Genesis 1

[00:00:00] For tonight we're in Genesis chapter one. So if you turn there in your Bible, so let's get to Genesis chapter one and begin.

[00:00:09] You know, before you build a building, you have to lay a foundation and the taller the building, the deeper the foundation.

[00:00:20] You have to break through the loose topsoil to get to the stronger, more solid soil below.

[00:00:26] And for a home or a skyscraper or an apartment complex to be built, one must dig down into the foundation in order to build well.

[00:00:37] And the same can be said, I think, for the book of Genesis. We're going to open up tonight.

[00:00:42] In it, God will drill down deep. He's going to anchor us into the why of creation, the why of humanity, the why of evil and ultimately the why of the gospel.

[00:00:55] If you don't have a working understanding of the many themes of Genesis, you'll be lost when it comes to God's word, when it comes to the scripture.

[00:01:05] So God did his part and he gave us this beautiful and foundational book to discover.

[00:01:10] But the thing that I want you to remember and I'll continue to draw your attention to this as we go through the book of Genesis is that it was first foundational, not for humanity in general, but the people of Israel in particular.

[00:01:24] We have to remember this when we read the book of Genesis.

[00:01:27] The Israelite people coming out of their slavery in Egypt were the first recipients of this book.

[00:01:36] Moses, under the inspiration of the Spirit, wrote it for them.

[00:01:40] They were living in a culture that was swimming in idolatry that communicated wrong ideas about who God is.

[00:01:49] And so the book of Genesis was their way to learn about this God who had just delivered them through the various plagues and eventually the incredible Passover.

[00:02:01] And in the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis, what the Israelites would have discovered is that humanity is broken and that God was looking for a people who would be faithful to him

[00:02:15] so that he could produce a Messiah through that people group.

[00:02:21] And then they would discover in chapter 12 through chapter 50 the great patriarchs of their people, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and on to Joseph.

[00:02:31] So it's foundational for Israel and I'll remind you of that as we move through this book.

[00:02:36] But it's also of course foundational for us, for all of humanity.

[00:02:41] We're going to read about creation, the fall, the flood and the dispersion of the nations in the first 11 chapters of the book.

[00:02:52] And then as I mentioned in chapter 12 all the way to chapter 50 we're going to look at four great characters Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph.

[00:03:02] By the way isn't that interesting?

[00:03:04] If you and I were to write this book today we would want the content matter of Genesis 1 through 11 to be the major portion of the book.

[00:03:13] And the part about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph to be the more minor part of the book.

[00:03:19] But God races through thousands of years of human history through the flood to the dispersion of the nations so that he can tell the story of his special people who would be his delivery mechanism for the Messiah.

[00:03:33] Jesus Christ, his son. And so this book is foundational for us.

[00:03:38] We're going to learn in it about the origin of the universe and humankind and sin and evil, the family civilization, government, the nations and of course as I've been mentioning the people of Israel.

[00:03:52] Now I suppose in starting a study on the book of Genesis or the whole Pentateuch which is the first five books of the Bible or also called the Torah or the law.

[00:04:03] You have to talk for a second about who wrote these first five books of the Bible.

[00:04:09] There are many scholars who have debated this over the years and have posited all kinds of wild theories of which I'm not going to get into tonight.

[00:04:18] I just want to say it like this.

[00:04:20] I'm of the opinion that Moses is the author of the book of Genesis all the way through the book of Deuteronomy excluding the portion about his own death at the very end of Deuteronomy.

[00:04:34] That would have been really hard for him to write.

[00:04:36] I'm fairly certain that Joseph or Joshua, his replacement was capable enough to be able to write that portion of the book of Deuteronomy.

[00:04:45] And the reason that I think that is manifold, I think there are quotations in the Old Testament in the law, in the prophets that allude to Moses being the author.

[00:04:56] There are quotations in the New Testament from the New Testament authors alluding to Moses being the author.

[00:05:02] But the main reason is that Jesus seems to believe that Moses is the author.

[00:05:09] This is the most critical statement regarding the Mosaic authorship of the book of Genesis.

[00:05:14] Jesus said things like this in Mark chapter 12 verse 26.

[00:05:18] In speaking to the religious leaders, he said, and for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses in the passage about the bush how God spoke to him?

[00:05:29] That's a reference to the book of Exodus, but Jesus calls it the book of Moses or in John 7 verse 19.

[00:05:37] Jesus asked the question, has not Moses given you the law?

[00:05:42] And they considered the law to be the first five books of the Bible.

[00:05:46] So it seems evident that Jesus thought that Moses was the author of the first five books of the Bible.

[00:05:52] And that is good enough for me because Jesus rose from the dead so he wins.

[00:05:59] I'm with him and his opinions.

[00:06:04] Now the question though is how did Moses obtain the information that's needed to be able to write this book?

[00:06:11] You know, he obviously wasn't there during the six days of creation.

[00:06:16] He wasn't there during the historical periods that he records.

[00:06:20] So how did he get the information he needed to write this book?

[00:06:24] Well on one hand he could have, I think we should confess, received all the information he needed through divine revelation.

[00:06:32] The New Testament teaches us that about the authoring of Scripture, that God moved along holy men and inspired them to write down these events.

[00:06:42] But as we go through the book of Genesis there will be various times where we see the book of this or the book of that.

[00:06:49] And it seems that there could be at least the possibility of previously written texts that Moses compiled, learned from,

[00:06:57] and then under the inspiration of the Spirit wrote down for us.

[00:07:03] As well as the oral traditions that Moses could have received from.

[00:07:08] We're going to learn in these first few chapters of the book of Genesis that at the beginning there were people lived an incredibly long amount of time.

[00:07:16] And so if you heard certain histories and stories and traditions, you'd be around for many generations to retell that to other people.

[00:07:26] In actuality the bridge from Adam all the way to Moses isn't as severe as it would be in our shorter life spans that we are experiencing today.

[00:07:37] And I think Moses was a perfect candidate to write these books.

[00:07:43] If you remember Moses grew up in the household of Pharaoh, he'd received an elite Egyptian education.

[00:07:50] He was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, Acts 7 verse 22.

[00:07:55] He knew about Egyptian place names and people and gods.

[00:07:59] He knew Egyptian words and idioms and cultural factors as well.

[00:08:03] And on top of this Egyptian background that Moses had, he was an eyewitness to most of the events from Exodus through the book of Deuteronomy.

[00:08:13] And on top of all of that he was a godly man who wanted to revere the Lord in the way he lived his life.

[00:08:20] To me he was an excellent candidate or selection for authorship.

