1, but it was not to be used for a burnt offering and it was prohibited from that is Leviticus 1:3. So it was used for a peace offering but not for a burnt offering or for a sin offering. In 1 Samuel 16:2 it is used for a peace offering.
The next animal that is mentioned is the female goat [etz]. In Numbers 15:27 the female goat was used for a sin offering, and it is interesting that the male goat was used as a scapegoat offering. A third animal mentioned in the ram. It is used for a trespass offering in Leviticus 5:16, 17; used for a burnt offering in Leviticus 8:18; and as a peace offering in Leviticus 9:4. It is tempting to go to these animals and say that each one of these represents a different dimension of these offerings that are later described in Leviticus. But that is not the point. Remember that these events took place in about 2000 BC. The revelation related to the different categories of the Levitical offerings doesn’t take place until about 1400 BC in the regulations for the Mosaic law. Tempting as it is, the point is not to break down these different animals and try to say that each one represents a different dimension of salvation. In their totality they represent every class of animal though that is used to represent salvation. So rather than going in and saying the heifer represents a cleansing offering and try to tie that to confession, or that the female goat represents a burnt offering (none of that has been revealed yet), the best thing to do is take each one, including the turtledove which was a substitute sacrifice used for the poor, as well as the young bird translated “pigeon,” and see that all of these together represent the total work of Christ on the cross. Even though the work of Christ on the cross is yet future, all the sacrifices of the Old Testament foreshadow the work of Christ on the cross. The fact that some of these animals, for example the ram, could be used for either a trespass offering or a burnt offering or a peace offering, tells us we can’t go in here and say it is one of the other. So the whole picture here is one of the future redemptive atoning work on the cross, and it is Christ’s work on the cross that becomes the ultimate foundation for all of the covenant promises that God makes in Scripture. So the foundation for the covenant is the work of Christ on the cross as pictured in these sacrifices.
So Abraham brings all these to God and he cuts them in two. There is some debate among scholars that this is the origin of the idiom that you find in the Hebrew language for entering into a covenant. It is called “cutting a covenant.” The verb that is used is the Hebrew word which means to cut. So it is tempting to say that in this ceremony where there is a sacrifice and the animal is cut in half that that is where the word came from, and it could be. The practice was that where two people were entering into this covenant they would take their sacrificial animals, cut them in two, one half representing each of the parties in the covenant, and lay them side by side, and then the two people who were entering into the covenant would walk between the animals. What is being pictured is the seriousness of the contract. In effect, what they were saying was. May this be done to us if we break the contract. That is why it is sealed in blood.
Genesis 15:11, “And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.” There is an assault on this covenant. Unclean animals, the vultures, come down on the carcasses and Abraham drives them away. This is a picture of the fact that there will constantly be attacks on the Abrahamic covenant down through history, but God is going to provide a solution.
Genesis 15:12, God causes Abraham to go to sleep. It is not up to Abraham to secure the covenant, God is going to secure it. “And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.” This is a recognition of all of the assaults that would come against the Jews down through history, the assaults against the Abrahamic covenant, the demonic assaults that would seek to destroy the Jews. While Abraham is in this state God speaks to him.
Genesis 15:13, “And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years.” There are going to be problems, tests, hardships, and assaults. But what God is going to do through him and his descendants isn’t going to just happen over night. It is not some simple thing, there will be these problems. So we have this prophecy related to the bondage in Egypt.
Genesis 15:16, “But in the fourth generation they shall return here: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” This shows God’s grace to the Canaanites. He gives them time again and again to turn back to Him. So for four hundred years He will keep the Jews out of the land until the Amorites have fully demonstrated their sin, depravity and perversion. The essence of this passage is somewhat challenged. It seems to be conflicting with a couple of other passages in the New Testament. Here we are told they will be in bondage for 400 years and there is one other way of expressing this in the Scriptures. In Acts 7:6 there is a reiteration of this where Stephen said, “And God spoke on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a strange land; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years.” The issue is, what is the starting point and the end point of this 400 years? The starting point of the 400 years has to do with their bondage; it is 400 years of bondage.
So they were going to be in bondage for 400 years. This means that if we were to chart this out we know that in 1446 BC we have the Exodus. Prior to that there are 400 years of bondage, so it was about 1846 when the bondage occurred and they go into slavery. Then there were thirty years before that, and this takes us back to the last time in Genesis when the Abrahamic covenant is confirmed to Jacob. This gives us 400 years of bondage plus another thirty years. Why are we brining that other thirty years in? Because there are other passages in the New Testament that mention 430 years, and the Old Testament as well. For example, Exodus 12:40, “Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.” The prophecy was 400 years, but remember, Genesis 15 says they would be in bondage for 400 years. Exodus 12:40 just says they would be in Egypt 430 years. So they were there for thirty years before the bondage began. Then in verse 41, “And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt.” This is reiterated in Galatians 3:17, “And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later…” Later than what? Later than the last confirmation of the covenant. So what we see is that the Scriptures clearly support each other and there is no contradiction when it comes to the numbers. There s one other passage that relates to this, Acts 13:19, 20, “And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Chanaan, he divided their land to them by lot. And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet.” The phrase there is “about 450 years.” If we add this up again we have 400 years in slavery, 40 years after the Exodus in the wilderness with the Exodus generation, and then we have seven years during the time of the conquest. That comes to 447 years, and remember the passage said “about 450 years,” so it is a divinely inspired approximation.
Genesis 15:14, “And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.” That was exactly what happened. They left Egypt with the spoils of Egypt.
That is the first part of the prophecy, it has to do with the destiny of his people. The second part has to do with Abraham’s own stability. Genesis 15:15, “And you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.” Notice how God directly addresses the issue: “Abraham, don’t be afraid.” Then He tells him, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of ….” Then he tells him the future: “You will go to your fathers in peace.” God is comforting Abraham in the midst of this contract with the certainty of God’s provision.
But He reminds him (v. 16) that they will return here. They are going to meet hardship, they will be out of the land, you will die in peace, but they are going to come back. The question for us is to determine how this contact was fulfilled. Was it fulfilled literally or allegorically? Were these numbers precise or were they just spiritualized? They were precise. We see from other passages that the numbers were to be interpreted literally. God is showing us this early in Genesis that prophecy should be interpreted literally and not in a figurative or spiritual manner.
Genesis 15:17, “And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.” These two elements, the smoking oven and the burning torch—there is fire here and light, and this is a picture we see many times in the Old Testament of the holiness of God, of His integrity. And it is his character that secures the covenant.
Genesis 15:18, “In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” At no point did the Jews control all of that land. Just as God promised this in a contract it will be fulfilled literally in the future. We know that Abraham must be resurrected to come back and possess that land, and we know that eventually God will restore the Jews to that land, and that is why this has been the centerpiece of a battle for 4000 years, because Satan is seeking to prove that God’s character can’t be trusted and his goal is to try to break the Abrahamic covenant. One of his tools for doing that is anti-Semitism.
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092b-Hagar: The Human Solution is a Defective Solution. Genesis 16
As has been mentioned before the story of Abraham’s life is developed along the lines of several tests. When we think of Abraham we need to think of the Abrahamic covenant, we need to think in terms of God’s election of Israel, and it is a picture of God’s election and selection in human history. We need to recognize that Abraham is used in the New Testament as a picture of justification salvation, phase one justification salvation. Abraham is also a picture of the mature believer who reaches spiritual maturity and his faith is demonstrated or validated before mankind and the angels, according to James 2:14-21. In that passage it is not talking about phase one, but phase two and his maturity. Hebrews chapter eleven talks about Abraham moves from phase one justification to spiritual maturity, and that was his walk by means of faith and his advance from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity was step by step as he went through these various tests.
At the root of every test that we face in life it is a faith-rest drill. That is why the faith-rest comes, in terms of spiritual skills, right after learning to walk by means of the Spirit. They are almost two sides of the same coin. The first thing we learn in the spiritual life is to confess sin so that we can recover from sin and recover the filling of the Holy Spirit. The next spiritual skill we develop is walking by the Spirit. The means of walking by the Spirit is the third step which is the faith-rest drill. Everything else is built on that.
It was while Abraham was in Egypt, after failing his second test, that he picked up an Egyptian slave girl by the name of Hagar. The principle that we learn from that is that when we are out of fellowship and we are not trusting God we end up making other decisions that aren’t related to the primary failure, and which carry with them unintended consequences that frequently come back to kick us in the rear later on down the road.
The third test Abraham faced was in chapter 13 after returning back to the land, indicating he was back in fellowship, trusting God, and now God causes the land not to produce enough to take care of Abraham and Lot. So Abraham demonstrated grace orientation and generosity, and passes the test. Lot takes the land, the most beautiful part, in the area now known as the Dead Sea.
Then the fourth test, in chapter 14, was when the land was invaded. Abraham now has to function in relation to the blessing mandate of Genesis 12:2, and so he goes out to defend, protect and to rescue. The point of that whole test was to set him up for the next test which had to do with his response to God’s grace in giving him the victory over the invading army. And he passes that test as well. He gives of the spoils to Melchizedek and that is a sign of his gratitude to God.
Then there is another test in chapter fifteen after his victory he succumbs to worry, fear, and concern, and God comes to him and tells him not to be afraid. God reiterates the land promise at that time and so Abraham trusts God. There is a continuation of the narrative in 16:1 where we read, “Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children.” The point of the text is to remind us of where the narrative has been going since the beginning of chapter 15. There is a break in the narrative here and we are being reminded that Sarai his wife was still barren. Why is this an issue? One reason it is an issue is the immediate circumstance with Abraham. God had promised descendants, a multitude of descendants, innumerable like the stars in the sky and the sand of the sea. However, there is something even more troubling at this time. Abraham still operates within a biblical world view in relationship to children. It was an extremely serious matter in the ancient world for a woman who could not or did not have children. It was a major stigma. Furthermore, it had social consequences and immediate legal consequences because it left the family without an heir. In the pagan world when the propagation of the race failed, when there was barrenness in the wife, the solution was polygamy. That is how polygamy developed. In the ancient Near East this became a standard practice. Polygamy was not God’s original intent.
Barrenness has a spiritual significance in the Scripture; not today, but in the Old Testament because of certain things that God was teaching in the ancient world.
The doctrine of the barren woman
1) The significance of barrenness is not some sin on the part of the woman. None of the women in the Old Testament were barren because of sin in their life, it was because of something that God was teaching through their barrenness.
2) These were the women that are said to be barren in Scripture: Sarai, the wife of Abram; Rebecca, the wife of Isaac; Rachel, the wife of Jacob—it is interesting that the wives of the three patriarchs of Israel are all barren women. That should be the first clue that there is something going on here related to God’s development of the nation Israel—; the mother of Samson; Hannah; Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist in Luke chapter one.
3) Exodus 23:26 gives an insight. The absence of barren women would indicate that Israel was spiritual, indicating Israel’s positive spirituality and divine blessing. But the presence of barren women in Israel indicated Israel’s carnality and divine judgment. It was a sign. “There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.”
4) Thus we see that the barren womb in these women picture the emptiness and lifelessness of mankind apart from God and apart from Jesus Christ. The fact that they were barren was a picture of spiritual barrenness. It was also a picture of spiritual death. What is it that distinguishes Abram from the culture around him? He is a Gentile, like everybody else, from Ur of the Chaldees but he is a believer in the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ and is regenerate. He is going to have a couple of boys, Ishmael and Isaac, and what distinguishes them is regeneration. God is illustrating this life from death in the womb of the matriarchs of Israel. That is what sets them apart, that the foundation of this nation of people is miraculous. There is a 90-year-old woman who is going to give birth. It is a picture of how God gives life where there is no life.
5) In each case God miraculously brings forth life where there is death or there is no life. This is a picture of regeneration. The point is that only God can solve the problem of spiritual death by providing spiritual birth. And all of the six women are foreshadowing one individual: the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
6) The barren womb is type of the virgin womb of Mary, and there the solution to the barren womb is the new life in the incarnation of the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The situation in Genesis 16:1, “Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.” God’s grace is what underlies this whole episode. Two things: the failure on the part of Abraham and Sarah to exercise the faith-rest drill and the resulting consequences that reverberate on the evening news; and secondly, God’s tremendous grace towards Hagar as she is caught up into the matrix of their carnality.
If we set this up like a drama we have the introduction giving us this reminder of Sarah’s barrenness in verse 1. We are introduced to all three of the characters. Then we get into scene one starting in verse 2 and going down to verse 6. It goes back and forth between Abraham and Sarah, and then we have the response of Sarah and Hagar together.
In scene one Sarah presents a solution. If we pay attention to what is going on here we see an intentional parallel between what is going on in these verses and what took place in Genesis chapter three in the fall. The writer is showing that this is as much a fall for Abraham as Adam’s failure in the garden was a fall for mankind.
Genesis 16:2, “And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.” There is no sense of misplaced blame there, she recognized that this is the Lord’s providential direction in her life. She is not blaming Him. But what is going on here is, God has prevented me from having children but I am going to come up with a solution. That is what causes the real problem here. We have to recognize in life that the human solution is a defective solution and a self-destructive solution. There are only two solutions in life, the divine solution and a human viewpoint solution. Even though we might come up with 50 or 60 different options for human viewpoint they are still basically a human solution, that man is depending upon himself to solve his problems. So we have Sarah’s proposal here. She tried to precipitate the will of God by seizing the initiative from God, the same thing that happened back in the garden. She has put herself in the place of God; she is going to resolve the problem on her own. What do we call that? Arrogance! As soon as we get involved in arrogance and self-sufficiency instead of God-dependency everything starts breaking down rapidly, and arrogance always creates its own crisis and sets up an equal and opposite reaction on the other side that polarizes everybody. The only solution is to wait on the Lord.
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093b-Ishmael: Sins Unintended Consequences. Genesis 16
The basic doctrinal lesson in Genesis chapter 16 has to do with waiting. What happens as we go from one test to another is that we are being trained in the arena of discernment. As we go through these various tests sometimes we pass and sometimes we fail but we gradually grow and are trained in the category of discernment. This means that we are able to more accurately understand and interpret the situation around us so that we can see what the issues are from the divine viewpoint perspective and apply scripture. It takes time and it only happens if we make the study of doctrine a priority in our life.
At age 86 Abraham comes to another test and it is related to the promise of the seed. Having gone through the magnificent covenant ceremony in chapter fifteen Abraham and Sarah immediately succumb to human viewpoint and the temptation that we all fall prey to more often than we would want to admit, and that is impatience. We get an opportunity to bring about what we think God wants and rather than taking the time to wait on the Lord we immediately jump into some sort of expedient solution that we think will resolve the problem and help God out in fulfilling His promise. The results are always negative, they are not what we expect, and they compound the problem.
I am God. Today I will be handling all of your problems.