[00:08:25] So that's a little bit about Moses as the author of this book, but without further ado let's actually read the thing.

[00:08:32] In verse 1, a very famous verse, it starts out so beautifully.

[00:08:37] In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

[00:08:45] Isn't that so sweet?

[00:08:48] So powerful, like the blast of a cannon, the Bible begins.

[00:08:53] There's no long preamble, there's no introductory comments.

[00:08:58] We're just thrust right into the story and the story we must know begins not with us, but with God.

[00:09:09] We're immediately thrown into the metaphysical realm of deity.

[00:09:15] We live in the physical realm, but there is God above and beyond the physical realm.

[00:09:21] Present within it, but the story is about him.

[00:09:26] And make no mistake, this is not a fanciful or fairy tale or superstitious place to begin with God.

[00:09:33] Instead it's entirely reasonable for a human being to conclude that there is a God who created the heavens and the earth.

[00:09:44] Many people have made the argument quite simply in this way.

[00:09:48] They've pointed out that everything that we see, everything that exists, everything that is changing, it had a beginning.

[00:09:57] And you go back to what caused this or what caused that and as you keep on going back you eventually have to come to a point where someone started it all.

[00:10:07] You can't go back infinitely. There has to be a moment where all things that are began and the one who caused all that is was uncaused himself and that is God.

[00:10:20] And the Bible makes no bones about it.

[00:10:23] It doesn't try to prove his existence, it just merely says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

[00:10:31] All this is to say that it's perfectly reasonable to conclude that a sovereign eternal pre-existent being without beginning or end created everything that we see and know.

[00:10:44] The creation, listen to me, did not make itself.

[00:10:49] Otherwise, and scientists have never answered this question.

[00:10:53] How did all this something come from all that? Nothing.

[00:10:58] We learn the answer right here in the beginning God created.

[00:11:03] Now in this first verse, verse one, we learn quite a bit about who God is.

[00:11:09] Deism believes that God is beyond the universe but that he's not active in this present world.

[00:11:16] Atheism of course believes that there is no such thing as God.

[00:11:21] Pantheism believes that God is everything.

[00:11:24] Polytheism believes that many gods are in the universe but they're finite or limited in power.

[00:11:30] But in this first line of scripture, every one of those beliefs is refuted.

[00:11:36] And theism is introduced which says that there is an infinite God beyond the universe who's involved in the universe.

[00:11:45] And think about what you learn of God in just that first sentence.

[00:11:50] First of all, you learn that God is infinite. He's infinite.

[00:11:54] How is he infinite? Because he created.

[00:11:58] There was nothing that made him, he was already pre-existent.

[00:12:03] So he did not create in the way that an artist or a builder might create by taking pre-existing material and putting it together.

[00:12:12] No, he made all of the substance with which he fashioned the heavens and the earth.

[00:12:18] The Hebrew word that's used here in verse one for create is the word bara.

[00:12:22] And it's only used of God throughout all of the Bible, 44 different times.

[00:12:27] And it always means and is spoken of God creating something that is fundamentally new.

[00:12:34] And so we learn that God is infinite.

[00:12:36] We also learn that God is the creator. That's the inference here.

[00:12:41] Genesis one and two focuses on the creation of the physical dimension, human experience and activity.

[00:12:48] But the implication here is that everything, even things like angelic beings were created and made by God.

[00:12:55] That's what's meant to be understood by the phrase, the heavens and the earth.

[00:12:59] It's a way of saying the full bookend, the full spectrum of all that is, God is the creator of.

[00:13:07] The physical world, the spiritual world, God made it.

[00:13:11] But we also learn that God is eternal from this first verse.

[00:13:15] You see what it means here or what it's saying here is that he created, he made time.

[00:13:20] That's why there's the beginning.

[00:13:23] One question that's pointless to ask is the question, what was God doing before creation?

[00:13:31] And the reason that that's pointless to ask is because it assumes that before creation, before the beginning, there was even such a thing as time.

[00:13:40] But God made time for us to dwell in.

[00:13:44] Before the beginning he was living in what is called the eternal realm.

[00:13:50] So God is eternal. He lives outside of time and space yet interacts with us in it.

[00:13:56] We also learn from verse one that God is wise.

[00:13:59] God is wise.

[00:14:00] Now we're going to think a little bit tonight about Genesis one and its compatibility with science,

[00:14:05] but I don't think we should allow that discussion to sidetrack us from the beauty of this chapter.

[00:14:12] In this chapter we see that God made everything that is and as we look around at what God made even marred by the fall,

[00:14:19] we'd have to confess what God made is good.

[00:14:22] In other words, you conclude from creation that God is wise.

[00:14:27] He knows what he's doing because he knows how to make good things.

[00:14:32] But this leads us also to learn that God is good.

[00:14:35] The creation that he made is not flawed, it is not broken.

[00:14:40] It is something that is good for us to experience.

[00:14:43] It's a perfect residence for humanity and the goodness and beauty of creation is a mere reflection of the one who made creation for us.

[00:14:55] But we also learn that God is unequaled.

[00:14:58] Here in Genesis one, we learn that there is no one and nothing equal to God.

[00:15:02] He's infinite like we said, eternal like we said.

[00:15:05] He's the only necessary being.

[00:15:08] He's the only one in this whole room for whom it could be said it's impossible for him to have not existed.

[00:15:18] That's who God is and we're learning this from this first verse.

[00:15:22] You know another thing that we're learning about God in verse one?

[00:15:25] Here's the final thing from this first verse that they would have thought of is that God is love, that God is love.

[00:15:32] See tonight we're going to look in Genesis chapter one and see this beautiful world that God made for humanity.

[00:15:38] He made humans especially will learn tonight as distinct or special in his sight.

[00:15:45] We're unlike the rest of creation.

[00:15:49] We're made in God's image and our place is not as little God's here on earth, but we're still higher than the rest of the creation that God made.

[00:16:00] And through all of this, this crowning that God put upon men and women, this crowning that God put upon humanity.

[00:16:08] We're going to learn of God's love.

[00:16:10] You see the love of God to me is the only acceptable explanation for creation in the first place.

[00:16:20] In other words why did God create everything?

[00:16:24] It was not because of any deficiency within himself.

[00:16:28] It's an error for us to say that it was because he was lonely or sad or needed company or wanted something to worship him.

[00:16:37] No, God had no flaw.

[00:16:39] There was nothing lacking within him.

[00:16:42] But God, John tells us in first John one verse five is love.

[00:16:47] And his love drove him to make a place for us to live in, to experience, to enjoy and to experience and worship him in as well.