Please remember that I do not need your help
If the devil happens to deliver a situation to you that you cannot handle, do not attempt to resolve it.
Kindly put it in the SFJTD file (Something For Jesus To Do).
It will be addressed in My time, not yours.
Once the matter is placed into the box, do not hold on to it or attempt to remove it.
Holding on or removing will delay the resolution of your problem.
If it is a situation you think you are capable of handling,
Please consult Me in prayer to be sure that it is the proper resolution.
Because I do not sleep, nor do I slumber, there is no need for you to lose any sleep.
Rest, my child.
If you need to contact Me I am only a prayer away.
It is clear that the issue here doctrinally is the importance of waiting on the Lord because when we try to solve our problems our own way on the basis of the human solution, what we do is compound the problem. So the issue here is waiting on the Lord, learning how to utilize the faith-rest drill. One thing that indicates that is that at end of this particular chapter we learn that Abraham was 86 years old. Chapter 17 is thirteen years later. The Lord was just sort of reinforcing to Abraham that he needs to wait on Him and was silent for thirteen years to make sure he understood the point.
Verse 1 of chapter 16 forms the background for the passage: “Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.” What we see in the chapter is that human solutions always look good on the surface. They are in many cases culturally acceptable. We can find many ways to rationalize hurrying along God’s plan or helping Him. But what we learn here is that man cannot assist God without destroying the basic principle of grace. That is the whole idea in salvation: God’s saving grace is sufficient. It is without works and we don’t do anything, Jesus Christ did everything. Faith means exclusive, absolute reliance upon God and His Word. The essence of legalism and religion is that man tries to help God and this is the case with Sarah.
Sarah’s solution begins in verse 2: “And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.” She has an active perception of the problem. Now here is an important thing to remember. Whether we are talking about theology, church life, or politics, all kinds of people can accurately analyze what the problem is. But just because a person can see what the problem is doesn’t mean that he even has a clue what the solution is. Always be careful of the solution. It is not identifying the problem that is most important, it is identifying the solution. Sarah’s proposal was an idea that was fully acceptable in that culture but in this case it was a violation of God’s promise. It is trying to figure out some way to help out God in solving the problem and producing the seed. It is trying to circumvent waiting on the Lord. So as believers we always have to be careful that we are not helping God out when trying to resolve a problem.
This was a situation that was employed by Jacob. Leah and Rachel had two handmaids, but at no time did the slave girls ever have the same rights and privileges as the wife. In the case of Abraham and Sarah they let their culture determine what the absolutes were, rather than the Word of God.
Principle: Under the pressure of adversity we often rationalize an expedient way to help God. But waiting on the Lord is foundational to the operation of the third spiritual skill which is the faith-rest drill. We have to understand the importance of waiting on the Lord and waiting on the Lord’s timing. We always have trouble with that timing test.
Promises: Isaiah 30:18, “And therefore will the LORD wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the LORD is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.” If we look at the context of Isaiah 30, Isaiah is just scolding the Jews for their failure to wait on the Lord and for going into apostasy and idolatry. So rather than being able to bless them right now the Lord has to wait to bless them, because right now they are in apostasy and out of fellowship. The Hebrew word for wait here is a word which means to wait for the right timing, to be patient, and it means simply to wait for something. The point was that is sarcasm Isaiah was saying to the Jews, “Now because you haven’t waited on the Lord, the Lord is going to wait and postpone His blessing for you and the time of His being gracious to you, until He is exalted.” The Lord is a God of judgment, and what was going to happen was the Lord was going to have to kick them in the seat of the pants and discipline them as a nation because they had forgotten the principle which is the last line: “blessed are all they that wait for him.” That is the principle that they forgot and they had been trying to solve the problems of their nation on their own rather than waiting on the Lord. The principle we learn from this verse is that failure to wait on the Lord results in God’s giving us a little discipline before He can finally bless us once we learn to wait on Him.
Isaiah 40:31, “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” The Hebrew word translated “wait” in that verse is the verb qavah. It means to be hopeful, to have a confident expectation, or to look forward with eager anticipation to something. It is equivalent to the concept of ELPIS [e)lpij] in the Greek, which is confident expectation. It looks forward to the fulfillment of a promise. The contrast there is, of course, to those who are weak and unable to help themselves. Those who wait on the Lord are strengthened. The concluding thought is that in contrast to those who try to solve a problem on their own the ones with real strength are those who wait upon the Lord.
This verb qavah is used a number of times in the Psalms in similar passages. Palm 37:34, “Wait on the LORD, and keep his way, and he shall exalt you to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, you shall see it.” Psalm 62:5, “My soul, wait only upon God; for my expectation is from him.” God often kicks all the crutches out from under us before He demonstrates that He is sufficient. The word translated “wait” in this verse is damam, which means to be silent or still. One word for “wait” indicates that confident expectation with the focus on future fulfillment, whereas the word for “wait” here indicates being silent, still, not doing anything. The word often occurs in the context of extreme adversity, catastrophe or death, times when we most easily panic and succumb to emotion. Just settle down, claim some preomises, let those promises stabilize your emotion, and wait until you are relaxed in the Lord and then move forward.
Jeremiah 14:22, “Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.” Jeremiah is just not concerned about the sensibilities of the unbeliever. Yet people today often get that way, and that just shows that despite their defensiveness to the contrary we all get affected by this politically correct nonsense that just inhabits the air we breathe. We have to make sure that the truth is what offends people but we shouldn’t be concerned when the truth does offend people. None of the other systems—sociology, psychology, self-help techniques, positive mental attitude—can do anything for anybody. For the believer we have the conclusion: “…therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.” We always have to go back to the character of God, that He is the creator and He has made everything. Again, the word here is qavah, hopeful expectation. And when is Jeremiah writing? In the context of the invasion of Nebuchanezzar. It is anticipated that the Babylonians are going to come and destroy the southern kingdom of Judah and they are going to go out under the fifth cycle of discipline. So in the midst of all of this horror that is about to come he says, We are just going to relax and wait on the Lord.
Psalm 25:5, “Lead me in thy truth [Doctrine], and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.” The same principle: wait on the Lord continually.
Psalm 25:21, 22, “Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on thee. Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.” The reason we can wait on God is because God has integrity. He backs up His promises and He is reliable.
Psalm 27:14, “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”
Psalm 33:20, “Our soul waits for the LORD: he is our help and our shield.” That is what results from the faith-rest drill. God is the strength of our soul and He is the one who surrounds us and protects us.
But there are times when we are trusting God and are following Him, and we are doing everything right, and it seems like everything goes wrong and the unbeliever and the carnal believer seems to just rack up all of the success, appear to have all of the material prosperity, and that God is somehow blessing them. This is one of those psalms that is refreshingly honest about how most of us feel some of the time: Psalm 37:7, “Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.” The context is adversity, and here the believer is going through adversity but the unbeliever or the carnal believer seems to be blessed and in prosperity. Notice: Don’t be anxious, don’t be concerned, don’t get up tight over the fact that there are some unbelievers or carnal believers who appear to be prosperous. The man who brings wicked schemes to pass is the person whose modus operandi is doing (in some cases) a right thing in a wrong way. The 37th Psalm is a great psalm to work through sometime; it is a wisdom psalm. In the Hebrew it is an acrostic, which means it follows a pattern of the alphabet so that the first word in each stanza begins with the successive letters of the alphabet. That was used as a means of memorizing Scripture in the Old Testament. Psalm 37 is teaching that we are to rest in the Lord and not to be distracted by the unbeliever or the carnal believer who seems to be successful with his plans. The word translated “rest” is the word we saw in Psalm 62:5, damam, meaning to be silent or still in the presence of adversity, and then to “wait patiently” [qavah] with hopeful expectations—both concepts are combined in this one promise. Verse 8, “Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.” Don’t let his success cause you to get out of fellowship, to get angry and frustrated, and all the other mental attitude sins that go with it, it only leads to evil doing. Verse 9, “For evildoers shall be cut off [there will be justice eventually]: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.” This is the background for Jesus’ teaching in the sermon on the mount that the meek shall inherit the earth. This is where it comes from. It is just simple humility. Those who are humble and patent and waiting upon the Lord shall inherit the earth. This happens when the Messiah is given the nations for His inheritance, when He takes the kingdom, as we se in Psalm 2:8. Verse 34, “Wait on the LORD, and keep his way, and he shall exalt you to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, you shall see it.” We can just relax now and leave things at the Supreme Court of heaven and the Lord will straighten everything out eventually.
So we are warned in passages like this, and others, not to be like the Exodus generation [Psalm 106:13] which quickly forgot His works, and they did not wait for His counsel. We have to make the Word of God a priority. This is the function and operation of the faith-rest drill.
Just for review, how does the faith-rest drill work? The first step is to remember the Word—some promise, some portion of a promise, some phrase, some principle, or some policy set forth in the Word of God. Then you grab hold of that with your mind, you concentrate on that, think about it, and for the second step you mix it with faith. This is the idea of claiming a promise. That means to hold God to His Word, to remind Him of His promise, to rehearse what He has said to us and hold Him to it. So to do so we have to make sure that we properly understood the promise. The next step is to rest in the conclusion.
So this is the issue that Abraham fails. He is not waiting on the Lord. He is not waiting on the Lord to do exactly what He said, he is going to come up with some alternative solution, and so he acquiesces to Sarah’s solution. So in verse two we read: “And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai.”
Genesis 16:3, “And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.” That phrase doesn’t mean that Hagar became the same kind of wife that Sarai was, she is consistently referred to as the handmaid. This is merely a euphemism for sexual intimacy. They had waited ten years, but guess what: they have another thirteen years to go! They have to learn to wait on the Lord. Because they kept trying to hurry it up it just took longer and longer before there was a solution.
Hagar becomes pregnant and now there is reaction. Sarah is operating on arrogance: I am going to come up with my own solution. Arrogance always produces an equal and opposite reaction that is just as negative. Verse 4, “And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.” The Hebrew word for “despised” means to belittle; she is diminished. Verse 5, Sarah complains about her own solution: “And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the LORD judge between me and thee.” She blames Abraham. Then the sanctimonious cry of the out-of-fellowship believer: “the Lord will judge between us as to who is actually right.”
Genesis 16:6, “But Abram said to Sarai, Behold, your maid is in your hand; do to her as it pleases you. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.” Notice, it is “your maid,” it is not his wife. What we have now is this abused, pregnant runaway who is now trying to put her life back together, and God is going to show up in her life. This is a tremendous demonstration of the grace of God to this slave.
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094b-The Angel of the Lord; Grace Orientation. Genesis 16:7-16
What underlies this chapter, even though the issue is a failure to trust God, and what is basic to it is a breakdown of Abraham’s grace orientation. The fourth problem-solving device is grace orientation, and grace orientation precedes doctrinal orientation because the place that we learn grace is at salvation. If you don’t understand grace enough to be saved then everything else is irrelevant. You have to start at the cross with a correct understanding of grace. Otherwise you can’t get anywhere because you don’t have a spiritual life.
Grace orientation
1) Grace means unmerited favor or undeserved or unconditional merit. Those are two terms that we often bandy about a lot but often don’t take enough time to really think through what they mean. Grace is a gift.
2) God’s grace is freely given without condition and apart from any merit in the beneficiary. That means that God gives it to you and me as sinners without any thought to some merit in us. This means that when God is the giver man doesn’t have to fulfill any condition or to do anything to merit what He gives. Furthermore, man doesn’t have to become “savable.” The process isn’t started by Christ and finished by you; we don’t help out at all. When we get involved in the process at all it destroys grace and the whole principle of faith.
3) Grace operates through the non-meritorious operation of faith. What is faith? Faith means to believe that something is true.
4) Grace is generous beyond measure. It is not qualified. God doesn’t give us a part of the package of salvation, He gives us everything and more than everything that we need.
5) Grace is free to man. There is not a single thing we do to earn it or deserve it.
6) It is not free, it had to be purchased. Jesus Christ purchased it with His substitutionary atonement on the cross. Grace is not free but it is free to us. Someone has to pay.
7) Grace operates through the non-meritorious operation of faith. That means there is no credit for believing. It is the object of faith which gets all the credit, which is the work of Christ on the cross. Grace means that God did all the work. God does all the work and man trusts exclusively in God’s provision. Legalism, on the other hand, comes along—and this involves all human viewpoint systems of philosophy and religion—and man does something (ritual, works) and then God has to approve it or accept it, or He blesses it. Legalism says that man does something and then God approves, accepts or blesses it. The principle that we have to remember is that when grace is violated—which is exclusive reliance on God’s provision—problems multiply and unintended consequences will reverberate through our lives. This is what happens with Abraham’s failure to be grace oriented in chapter sixteen. Grace orientation means to align our thinking to God’s policies and live that out in our thinking, behavior, and habits. Orientation means to align something to reality, and the reality in God’s universe is grace. If we are not aligned to grace in our thinking then we are going to consistently have problems in our spiritual life in relationships to God, and consequently relationships to man.
8) First of all, this starts with thinking. If we don’t change our thinking and just change our behavior, what do we call that? Legalism. It is just an overt, superficial facade; there is no real grace orientation in the soul, we are just acting like it. The difficulty about that for Christians is that we live in a works-oriented world. We don’t live in a grace-oriented world. So we have to change our thinking. That, in turn, changes our behavior, but it is not just behavior here and there, it needs to be consistent and that is a habit pattern. That is when divine integrity starts to be built in our own souls. That is when the grace orientation changes our character. The whole idea is to change our character so that we imitate Jesus Christ, and that the character of Jesus Christ is formed in us so that God is seen through us and works through us. This is the process of spiritual growth and spiritual maturity.
9) Grace is giving-oriented, it is not just receiving-oriented. It has that generosity of spirit towards others—in all manners, not just financial but in terms of forgiveness, in terms of helping people, and of every dimension of life. Grace orientation can be measured in gratitude. There is a direct correlation between grace orientation and attitude toward God and others. If you are not a grateful person then you don’t understand grace. The more grace-oriented you become the more grateful you become because you realize that everything you have is from God.
10) Abraham fails the grace test in Genesis 16 because he failed to trust in the divine solution instead of the human solution. There is a connection between the faith-rest drill and grace orientation. He has to trust in God’s provisions, but God’s provisions are grace provisions so we see that these different spiritual skills don’t operate in isolation form each other. Ultimately they are all connected with each other, they have a logical flow but in the dynamic of our own life they all get mixed in together as we grow. As Abraham fails to demonstrate grace in this chapter what we see at the end of the chapter is that God demonstrates grace orientation towards Hagar.
Genesis 16:4, Hagar’s reaction. “And he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived: and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes.” Sarah was despised in Hagar’s eyes. Hagar had no respect for Sarah because Sarah couldn’t produce an heir and she could. So she became arrogant.