[00:16:57] This is the story of the Bible.

[00:16:59] And this first chapter sets the scene for the long story of our relationship together with God.

[00:17:05] In short, God wanted to create so that we could enjoy him and he could enjoy us.

[00:17:15] So we have to in this first verse allow for the Bible to be God's story.

[00:17:21] In the beginning, God created.

[00:17:23] He was active.

[00:17:24] He moved in creation, but also in the gospel.

[00:17:29] The story of the Bible is not humans famous, but Jesus famous.

[00:17:34] Amen.

[00:17:35] We have to let the Bible be what it is.

[00:17:37] The truth of God's glorious work and nature.

[00:17:40] Now I want to talk for a second shifting from the verses themselves into thinking about clues that point to creation.

[00:17:49] This might not be interesting to some of you, but many of you might be thinking about this as we move through this.

[00:17:55] And I don't think that the book of Genesis is some kind of scientific textbook or anything like that,

[00:18:00] but it's perfectly compatible with science.

[00:18:03] And so I'd like to talk about that for a moment before we get back into the actual words themselves.

[00:18:09] I think it's scientifically reasonable to believe that God is responsible for bringing the universe into existence out of nothing.

[00:18:17] And I'd like to talk about that for a moment.

[00:18:19] And I'm going to lean on a bunch of different books that I've read and researched over the years,

[00:18:26] but one in particular that was of great help called The Doctrine of Creation by Dr. Douglas Potter and Dr. Norman Geisler.

[00:18:34] They synthesize some of the arguments regarding the creation account in Genesis.

[00:18:39] And I'm going to draw from some of their research.

[00:18:41] First of all, when you think about science, there's a difference between origin science and operation science.

[00:18:49] In operation science, we can observe what actually happens.

[00:18:53] We can test it. We can observe it.

[00:18:56] But origin science, that's not repeatable.

[00:19:00] That's not observable.

[00:19:02] We're not watching the origin of things now today.

[00:19:06] We have to surmise this through our observations.

[00:19:09] In other words, we can see how the universe functions today,

[00:19:13] but we really can't see with great specificity how it began.

[00:19:18] Still, there is evidence that our world had a specific start.

[00:19:24] One evidence that people have held out over the years is obvious.

[00:19:27] It's the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the amount of usable energy in the universe is decreasing.

[00:19:35] In other words, the universe as a whole is running down.

[00:19:39] Therefore it's not eternal. It had a definite starting point.

[00:19:44] Another evidence comes from astronomers who have discovered, of course, that the universe is expanding.

[00:19:51] Stars and galaxies moving apart like dots on an expanding balloon.

[00:19:56] But by reversing the process, rewinding the tape, so to speak,

[00:20:01] the universe would get smaller and smaller until it was perhaps even nothing.

[00:20:06] But it couldn't come from nothing, by nothing,

[00:20:10] so it makes sense that it came from nothing by someone.

[00:20:16] Now, of course, no one observed the origin of the first life.

[00:20:20] No one was there. We have to have God tell us about it.

[00:20:24] Additionally, the spontaneous natural generation of life has never been witnessed.

[00:20:30] It's never been evidence. We've never just seen life randomly occur.

[00:20:35] And many scientists actually believe that that possibility has been completely disproved by science itself.

[00:20:43] But many scientists do hold out hope that life in the past arose in a way that is contrary to current evidence.

[00:20:54] But life cannot naturally, spontaneously occur.

[00:20:59] Natural causes are far different from intelligent causes.

[00:21:03] Consider the contrast that I'll mention here.

[00:21:06] A natural cause would be something like a sand dune.

[00:21:10] When you see a sand dune, you know that the wind blew and a sand dune was shaped as a result of the wind.

[00:21:17] But if you were on that same beach and you saw a sand castle,

[00:21:21] you would know that an intelligent cause created that sand castle.

[00:21:25] You would never say to yourself, man, I wonder if a human made that or maybe the wind just blew

[00:21:31] and this beautiful intricate sand castle was formed.

[00:21:35] Natural causes lead to things like crystals, but intelligent causes lead to things like chandeliers.

[00:21:44] Waterfalls are formed by natural causes.

[00:21:48] Power plants fueled by water are formed by intelligent causes.

[00:21:53] Round stones, like I talked about earlier, are formed by natural causes,

[00:21:58] but arrowheads are formed by intelligent causes.

[00:22:02] Mount Everest is formed by natural causes.

[00:22:06] Mount Rushmore, on the other hand, by intelligent causes.

[00:22:11] You'd never look at that and say, man, how did that mountain come to look that way?

[00:22:15] That's just wild. What a coincidence.

[00:22:19] Clouds are natural causes, but sky writing in the sky is an intelligent cause.

[00:22:26] Or alphabet soup just mixed up as you're looking at it is a natural cause,

[00:22:31] but an encyclopedia ordered and written well was caused by intelligence.

[00:22:38] It just makes sense to me that all that we see was formed by an intelligent being.

[00:22:45] For example, the genetic information that's found in a single-celled animal

[00:22:50] is equal to 1,000 volumes of the encyclopedia Britannica.

[00:22:55] When it comes to life and the complexity inside of it,

[00:22:59] we're dealing with an intelligent cause, not a random accident.

[00:23:04] Now there are many clues that people have held out over the years

[00:23:08] to try to highlight this, and I won't reference all of them,

[00:23:13] but one that I specifically like is the anthropic principle put forward

[00:23:18] by astrophysicist Hugh Ross.

[00:23:21] And that principle states that the universe from its very inception

[00:23:25] was fine-tuned for the emergence of human life.

[00:23:30] Here are some of his many examples.

[00:23:32] One that he mentions is that the oxygen rate of 21% in the atmosphere is just right.

[00:23:39] If it was less, 15% human life would suffocate,

[00:23:43] and if it was more, 25% spontaneous fires would break out all over the place.

[00:23:49] Another one he mentions is that the gravitational force is just right.

[00:23:54] If altered by only one part in 10 to the 40th,

[00:23:58] I don't even know what that number is,

[00:24:00] the sun would not exist and the moon would crash into the earth.

[00:24:05] He also mentions that the centrifugal force of planetary movement

[00:24:09] is precisely balanced with the gravitational forces.

[00:24:13] If not, nothing could be held in orbit around the sun.

[00:24:17] Also a universe expansion is happening at just the right pace.

[00:24:21] If the rate were just one millionth slower,

[00:24:25] the temperature on earth would be 10,000 degrees.

[00:24:28] The average distance between stars he goes on of 30 trillion miles is just right.