Genesis 16:5, Sarah reacts. “And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes: the LORD judge between me and thee.” Notice how she tried to solve a problem on her own and now is blaming God, just like Adam and Eve did back in the garden. Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is specifically showing these parallels so that we get the point of what a negative event this is in history. It is almost as negative an event in history as the fall. We see that today with all of the battles between the Arabs and the Jews.
Genesis 16:6, “But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thy hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.” So Sarah is now not going to demonstrate grace orientation. Now Hagar solves the problem on her own by fleeing.
Genesis 16:7, this is where God meets Hagar in grace. “And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.” This is another demonstration of the grace of God. God always takes the initiative. Grace always takes the initiative, it doesn’t wait for something else to take the initiative and then respond. What we see here is a very important principle: God meets us where we are. As fallen creatures he doesn’t tell us the straighten things up and then maybe something can be done. God always meets us where we are no matter how terrible our condition may be. He doesn’t put a condition on us and tell us to get out of the pig pen before He does something. This is one of the more unusual situations in Genesis because it involves God’s grace to someone who is not in the direct line of Abraham, it is directed toward this runaway slave girl. It is a tremendous picture of God’s grace. Peter says that God does not want anyone to perish but for everyone to come to a knowledge of the gospel. So Abraham and Sarah are going to learn something about the grace of God as God deals with Hagar in grace, and this is exemplified through the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ. How do we know that?
Genesis 16:9, “And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.” This is a recognition that Hagar is out of line and in a position of rebellion against a legitimate authority and the angel is saying she has to be back under authority. It is a command from the angel of the Lord indicating that the angel has a certain amount of authority. Where is that authority derived? In verse 10 there are promises made that only God could make.
Genesis 16:10, “…I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.” Only God can do that, so the angel is ascribed actions that only God can perform. Then in verse 11 we have a prophecy.
Genesis 16:11, “Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.” Then there are certain things said about his character and future descendants in verse 12. All of this indicates a certain authority on the part of the angel who makes certain promises to Hagar that only God can fulfill and makes certain prophecies to Hagar that only God can fulfill.
Genesis 16:12, “And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” First of all, Ishmael is not the father of the Arabs. The Arabs are fathered—see Genesis 10:26-29. Ishmael is the father of the Ishmaelites. Also called Midianites, because he blended in (and can’t be identified today) with all of the surrounding Middle Eastern people: “…he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.” “A wild man” refers to a wild donkey that lived in the wilderness in the southern part of Israel known as the Honager. It doesn’t mean that he is a wild undisciplined person but it indicates that he is not going to be confined. There is going to be a certain lack of external constraints upon him, just as there are upon any wild donkey.
Genesis 16:13, we see that she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her. “And she called the name of the LORD who spoke unto her…” So the text itself recognizes the angel of the Lord is the LORD. The word “LORD” is a translation of the Hebrew Yahweh, the sacred tetragrammaton for the personal name of God. So it is clear that the angel of the Lord isn’t an angel but is identified as the Lord. Cf. Genesis 22:11-18 and 48:15-16 where the angel of the Lord appears, it will be seen that the angel of the Lord is also referred to as “the Lord.”
So the second person of the Trinity has appeared to Hagar. This is remarkable. She is in great company here. It is a remarkable event demonstrating the grace of God toward Hagar, and He is demonstrating principles of grace to her in that her son is also going to be blessed and many descendants are going to come from him. This is going to be a humbling event for Abraham. Hagar calls on the name of the Lord and this is an indication of her salvation. She calls Him, “You are the God who sees”—in the Hebrew this is literally, “He who sees.” “…for she said, Have I also here seen him who sees me?” The point here is that God is the one who also sees and hears everything in relation to our lives. He is completely aware of all of our problems, every situation we are going to face, and He has made the perfect provision in His grace.
Genesis 16:14, she marks the well. “Wherefore the well was called Beerlahairoi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.” Moses locates the position of the well so that this is historically relevant to the people of the time.
Genesis 16:15, “And Hagar bare Abram a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael.” Ishmael means “God hears.” Remember, Hagar is an Egyptian and Ishmael is going to marry an Egyptian. So the descendants of Ishmael are going to be about half Egyptian.
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095b-Divine Sufficiency; Omnipotence. Genesis 17:1-8
As the curtain goes up in Genesis chapter seventeen, some thirteen years have gone by since the close of chapter sixteen. Chapter sixteen dealt with a test related to the faith-rest drill. It was Abraham’s opportunity to trust God to provide the promised seed through whom his descendants would come. Abraham failed the test which really focused on the concept of waiting. It also focused on grace orientation. God had graciously promised this to Abraham. He had promised him many things, that he would have innumerable descendants and that God would bless the nations through Abraham’s seed. This was a tremendous presentation of God’s grace but Abraham failed to trust God and he failed to appreciate this gracious gift.
So Abraham now has to go through a divinely imposed test. God is going to teach him to wait. For thirteen years Abraham has to wait. God is going to make sure he learns the lesson. When this began in chapter sixteen Sarah was seventy-seven and it seemed impossible that she would have a child. God wants Abraham to learn that God is the God of hopeless situations, that no matter how difficult the problem may be, no matter how hopeless the circumstances may seem, He is the one who is able to overcome all problems. No matter what our problems may be God has a solution to those problems and the solutions are always in the Word of God. Abraham has to learn that God is the one he can trust, and that God will fulfill His promises.
Abraham is being taught the lesson that God is omnipotent and His power is all-sufficient. That is one of those that so many conservative evangelical believers talk about, but it is a concept that too many don’t understand. We talk about the sufficiency of Christ, that His work on the cross is sufficient to pay for all of our sins. Usually we find that people can relax on that. We also believe in the sufficiency of grace, that God’s grace is sufficient to handle all of our problems. We talk about that, we use that word a lot, that God’s grace is sufficient. We talk about the sufficiency of Scripture, and that is where things start getting a little flaky, especially in our modern era. The sufficiency of Scripture is all we need to face, handle and surmount the problems that we face and to have real peace, stability, happiness and tranquility in our souls. After all, that is what the Bible teaches. We don’t need anything else.
The root problem we have for all of our problems is sin and sinful approaches to handling human problems. So the solution starts with understanding the truth of God’s Word and utilizing the problem-solving devices, spiritual skills outlined in Scripture, and we go forward on that basis. Part of the reason is that people really don’t understand the word “sufficiency,” it almost sounds like it is not quite enough, it is just sufficient. But that is not what it means, the word “sufficient” means enough, and God’s grace is always enough, more than enough, but it always meets us with just what we need and not more.
Abraham has to learn this and he has to go through thirteen years of silence from God: no theophanies, no special appearances with the renewal of the promise. In the previous thirteen years there had been two or three appearances of God and reaffirmations of the promise, but now God is going to teach Abraham to wait with this imposed silence. What was going on during that time? Romans chapter four gives us a bit of an idea. Romans 4 is an exposition on justification by faith alone, and in the middle of this chapter which uses Abraham as the example and illustration from the Old Testament that helps us understand the principle of justification by faith Paul talks about the faith that Abraham exhibited. Romans 4:16, “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace.” In other words, the only thing that fits with grace that is consistent with grace is faith alone, a non-meritorious system of knowledge. Faith looks at something; merit is in what faith looks at, either the cross of Christ which is sufficient for sins or the Word of God which is sufficient for our spiritual life: “…to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all.” So we as Gentiles are spiritual seed of Abraham because we follow him in faith. We have the same kind of faith that Abraham had.
Verses 17 & 18 in Romans chapter four relate specifically to what is going to happen in the first few verses of Genesis chapter seventeen. Romans 4:17, “(As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.” Romans 4:18, “Who against hope believed in hope,” i.e. contrary to what human viewpoint confidence would be based in. Human viewpoint would have no confidence when it came to a ninety-year-old woman becoming pregnant and giving birth to a son. So contrary to that confidence in real divine viewpoint confidence, based on the Word of God, he believed; “…that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.” He has learned the lesson, that is why God appears to him in Genesis chapter seventeen, reaffirms the covenant and gives him a new name as a pledge of God’s promise.
Romans 4:19, “And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.” So what was going on between the end of Genesis 16 and the beginning of chapter 17 was Abraham was growing spiritually. He was learning to wait on the Lord.
Genesis chapter 17 has four divisions. The first three paragraphs relate to God’s provision to Abraham and His promise to Abraham. The last five verses, 23-27, relate to Abraham’s application of God’s mandates in the first 22 verses. So 17:1-8, God reiterates His promise to Abraham, and as a pledge He changes Abram’s name to Abraham. Then 17:9-14, which is the crux of the chapter, God stipulates that Abraham and his descendants need to obey the requirements of circumcision. In 17:15-22 God changes the name of Sarah. So there is a pledge to Sarah and a pledge to Abraham by means of this name-change that indicates a new position, a new status, and new role. In 17:23-27 we have Abraham’s obedience to the covenant. This is where he applies the mandates related to circumcision.
To understand the thrust of this narrative we have to look at literary structure. The structure shows where the emphases are. This is a chiasm. There are various statements that are made and things that are said throughout the chapter, and they are structured a certain way. It can be broken down into different sentences, and the way this is done is to label them a, b, c, d, and son on, and then the second half of the passage mirrors of reflects the first half. What we see in this structure is that at the beginning, the “a” statement, we are told that Abraham was 99 years old. In the “b” statement the Lord appears to Abraham. God speaks then to Abraham. Then the next part, “I am Almighty God; God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.” This is the first speech.
Then there is a response from Abraham. He falls on his face. This is the statement in verse 3. Then God speaks again. This the second speech of God, “As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.” This is an expansion on the promise. Then the seventh statement is the third speech from God, and it extends from verse 9 down through 14. That is the centerpiece of the chapter. It is God’s instruction to Abraham that he should be circumcised, every male child in his household should be circumcised, and it would take place when they were at eight days.
Then we start backing up in terms of subject. The fourth speech is a name change of Sarai. There is the promise that she will be the mother of nations and kings, vv. 15, 16. Then again we have Abraham falling on his face in v. 17. Then a fifth speech from God in verses 19-21 where He reiterates the fact that Sarah would be the one who would bare the son. It wouldn’t be done through a surrogate. God is not going to honor human viewpoint methods for achieving His ends. Wood, hay, and stubble never glorifies God. Then God ceases speaking in 22a. In 22b God departs from him, and then we are told in vv. 24-25 that Abraham was 99 years old when this took place. This is like framing a picture. Everything points to that central element, the third speech.
In the mind of the writer of this section the focal point is on God’s instruction on circumcision as a sign of the covenant. This is an application of doctrine. When we talk about what we have in the spiritual life we use two terms: positional reality and experiential reality. Our positional reality deals with what we have as Christians in Christ. These are eternal realities given to us at the instant of salvation. God gave us forty things at the instant of salvation which can never be lost, with the exception of the filling of the Holy Spirit which is lost when we sin. These are positional realities and are ours unconditionally. They are not based on what we do. The Abrahamic covenant is an unconditional covenant, it is not dependent upon Abraham’s obedience or disobedience in any way at all. God is making these promises to Abraham based totally and exclusively on God’s own character and not on Abraham’s character. There is no “if” clause there.
There is an apparent condition in this chapter. Verses 1, 2, “I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.” It appears that the command to walk before God and to be blameless is a precondition for the covenant. How do we know that is not true? It is easy. What happened in chapter fifteen? God cut the covenant. God moved between the animals in the ceremony alone, indicating that God is binding Himself alone to this covenant. The activation of this covenant is totally dependent upon God and not in any way dependent upon Abraham. That is positional truth. However, just like everything else in the spiritual life from Genesis all the way to Revelation experiencing the blessings of our position is dependent upon application of doctrine, learning the Word and applying it—otherwise known as obedience to the Word. That is what happens in Genesis chapter seventeen. Here we are talking about the experiential aspect of the covenant for Abraham. He has already been given the covenant, now God says that if He is going to bless Abraham in terms of the covenant then this is what has to happen in terms of experiential obedience.
The same thing is true of our Christian life. We have all these things that God gave us at the moment of salvation. We are in the royal family of God, adopted as sons, and have all of the magnificent blessings we could imagine that are ours in Christ; but they aren’t ours actively until we are in fellowship, learning the Word, and applying it under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. Only then will we experience the blessings that God has for us in terms of spiritual growth and our spiritual life. So we have to maintain that distinction in our thinking between the positional reality and the experiential reality.
Genesis 17:1, “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God [El Shaddai]; walk before me, and be thou perfect [blameless].” Abraham is going to live to 175 years old, so he has 76 more years to go. The Lord appears to him after 13 years. We don’t know what the term El Shaddai actually means. It is one of a series of divine names given in Genesis beginning with the word El, a Hebrew generic name for deity. There are some options. First, this is one of the most popular names used of God in the Old Testament. Shaddai is used 48 times. Most often it appears in the book of Job—31 times. All the characters in the book of Job use the title, indicating that it is a very ancient title for God. In Genesis and in Exodus 6:3 and Ezekiel 10:5 Shaddai is connected with the title El. This has been understood to signify God the Almighty, a very ancient interpretation. The LXX translated Shaddai with the Greek word PANTOKRATOR [pantokratwr] (PAN = ALL; KRATOR = powerful). So the Jews who translated the Hebrew text into the Greek LXX thought that El Shaddai had to do with the power of God, His omnipotence. When Jerome translated the Hebrew Old Testament into Latin he borrowed this idea and used the Latin word “omnipotent,” and that is why the KJV and some of the earlier English versions translated “God the Almighty.” Some versions just leave it untranslated as El Shaddai. However, another view came out from the rabbis that was embedded in the Babylonian Talmud and many understood this to refer to the self-sufficiency of God, that He is the one who is self-sufficient. There is a connection in terms of the ideas of the power of God and the sufficiency of God. Because God is all-powerful He is sufficient for every situation and every problem in life.
Then He gives two mandates to Abraham. The first is to walk before Him. This is the hithpael imperative of the word to go. This is the same command that God gave Abraham to leave his father’s house and go to a land that He would show him—Genesis 12:1. But in the hithpael stem it doesn’t have the idea of literally walking but is used metaphorically for living one’s life. So here God is saying, not walk before me in terms of taking steps but living your life in front of me. This is the idea of walking before God, in the presence of God, so that God so that the life is completely open and exposed to God, recognizing that God in His omniscience sees, knows, and understands everything in our life. “…and be blameless.” The Hebrew word is tamim, meaning complete, whole or entire. It means being everything that God planned and intended for a human being to be as an image bearer of God. It has the idea of completion and maturity and is comparable to the Greek verb TELEIOO [teleiow] on the New Testament which has the idea of completion or maturity. Never once in all of Scripture do these words when applied to human beings have the idea of flawlessness or perfection. It has the idea of maturity.