[00:24:34] If it were altered only slightly,

[00:24:36] there would be extreme temperature variations on earth.

[00:24:40] And the speed of light is just right.

[00:24:42] Even a slight variation in the speed of light would alter the other constants

[00:24:46] and make life on earth impossible.

[00:24:49] You get the idea I could go on and on through some of the evidences

[00:24:53] or clues that he points out,

[00:24:56] but it just seems that this planet, this place that we're living on

[00:24:59] is so perfectly tuned for human life to be able to exist and flourish.

[00:25:05] Now obviously macro evolutionists, what they believe

[00:25:08] is that there's a common ancestry of all living things.

[00:25:12] You know to them, all that we see and experience in life

[00:25:17] would be symbolized in a tree

[00:25:20] and human beings are part of that tree of life.

[00:25:24] But the Bible teaches our creationists believe

[00:25:27] or view life not as a tree but as a forest

[00:25:30] with individual offshoots of God's created order here on earth.

[00:25:36] But that macro evolutionist view, first of all, it doesn't seem rational.

[00:25:41] An effect cannot be greater than its cause.

[00:25:44] In other words, it doesn't make sense that randomness and accidents

[00:25:48] would produce over and over again something better and better.

[00:25:54] Second, human language when you think about that

[00:25:57] is distinctive evidence that humans were uniquely created.

[00:26:01] No animal can speak.

[00:26:03] No animal learns our language.

[00:26:06] We can try to teach chimpanzees to be able to speak our language

[00:26:11] but they've never been able to learn.

[00:26:13] God has given us that unique ability

[00:26:15] to communicate with each other in that way.

[00:26:18] Third, there are no undisputed examples of missing links

[00:26:21] between primates and humans.

[00:26:23] Humans have always had a culture or art or religious practices

[00:26:27] and primates never have and will never do any of these things.

[00:26:31] Are there similarities between us in our design? Absolutely.

[00:26:36] But those similarities could easily indicate a common designer.

[00:26:40] I know for a while I was driving around a Honda Civic

[00:26:43] and my wife was driving a Honda Odyssey.

[00:26:45] There were similar parts in both

[00:26:47] because Honda was the maker of both of them.

[00:26:51] You would expect that God would reuse and repurpose

[00:26:54] some of the things that he's designed in humans

[00:26:57] and in other places in his created order.

[00:27:00] Fourth, genetic evidence helps us see the intricacy

[00:27:03] and wonder of things like the human brain.

[00:27:07] It's a machine more wonderful than any machine

[00:27:10] that we as humans have ever invented.

[00:27:13] There must be a super intelligent being who created us.

[00:27:17] And finally, geological evidence does not focus

[00:27:20] on what might have happened but on what did happen.

[00:27:24] And in the geological record, there's no indication

[00:27:27] of one life form transforming into a completely different life form.

[00:27:32] Instead it testifies to fully functional organisms

[00:27:35] that stay mostly the same through their entire history.

[00:27:39] I just mention all this or say all this

[00:27:41] because I think that we should know that belief in God

[00:27:44] and creation is reasonable.

[00:27:47] It's possible that none of these arguments should stand alone

[00:27:50] by itself as evidence for God or creation.

[00:27:54] If you've ever read Tim Keller's book, A Reason for God,

[00:27:57] the way that he structures it is he says

[00:27:59] that each one of these clues that we would look at

[00:28:02] not just these that I've mentioned tonight

[00:28:04] but clues that we would look at about the resurrection

[00:28:07] or other or fulfilled prophecy

[00:28:09] or other things in God's created world.

[00:28:12] All of them could stand as clues

[00:28:14] that when we put them together might cause us to conclude

[00:28:17] that God is the one that we should listen to

[00:28:20] and follow, that the Bible taken all together can be trusted.

[00:28:25] And of course the clues above

[00:28:27] or that I've just mentioned concern only creation

[00:28:30] but say nothing about fulfilled prophecy

[00:28:33] or the internal witness or consistency of Scripture

[00:28:36] or the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

[00:28:40] Now next week when we get into chapter two

[00:28:42] or actually not next week, Matt's going to start Galatians next week

[00:28:45] but when I get into Genesis chapter two

[00:28:48] we'll touch on some of the differences between creationists

[00:28:51] and we'll think about some of the various views that creationists hold

[00:28:55] because there's a wide bandwidth of different perspectives

[00:28:59] and views of Orthodox, solid Christians

[00:29:03] who see a different thing

[00:29:05] when they look at Genesis chapter one from others.

[00:29:07] So we're going to compare a few of the different views

[00:29:10] when we get there to chapter two and look at the seventh day of creation.

[00:29:14] Let's get back into Genesis together

[00:29:16] and look into the second verse.

[00:29:18] Each verse won't take us as long as that verse took us.

[00:29:22] But in verse two the account goes on

[00:29:30] and it says,

[00:29:31] It seems that what's being described here

[00:29:49] is the raw material of the universe.

[00:29:53] But that's what God made first, the raw material.

[00:29:58] It says in Isaiah 45 verse 18 that God did not create the world empty

[00:30:04] but that he formed it to be inhabited.

[00:30:09] Now some in an attempt to add length of time

[00:30:15] to Genesis chapter one

[00:30:17] in order to allow for some sort of even a theistic evolutionary process to occur

[00:30:24] have interpreted the phrase,

[00:30:26] The earth was without form and void

[00:30:29] as it became without form and void.

[00:30:33] In other words that something catastrophic took place

[00:30:37] that is unspoken

[00:30:39] and created an environment of death and decay

[00:30:44] before the fall of humanity

[00:30:47] and then there were the six days of creation.

[00:30:51] But the reason that that view is problematic

[00:30:54] is because it introduces death and decay

[00:30:57] well before the fall of humanity.

[00:30:59] And that appears to be the thing which introduced sin and death into our planet.

[00:31:06] Paul said in Romans 5 verse 12,

[00:31:08] Sin came into the world through one man

[00:31:11] and death through sin and so death spread to all men

[00:31:15] because all sin.

[00:31:17] Now some people find a way around that theological statement from Paul

[00:31:23] and others like it by wondering if death preceded Adam

[00:31:28] just not the death of human beings.

[00:31:32] But it seems to me that the obvious or the more straightforward way

[00:31:36] to take verse two of Genesis one

[00:31:39] is that we're dealing with the not yet state of creation.

[00:31:43] This is raw material that God is going to fashion into our created world

[00:31:50] and notice that it says that the spirit of God was hovering over the face of those waters.

[00:31:56] In other words he was inspecting

[00:31:58] and preparing for the subsequent stages and days of creation.

[00:32:03] This is kind of seen in a negative light.

[00:32:07] There it is all this chaos

[00:32:09] and darkness and formlessness

[00:32:12] but the spirit is there hovering over these waters.

[00:32:16] He is going to make something beautiful about the initial

[00:32:20] or with the initial substance that God had formed.

[00:32:24] The idea is that though God doesn't make waste

[00:32:28] he must be the one who forms and shapes what is into something good.

[00:32:34] God is the one who makes things good is the idea.

[00:32:40] And even this reality would have spoken to ancient Israel

[00:32:44] when they read that in verse two

[00:32:46] because remember what they were going through

[00:32:48] at the time that they learned these things about God.

[00:32:51] They were just a group of slaves

[00:32:54] who had been set free from God from their slavery in Egypt.

[00:32:59] God delivered them, they're wandering in the wilderness.

[00:33:02] They are a mass of people that they begin hearing from God

[00:33:06] or to be a great nation that will be the fulfillment of God's promises

[00:33:11] to bless the earth through the seed of Abraham.

[00:33:16] And as they begin hearing those promises from God

[00:33:19] they may have begun thinking to themselves how can this be?

[00:33:23] We are without form and void.

[00:33:27] There is no shape to us.

[00:33:30] We can't be the great people that God has asked us to be

[00:33:34] but there was the spirit of God hovering over the chaotic pre-creation

[00:33:40] and there was the spirit hovering over the nation of Israel

[00:33:45] preparing to make them into something wonderful.

[00:33:48] And the reality is that God wants to do the same thing for you and for me, amen.

[00:33:54] He's able to take our raw material so to speak

[00:33:58] and make his beautiful new creation, his spirit hovering over us.

[00:34:05] But if we're his children also living inside of us,

[00:34:10] shaping us from the inside out, making all things new

[00:34:16] and we have to believe in God's ability to produce his new and perfect creation in us.

[00:34:23] Paul said it this way in 2 Corinthians 5, 17

[00:34:26] if anyone is in Christ he's a new creation.

[00:34:29] The old has passed away, behold the new has come.

[00:34:35] And God by his spirit wants to work inside each one of us

[00:34:39] to create that new thing that he's designed for you and me to be.

[00:34:44] The other day I was with my daughters

[00:34:46] and when we have time we are reading through the book of Ephesians right now

[00:34:51] and what I do is I put on my Kindle screen the text all huge

[00:34:56] so that we can sit there at the breakfast table and read Ephesians.

[00:35:00] And we came to that place in Ephesians 2 verse 10 where it talks about us

[00:35:05] being created for good works that he has foreordained for us to walk in.

[00:35:12] That we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.

[00:35:16] He has foreordained for us to walk in.

[00:35:18] I'm not just explaining to them you guys Jesus has works in store for you.

[00:35:24] He sees things that he wants to do in your life

[00:35:27] that you don't know about yet that you haven't seen yet

[00:35:31] but the spirit of God is hovering over and living inside of you

[00:35:35] to form this thing that is not yet but he sees what he's doing.

[00:35:41] He sees what he's going to produce and this is always God's way.

[00:35:45] Remember Jesus is dealing with Peter.

[00:35:47] It was a constant experience of Peter not seeing what Jesus was trying to do

[00:35:54] and Jesus seeing past Peter's objections into what he was trying to produce in Peter's life.

[00:36:02] He knew that Peter would be a great evangelist

[00:36:05] before Peter even knew what evangelism was in the first place

[00:36:10] but Jesus slowly and surely drew it out of this man's life

[00:36:14] because he just kept pursuing Jesus.

[00:36:17] So keep pursuing Christ and let his spirit shape and mold you into what he wants you to be.

[00:36:23] Now let's go on and look at the first day of creation in verse 3 through 5.

[00:36:28] It says,

[00:36:29] And God said,

[00:36:30] Let there be light and there was light

[00:36:32] and God saw that the light was good

[00:36:35] and God separated the light from the darkness.

[00:36:38] God called the light day and the darkness he called night

[00:36:42] and there was evening and there was morning the first day.

[00:36:47] Now at the start of these days I think I should mention,

[00:36:50] it's a good place to mention it as any other,

[00:36:54] that there is a rhythm that's found in these days.

[00:36:58] Most of the days follow a basic order.

[00:37:00] God will speak.

[00:37:02] There will be the statement after God speaks that it was so.

[00:37:06] The thing that God commanded was so,

[00:37:08] followed by a statement usually where God says that it was good,

[00:37:13] what he created and then there will be a numbering of the day.

[00:37:18] And even though it's organized like that with a basic rhythm,

[00:37:22] I think it's important for us to reject the idea

[00:37:26] just because it has that rhythm that it's mere poetry.

[00:37:31] It has a rhythm but it's not typical Hebrew poetry.

[00:37:36] In a sense, what Genesis 1 is,

[00:37:39] is an aggressive apologetic against the false gods

[00:37:44] that existed during that era and during that time.

[00:37:47] Everything that God is in Genesis chapter 1

[00:37:51] is contrary to the popular views of people

[00:37:55] that were on the earth at that time.

[00:37:58] It's not meant to be thought of, I don't think,

[00:38:01] as a mere poetic experience for us to take in.

[00:38:06] Whatever view we hold of how creation took place,

[00:38:09] we've got to believe in the historicity of these events.

[00:38:13] Notice though that it starts with God speaking.

[00:38:16] It just says in verse 3, God said,

[00:38:18] with the mention of God speaking in this third verse,

[00:38:23] you have to notice something.

[00:38:24] God is referred to three times in the first three verses.

[00:38:28] In the first verse, God created.

[00:38:31] In the second verse, the spirit of God hovered over the waters

[00:38:36] and here in the third verse, God said,

[00:38:39] let there be light.

[00:38:41] When we get to the latter part of chapter 1,

[00:38:44] we're going to see perhaps a suggestion of the trinity.

[00:38:49] But even here in these first three verses,

[00:38:51] you get to see a little bit of a glimpse

[00:38:53] of the triune Godhead.

[00:38:55] Verse 1 may be pointing to the Father.

[00:38:57] Verse 2 pointing to the spirit.

[00:38:59] And who is the Word according to the Gospel of John?

[00:39:03] The Word who created.

[00:39:05] It's Jesus.

[00:39:06] And so here in these first three verses,

[00:39:09] we might have a reference to the triunity of God.

[00:39:13] But what Israel would have noticed is just simply this.

[00:39:16] God spoke.