Genesis 17:2, “And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” What does He mean, “I will make.” That sounds in English as though it was future tense, i.e. if you do this I will make my covenant with you. What He is talking about is the application of the covenant now, not its inauguration. It was inaugurated in chapter fifteen, now it is going to be applied on one sense visibly and overtly through the overt sign of circumcision.
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096b-The Doctrine of Circumcision. Genesis 17:2-14
Genesis 17:2, “And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” This is God speaking, His first speech, and He is reaffirming the covenant that He has already made with Abraham back in chapter fifteen. It doesn’t change; He is not adding anything to it. He may be developing it but is not contradicting anything that He has already said.
Genesis 12:1-3 promises a land, descendants, and a worldwide and universal blessing to Abraham. Genesis 12:7 reiterated the land promise. Genesis 13:5 expanded on it and said to Abraham that he could have all the land that he was seeing. In Genesis 15:8 that is expanded and specific borders are given, from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates. In Genesis 17:8 it is further defined as the whole land of Canaan. See how there is progressive revelation regarding the land promise.
Then there is the promise of a seed or descendants. The descendants are said to be a great nation in 12:2. In 13:16 they are described as being as numerous as the dust of the earth. In Genesis 15:5 God says they will be like the stars in the sky. In Genesis 16 they are said to be innumerable. In Genesis 17 this will be expanded even more to refer to a multitude of nations, not just Israel.
The third element is God’s blessing on Abraham and his descendants. This is expressed in terms of divine protection. Genesis 12:2, God promises to curse those who treat Abraham lightly. In Genesis 15 He warns that his descendants will be taken into slavery for 400 years, but they will be delivered and will return to this land that God has promised. In Genesis 17:7 there is an eternal promise, the land is theirs in perpetuity and God will protect them in perpetuity and will, always be their God.
One point of application from this is that if God went back on this promise to the Jews, and if because of their rejection of the Messiah they are no longer to be the literal heirs of this promise, then there is no security for Israel in God’s promise. If there is no security for Israel in God’s promise then there is no security for us in God’s promise of eternal salvation. What happens in other theological systems such as Covenant theology and progressive dispensationalism, even though they affirm eternal security at times, they have a system that at its very core has a God who goes back on His promises because of human disobedience. The Abrahamic covenant is a unilateral covenant, i.e. it is God who establishes the covenant with Abraham and it is not based on who Abraham is or what he does. The experience of the blessings is dependent on covenant obedience, but that refers to the experiential aspect. The title deed to the land, the reality of the covenant, is eternal and can never be lost. God has not yet fulfilled the Abrahamic covenant and therefore it must be fulfilled in the future. This means that God has a plan for Israel as a nation in the future.
Genesis 17:3, Abraham’s response. He falls on his face, and God speaks to him a second time. Verse 4, “As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.” This is the expansion of the seed promise. There will be many nations that come from Abraham. Furthermore, God is going to establish this by changing Abraham’s name. A name change in the ancient world always indicated a change of position, a change of blessing, a change of priorities. So Abraham is being put in a new position by this name change. Verse 5, “Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.” Abram means exalted father. That word probably refers to Abraham’s own father, Terah, signifying that this child that Terah names is exalted with respect to his father. The father is naming the child in such a way that it reflects the father’s prestige. This would indicates that along with Abraham’s wealth and other factors that Abraham was born into an aristocratic lineage and he has an extremely wealthy family and background. So Abram has more to do with his background and his father than it does with God’s plan for Abraham. Abraham means the father of many nations. So this, again, reconfirms God’s promise to Abraham that He will do all that He has said He will do. To give a name expresses God’s sovereignty over the individual and it reflects a change of circumstance now for Abraham, and it reflects a new position in God’s plan.
Genesis 17:6, God goes on to promise other things to Abraham. “And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.” From Abraham will come nations who are descendants from Ishmael, nations who are descendants through Esau, nations who are descendants through other progeny that are not in the line of the seed. The line of the seed is through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the only three with whom God confirmed the covenant. A person is only a Jew if they have that physical descent from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Even though Israel is out of the land they still have a title to the land. That is theirs by divine gift and its foundation is Abraham. That is why the Abrahamic covenant is so crucial. The Abrahamic covenant really gives us the lens to understand all of history. It is that framework for being able to interpret everything that goes on in the Middle East down through the ages for the last 4000 years.
Genesis 17:7, 8, “And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.” The future tense indicates that God will not only be their God now but He will be in the future. So that even if they go through a period of time when they reject Him as their God there is an implicit promise here that God will be their God in the future and they will have an eternal possession of the land. The Jews have never controlled all of the land that was promised by God we know that it must yet be future, and so there will be a time in the future when they will return to the land as a political entity and control all of that land that God promised. That won’t happen until Jesus Christ returns as the Messiah, the greater son of David, and establishes His kingdom, and establishes the throne of David at that particular time.
The core or heart of the chapter is verses 9-14. God speaks for the third time. Genesis 17:9, “And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations.” So the keeping of the covenant is an obligation. Even though the covenant is a free gift, even though the covenant is irreversible, even though the covenant is unilateral, even though there is nothing they can do to destroy the covenant, there is an inherent obligation to morally follow the stipulations of the covenant and to walk in obedience to God. The same thing is true of the Christian life. We have salvation which is a free gift. Nevertheless, with that salvation, with the privilege and position that we have as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, there comes an obligation to walk in obedience. That is why we have these mandates throughout the New Testament to walk in a manner worthy of God’s love. There is an inherent obligation to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ as a result of what God has given us, as an expression of gratitude.
Genesis 17:10, “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.” This is the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. It is an indication that they are set apart to God.
Summary of verses 9-13
1) God says, You and all your descendants shall keep my covenant. That is a command, v.9. It is not a condition for making the covenant but it is an obligation that God puts on those who have been given the covenant.
2) The covenant to be kept is that every male child shall be circumcised. According to the Jews this is a separate covenant and is called the covenant of circumcision.
3) Circumcision is the sign of the Abrahamic covenant. Not every covenant has a sign but several do. The sign of the Noahic covenant is the rainbow. The sign of the Mosaic covenant is the Sabbath. The sign of the Abrahamic covenant is circumcision, a sign that a person as a Jew has been set apart by God. That is a key word to understand here, it sets the nation apart through this physical symbol. Circumcision is a physical rite that pictures a spiritual reality.
4) It is to be performed on the eighth day.
5) Circumcision is for any physical Jew or for any foreign slave living in the household, because this is the nation. The picture here is that the nation is being set apart to God. The flesh of the foreskin is removed. The flesh is a picture of the sin nature. The picture of positional truth is that we are set apart positionally from sin. The picture here is that the Jews are being set apart from the flesh, set apart for the service of God.
6) It is a perpetual covenant. It was tied to the Abrahamic covenant so it is still in effect. It was not to be rendered obsolete by the replacement of another covenant for a Jew.
7) The penalty for the uncircumcised was to be removed from the people, indicating that they weren’t participating in the positional blessings of the covenant. Verse 14, “And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.”
8) Circumcision, thus, is a physical ritual that represents the descendants of Abraham as set apart to God. They are set apart for the service of God for a distinct plan and distinct purpose.
The doctrine of circumcision
1) The first mention in Scripture of circumcision is here in Genesis 17.
2) We have to recognize that historically the surgical removal of the foreskin was practiced in the ancient Near East before Abraham, but in Egypt and other cultures it was a rite performed at puberty. What made it distinct for the Jews was that it was performed at birth. There is a reason it was done on the eighth day and that was probably to give the blood time to develop its properties to properly coagulate.