[00:39:19] God spoke and powerfully so.

[00:39:22] When he said, let light be, light was.

[00:39:25] Something happened when God uttered his word.

[00:39:30] And when Moses came down from Mount Sinai,

[00:39:33] not long after they read this book with the Ten Commandments

[00:39:37] and the ceremonial law of God,

[00:39:39] they would learn even more so that God was a speaking God.

[00:39:43] Look, we have to confess that you guys.

[00:39:45] This is what we're learning about God.

[00:39:46] God is a speaking God.

[00:39:48] He communicates.

[00:39:50] He created language in part so that we could hear him

[00:39:54] and understand him.

[00:39:56] And like I mentioned earlier, he's given us 1,189 chapters

[00:40:01] in his book, his voice for us to learn and to study.

[00:40:06] He's a speaking God and his word is powerful.

[00:40:09] I just wanted to encourage you, read the Bible.

[00:40:12] I mean can you imagine if you started reading the Bible

[00:40:15] at the beginning of this Bible study,

[00:40:17] you'd already be in like Genesis 20.

[00:40:19] You can really get a lot done just by reading scripture,

[00:40:27] letting it wash over your heart.

[00:40:29] Life is found in looking at what God has said.

[00:40:32] But notice also that God is revealed here

[00:40:36] in these early verses as the judge of all that is.

[00:40:40] It says that God saw that light was good.

[00:40:45] It means that he sees for one,

[00:40:47] and Hagar will refer to God as the God who sees in Genesis 16.

[00:40:52] But when he sees, he determines by his estimation

[00:40:56] what is good and what is evil.

[00:40:59] And when he saw this light that came as a result of his word,

[00:41:03] he determined that since it was crucial to our existence,

[00:41:07] it was something that is good.

[00:41:10] This is an important development.

[00:41:12] I want you to stick it in your mind

[00:41:14] for when we get into chapter three.

[00:41:17] Because God is the one who's supposed to determine what is good.

[00:41:22] And ancient Israel and us need to know that.

[00:41:25] When God says that something's good,

[00:41:27] it's not his way of just sharing his opinion.

[00:41:30] You know if I were to stand here tonight and say next year

[00:41:33] I think the Dodgers are going to be good.

[00:41:36] Okay, that's just my opinion.

[00:41:38] It's a very informed opinion, but it's just my opinion.

[00:41:42] Or if I were to say, I like ice cream.

[00:41:45] That's just my opinion.

[00:41:46] That's just stating something about myself.

[00:41:49] But when God says that something is good, it's his divine decree.

[00:41:53] And Israel was learning that God's word and decrees,

[00:41:56] they were to be trusted.

[00:41:58] So here's God saying that the light is good.

[00:42:03] So years later when they hear God saying,

[00:42:06] you shall not covet your neighbor's house, wife, servant.

[00:42:11] Ox, donkey or anything that's your neighbor's.

[00:42:14] When they heard God say those words, they were to conclude,

[00:42:18] God knows what is good.

[00:42:22] So this was part of what we're learning.

[00:42:24] God is the determiner of good.

[00:42:26] He's the judge.

[00:42:27] Well let's move on in the passage.

[00:42:30] The second day goes like this.

[00:42:32] And God said, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters

[00:42:36] and let it separate the waters from the waters.

[00:42:39] And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters

[00:42:44] that were above the expanse and it was so.

[00:42:46] And God called the expanse heaven and there was evening

[00:42:50] and there was morning the second day.

[00:42:53] So on this second day, God creates an expanse in the midst of the waters

[00:42:58] and it was supposed to separate the waters from the waters.

[00:43:03] So as a result, the waters that were under the expanse

[00:43:06] were separated from the waters that were above the expanse.

[00:43:10] But what is the expanse which divided the waters above from the waters below?

[00:43:17] There are times where this word expanse is translated firmament or vault

[00:43:23] or dome or clear glass like pavement.

[00:43:28] Here though, what is clear is that it's the next stage of development

[00:43:35] for the earth to be prepared for human habitation.

[00:43:39] Remember that's what's happening here.

[00:43:41] God is preparing the world for human life.

[00:43:45] So one can imagine something maybe like a dense fog of moisture filling the earth before this day.

[00:43:51] So the earth on this second day is made more habitable for us.

[00:43:56] Some have suggested that there was perhaps some type of water canopy in the sky

[00:44:01] that would have produced an incredible greenhouse effect on earth at that time

[00:44:06] with uniform temperatures and tropical vegetation

[00:44:10] and no harmful UV rays leading to long years of life.

[00:44:16] But what we do know is that this was God preparing the earth for us.

[00:44:22] But notice that after he created it, in verse 8 he called it heaven.

[00:44:28] Now the pagans thought that various gods were in charge of the atmosphere, the sky above.

[00:44:36] But Israel here learns that God is over even the sky above.

[00:44:42] So much so that he creates something in it and then he names it himself.

[00:44:47] That's how sovereign he is over this sky that many of their neighbors were worshiping.

[00:44:53] And they learned more of God's sovereignty by watching him just name everything.

[00:44:58] Eventually God would commission Adam to name the animals

[00:45:02] and that was our way of sharing in the dominion that God has over the earth.

[00:45:07] And so Israel would learn that at the very beginning.

[00:45:10] God is in charge of all of these things.

[00:45:12] And God said in verse 9,

[00:45:14] Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place

[00:45:17] and let the dry land appear.

[00:45:19] And it was so.

[00:45:20] God called the dry land earth and the waters were gathered together.

[00:45:23] He called seas.

[00:45:25] And God saw that it was good.

[00:45:27] And God said,

[00:45:28] Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit

[00:45:33] in which is their seed each according to its kind on the earth.

[00:45:36] And it was so.

[00:45:37] The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds

[00:45:42] and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed each according to its kind.

[00:45:46] And God saw that it was good.

[00:45:49] And there was evening and there was morning the third day on this third day

[00:45:54] two important events occurred.

[00:45:56] First, you have the formation of the dry land.

[00:45:59] And then the second is that you have the earth sprouting forth vegetation.

[00:46:05] And when God made the ocean and the dry land,

[00:46:08] he was demonstrating his sovereign authority.

[00:46:11] The Canaanites deified the ocean,

[00:46:15] worshiped it like it was a mysterious God

[00:46:19] and had all kinds of wild theories as to how it came into existence.

[00:46:23] But here the Israelites were learning that God made the ocean.

[00:46:26] He named the ocean and he set its boundaries through the establishment

[00:46:30] of course of the moon and the tidal system that the moon produces.

[00:46:34] But he also made the earth sprout vegetation.

[00:46:39] And again, the false gods of the era were often worshiped for their ability

[00:46:46] to produce weather or crops for people to be able to consume.

[00:46:52] But here Israel was learning that God is the author of that.

[00:46:55] That God's responsible for the amazing reproductive ability of plant life

[00:47:00] which leads to generations of human beings being able to eat

[00:47:04] and to provide for themselves.

[00:47:06] God was thinking of generations of human life.

[00:47:09] Alright, before we move on to the fourth day, I want to point something out to you.

[00:47:14] There's a little bit of parallelism that's at play during these six days.

[00:47:20] On the third and sixth day they're similar.

[00:47:24] They both have two major events.

[00:47:26] Here the boundaries for the sea are set in the ocean and the land

[00:47:31] and the vegetation.

[00:47:33] Those are the two big events.

[00:47:34] And on the sixth day we're going to have the creation of the land animals

[00:47:38] and also the creation of human beings.

[00:47:41] So two major events.

[00:47:43] On the first day you have the creation of light.

[00:47:46] God said, let there be light.

[00:47:47] But on day four there's the creation of solar light.

[00:47:51] On day two the waters were divided into sky and sea.

[00:47:55] And on day five sky and sea creatures were created.

[00:47:58] And then again as I mentioned on day three there were double events

[00:48:02] like dry land and plant life.

[00:48:03] And on day six double events also land animals and human life.

[00:48:08] So it's following a specific structure.

[00:48:11] Now in verse 14 we get the fourth day.

[00:48:13] It says,

[00:48:14] And God said,

[00:48:15] Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night.

[00:48:18] And let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.

[00:48:22] And let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.

[00:48:26] And it was so.

[00:48:27] And God made the two great lights.

[00:48:29] The light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars.

[00:48:33] And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth.

[00:48:37] To rule over the day and over the night and to separate the light from the darkness.

[00:48:41] And God saw that it was good.

[00:48:43] And there was evening and there was morning the fourth day.

[00:48:46] Here on the fourth day God puts lights in the expanse of the heavens

[00:48:50] to separate the day from the night.

[00:48:53] Now the problem that comes up with this day of creation

[00:48:57] is that God created light on the first day.

[00:49:01] And here we see the solar system created on the fourth day.

[00:49:06] So the question is obvious.

[00:49:09] Where did the light come from on the first day?

[00:49:12] Now one option is that God created the sun and the moon and the stars

[00:49:17] on the first day,

[00:49:19] but divided and arranged them on the fourth day.

[00:49:22] This interpretation would be backed up by the idea

[00:49:25] that evening and morning were both established on the first day.

[00:49:29] Another option that people put forward is that day one light isn't solar light,

[00:49:36] but is the miraculous and direct light of God's glory.

[00:49:42] The light of His presence if you will.

[00:49:45] And that God created the solar system, that version of light on the fourth day.

[00:49:50] And if that's true, then that would create an incredible book end to scripture

[00:49:56] because the Bible ends in the book of Revelation with the new heavens and the new earth

[00:50:02] which has no sun in it because God Himself, the Bible says, is its light.

[00:50:08] So perhaps that's what's happening here on the first day of creation.

[00:50:12] God's glory is producing the light.

[00:50:15] But another option is that the first day does not consist of the creation of a physical entity called light,

[00:50:23] but the creation of time.

[00:50:26] That's what's really being referred to there on the first day.

[00:50:30] The time which did not exist before creation was created there with light on the first day.

[00:50:37] But again none of this is really the point of Genesis.

[00:50:41] The point in an age where various people groups worship the sun and the stars is this.

[00:50:47] God didn't even refer to it as the sun.

[00:50:50] He called it the greater light and the lesser light because for them the sun and the moon,

[00:50:58] many of people at that time would worship the sun and the moon.

[00:51:01] So God just says you know what they are?

[00:51:03] I'm not even going to call them sun and moon.

[00:51:05] I'm going to call them greater light and lesser light because I'm the one who made them both.

[00:51:11] And this is important for us because it's not just the ancients that often turn to or that turn to the sky for guidance.

[00:51:23] But a lot of times modern human beings, even educated western human beings will turn to the stars for direction.

[00:51:33] And Christians should not do this.

[00:51:35] Shouldn't even play around with astrology or the worship of the solar system for guidance.

[00:51:41] What they do is provide us light.

[00:51:44] They help us catalog the seasons.

[00:51:46] They help us live here on earth.

[00:51:49] But they've been created and made by God.

[00:51:52] Now let's look at the fifth day together.

[00:51:54] It says in God said,

[00:51:55] Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.

[00:52:02] So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves

[00:52:07] with which the waters swarm according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind.

[00:52:12] And God saw that it was good.

[00:52:14] And God blessed them saying be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas

[00:52:19] and let birds multiply on the earth.

[00:52:22] And there was evening and there was morning the fifth day.

[00:52:25] Here on the fifth day we have the creation of the water and sky based animals.

[00:52:31] The waters were going to swarm with living creatures while the birds would fly above across the expanse of the heavens.

[00:52:38] God created all these animals and upon seeing them he declared they are good.

[00:52:43] Now there's a couple things that we should notice from this day.

[00:52:47] First of all, God blessed them it says and told them to be fruitful and to multiply.

[00:52:54] In other words they were to fill their allotted territory with their offspring.

[00:52:59] They were supposed to inhabit the earth and God blessed them in that effort to that end.

[00:53:06] And we're going to note more about this commission to fill the earth on day six

[00:53:11] but the blessing of God is introduced here for the first time.

[00:53:16] We read about the blessing of God and it strikes us as no big deal

[00:53:20] but the Israelites when they read this for the first time they're learning that God is a blessing God.

[00:53:26] And second we should also notice that God allowed them to reproduce according to their kinds

[00:53:32] and as many have said before this speaks of micro evolution.

[00:53:36] You know the variations within the kinds are allowed

[00:53:40] but you'll never find an observable instance of one kind evolving into another kind.

[00:53:46] Small changes will occur in adapting organisms but we're going to reproduce after our kind

[00:53:52] and he says that to these animals.

[00:53:54] But a third thing that is also cool is found there in verse 21.

[00:53:58] Notice how God refers to the creation of the great sea creatures.

[00:54:03] Another thing that the pagans of Israel's day would have worshiped

[00:54:08] were dragons or monsters that they mythologized and worshiped.

[00:54:15] But in Genesis God announces I made all those massive sea creatures of the sea

[00:54:22] and I am the master over them.