3) Why males only? Only males were involved because it was through the male that the sin nature was passed down. The symbolism here represents being set apart from sin.
4) God revealed to Abraham that this act of shedding blood was to be a sign of the unilateral covenant between God and Abraham.
5) The act at birth signifies the spiritual truth that at regeneration the believer is positionally separated from the flesh, i.e. the sin nature—not the presence of sin but the power of sin. Deuteronomy 10:16 recognizes this principle in the Old Testament, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.” In that passage the issue was that God was commanding them to be set apart to Him in reality, not just in ritual. Deuteronomy 30:6, “And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your seed, to love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, that you may live.” This is post-salvation experiential growth.
6) Under legalism in Israel the significance became the symbol or the ritual itself, not the spiritual reality that it signified. This is something that was challenged by the latter prophets in the Old Testament.
7) The patter prophets condemned Israel for this superficial legalism. Jeremiah 4:4, “Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.” Also Jeremiah 9:25, 26 which indicates that just because one was a Jew and circumcised didn’t mean they were a part of the covenant. Regeneration has to be; there has to be that circumcision of the heart. “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will punish all them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised; Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that are in the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.”
8) In Deuteronomy 30:6 there is a suggestion that there is both a positional and an experiential element to the symbolism. The believer is positionally separated from the flesh at the instant of salvation and he is experientially separated through spiritual growth.
9) Therefore true circumcision was a spiritual reality, not physical surgery. The point wasn’t the physical surgery, the point was that it was to represent a spiritual reality.
10) Circumcision is a sign of the Abrahamic covenant and has no spiritual value other than symbolic. It doesn’t mean that a person is saved or not saved, it doesn’t mean that a person is more spiritual or less spiritual. And it has no relevance to the church age believer.
11) In the early church those who did not understand the distinction between Israel and the church insisted that Gentiles be circumcised in order to be saved. Cf. Acts 15:1; Galatians 5:2, 3.
12) For the church age believer, therefore, the reality is the spiritual significance, not the physical act. There is a spiritual circumcision today that is for every believer—Colossians 2:11, “In whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ.” Thus in the church age the spiritual circumcision represents retroactive positional truth. What happened at the instant of salvation is you are identified with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ on the cross—Romans 6:1-7. Because of that the power of the sin nature is broken at the instant of salvation. When we come to Abraham and the Abrahamic covenant we realize that this is a picture of Israel’s positional sanctification in the Old Testament, something that can never be lost. They have a position is Abraham. That doesn’t mean every Jew is saved, it means the nation has a position in Abraham that can never be lost. Those promises given to Abraham will be fulfilled at some point in the future.
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097b-Promise and Faithfulness. Genesis 17:15-27
The fourth speech given in verses 15-17 is the name change of Sarai, and she is said to be the mother of nations as well as kings. This parallels the second speech where Abraham was said to be the father of nations and kings.
Genesis 17:15, “And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.” Sarai and Sarah both have the same Hebrew root. Sarai is understood to be my princess with the first person singular ending. Some confusion entered into this during the early part of the 20th century. The Septuagint translated Sarai as Sara. Then Sarah was transliterated into Greek as Sarra. At one time scholars in their attempt to understand the meaning of the name suggested that a possible root based on the Greek transliteration might have been a root meaning contentious or striving. But that has been thoroughly rejected by Hebrew scholars. Her name is given a new significance when God renames her “Princess,” because it moves to an absolute category because now she is going to be the mother of nations and kings.
The promise that is given in verse 16 is that God is going to bless her. “And I will bless her, and give you a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her.” We see here another very important word, the word for “bless.” It is the Hebrew word barak, meaning to kneel, to bless, to praise, or even to salute. It has a variety of meanings. The root occurs 415 times in the Old Testament and about 220 of them occur in the piel stem, which is the intensive stem. The piel stem is the primary way in which blessing is used. While some scholars suggest that there is a relationship between the idea of kneeling and receiving a blessing it is better to understand these as two different words. The word barak for blessing didn’t come from the word barak for kneeling. It is called a homonym—they are spelled the same, they sound the same but they are from two different roots. Blessing is an important concept to understand. The basic idea of blessing is the idea of someone being endued with power or strength for success, for prosperity, for longevity, for fruitfulness, for productivity. Somehow God is enduing a person with a certain amount of strength or power to accomplish His will for their lives in some cases, or to fulfill a mission. This is the basic idea. For example, in Genesis chapter one God blessed the animals that they would be fruitful and multiply. So God gave them the power of procreation. That is what that means.
Blessing is used three different ways in the Scripture. When God is the subject, when God is blessing something and man or something else is the object, then God is the one who is enduing man with something. He is giving him some power to accomplish some task. When man is both subject and object, for example if someone blesses something or someone else with something or says to someone, May you be blessed, then the idea is that they are expressing a wish that God would endue them with a certain amount of power, strength, etc. But when we shift it around and God is the object of the verb, e.g. Bless God, or, We are going to come together to bless God, it is phraseology is used in the Psalms a number of times, and it is a synonym for praising God for blessing us. The idea is that we are going to praise God because He has endued us with this power or ability to be fruitful, productive, to have good life, long life, healthy life, prosperity, these ideas. The root idea isn’t to be confused with some kind of material prosperity but God giving the ability to accomplish the task that He has designated for the individual.
So God says, “I will bless her.” And what is the context? She is going to have a baby. It is productivity, fruitfulness. God is going to give this 90-year-old woman the ability to have children. “… and give you a son.” Here we have the verb natan in the Hebrew which indicates grace. God is going to give in grace a son. This is the first time we have had “son” in reference to the covenant. Up to this point it has been “many descendants, seed,” but it hasn’t been designated “son.” This creates a little conflict in Abraham’s thought patterns because it doesn’t quite fit his world view.
Genesis 17:17, “Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear?” There are two ways to interpret this. The first way that some people teach is that he is laughing in derision, mocking God, this is a great joke, as if this is an expression of his unbelief. The second way to take it is that this is an expression of belief, he is laughing out of joy and the question is really a question of expressing joy. That is what is happening here. Abraham is not doubting God, he is expressing this question out of joy and out of excitement over the fact that God is now finally going to bring to fruition this promise of a seed that He has made down through the years. And the point is, it is going to come through Sarah. So he is expressing joy, certainty, and his faith and trust in God that God is finally going to bring to fruition the promise that He has made “Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed.” This is the verb from which we get Isaac, which means laughter. It is a laughter of joy that this is happening in their latter years. So Abraham laughs and this becomes the basis for Isaac’s name.
But then Abraham still shows his cultural problems, he has quite yet broken through his cultural boundaries. Just like most of us. We have certain strait jackets on our thinking that are put there because of the thinking of the culture around us. This happens with Abraham because in his culture it is the firstborn male who gets the inheritance. Abraham can’t get past the fact that Ishmael is the firstborn, and so the inheritance, the double portion, should go to Ishmael. So he stops and says, okay, I am going to have another son and the seed is going to go through him, but I need to ask for a blessing for Ishmael, he needs to be blessed by God as well. So he is requesting a blessing for Ishmael: “And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before you!”
Genesis 17:19, 20, God responds in a very gracious way. “And God said, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son indeed; and you shall call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.” He demonstrates that He is not going back on any promises that He made to Hagar related to Ishmael, that there will be promises fulfilled to Ishmael and his descendants, but He reiterates the fact that it is through Sarah that the line is going to progress, not through Hagar. “Covenant” is a key word in this chapter. It is repeated about eight or nine times through the chapt