[00:54:25] Now let's go finally to day six in verse 24.

[00:54:29] It says in God said,

[00:54:31] What the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds.

[00:54:35] Livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds

[00:54:39] and it was so.

[00:54:40] And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds

[00:54:43] and the livestock according to their kinds

[00:54:45] and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind.

[00:54:48] And God saw that it was good.

[00:54:51] Okay so here we have the living creatures that would occupy the land

[00:54:56] and he kind of gives them a little bit of a basic division.

[00:54:59] He kind of divides them by utility.

[00:55:01] One is livestock so you've got domesticated animals that will be useful to mankind.

[00:55:07] And then you have small creatures that moved along the ground.

[00:55:10] He calls them creeping things.

[00:55:12] And then you have the beasts of the earth.

[00:55:14] These are more than likely the more predatory animals mentioned in verse 24.

[00:55:18] And they would all reproduce according to their kind.

[00:55:21] But then we get the pinnacle of God's creation in verse 26 and 27.

[00:55:27] Let's read it together.

[00:55:28] You guys have been such a good class so far.

[00:55:30] Let's keep going.

[00:55:31] Then God said,

[00:55:32] Let us make man in our image after our likeness

[00:55:36] and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea

[00:55:38] and over the birds of the heavens

[00:55:40] and over the livestock

[00:55:41] and over all the earth

[00:55:42] and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

[00:55:44] So God created man in his own image

[00:55:47] and in the image of God he created him.

[00:55:49] Male and female, he created them.

[00:55:53] Now these are important verses.

[00:55:56] One of the first things that people often notice

[00:56:00] or fixate on is the way that it says,

[00:56:03] God said,

[00:56:04] Let us make man in our image.

[00:56:08] Who is the us and the hour that God is referring to?

[00:56:16] Rabbis used to teach that God was speaking to the angelic realm.

[00:56:22] But we aren't made in the image of the angelic realm.

[00:56:26] Some have thought that God was merely speaking in like the royal we.

[00:56:31] Just let us and he's just speaking of himself.

[00:56:36] And I do think that he's speaking of himself

[00:56:38] but not in the royal we.

[00:56:40] I think with many Christians,

[00:56:42] this is a seed for the further development of Trinitarian teaching.

[00:56:47] The Bible of course teaches that God is one.

[00:56:50] Deuteronomy 6 verse 4,

[00:56:52] Here O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

[00:56:55] There is one God.

[00:56:57] So it's with great care that you have to unpack

[00:57:00] the doctrine of the triunity of God.

[00:57:03] He's one, yet his one divine essence

[00:57:06] possesses three eternal distinctions.

[00:57:09] Father, Son and Spirit.

[00:57:11] Each one of these distinctions are persons,

[00:57:15] not mere manifestations.

[00:57:17] Sometimes I'm father, sometimes I'm son,

[00:57:20] sometimes I'm spirit.

[00:57:22] God is one and he is personified in all three

[00:57:29] who are in co-unity together.

[00:57:33] Christians we don't get the doctrine of the trinity

[00:57:35] from speculation but from revelation.

[00:57:38] It just kind of pours out of scripture as you go through it.

[00:57:41] And even here in verse 26,

[00:57:43] it's not the first time that plurality within the Godhead

[00:57:46] is hinted at.

[00:57:47] In Genesis 1 verse 1,

[00:57:49] the title for God is the Hebrew word Elohim,

[00:57:53] which is plural.

[00:57:54] It might refer or at least allow for the triunity of God.

[00:58:00] Okay, but that's not the point of verse 26 and 27.

[00:58:05] The more astounding portion of what we just read in verse 26 and 27

[00:58:10] is the part where human beings are to be made in God's image.

[00:58:17] Now what does that mean?

[00:58:19] What does that mean that we are to be made,

[00:58:21] that we are made in the image of God?

[00:58:25] People have posited lots of answers to that question.

[00:58:29] And to be honest,

[00:58:31] the Bible doesn't really give a detailed description

[00:58:34] of what that looks like, although what the Bible does do

[00:58:37] is reaffirm it from the book of Genesis

[00:58:40] all the way through the New Testament.

[00:58:42] We're constantly told that we are made in the image of God.

[00:58:46] Even after the fall of humanity,

[00:58:48] we don't lose the image of God upon us.

[00:58:51] It becomes tarnished but we still have it.

[00:58:54] Even in the New Testament,

[00:58:56] Christians are encouraged to love people,

[00:58:59] to take care of people because they are made

[00:59:01] in the image of God.

[00:59:03] So what does it mean though that we're made in the image of God?

[00:59:07] Some have thought that what he's saying is merely this,

[00:59:10] that we're like God.

[00:59:12] Now obviously we're not like God

[00:59:15] in the sense that God is spirit

[00:59:17] and we live inside of human bodies

[00:59:20] but you could say it like this.

[00:59:22] The fact that God gave us bodies

[00:59:24] is what enables us to be like him.

[00:59:28] God sees, God moves,

[00:59:32] God provides, God defends,

[00:59:36] God speaks, God loves

[00:59:39] and he's given us bodies so that we can do the same thing.

[00:59:43] Speak, love, defend, care, all of that here on earth.

[00:59:48] That might be part of what God is saying

[00:59:51] when he says that we are made in his image,

[00:59:54] that we are like him to obviously a much lesser degree

[00:59:59] but it might also mean that we're merely from him,

[01:00:03] that we're his representatives here on earth.

[01:00:05] You see in ancient times that Israel was living in,

[01:00:09] if a king had suppressed or gained victory

[01:00:13] over people far from his kingdom,

[01:00:16] what he would often do is install images

[01:00:23] or statues of himself in that foreign jurisdiction.

[01:00:30] It was an image of the king from far away

[01:00:35] and it was a way for him to communicate

[01:00:37] to people that he could not physically be present with

[01:00:40] that he had jurisdiction in their region,

[01:00:44] that he was their leader or defender

[01:00:46] or sometimes the tyrant that ruled over them

[01:00:50] and so the idea potentially is that we are made in God's image

[01:00:55] in that God has put us here on earth to be his representatives,

[01:01:01] his representatives of what?

[01:01:03] Well, all you have to do is continue reading in the passage

[01:01:07] and learn that we are representatives

[01:01:09] or we were supposed to be representatives of his dominion.

[01:01:13] He had dominion over all that was made

[01:01:15] and we were to express that dominion with God.

[01:01:20] Yet we lost that dominion through our sin.

[01:01:23] This is the passage which shows us the conflict

[01:01:27] that's found in the whole Bible.

[01:01:29] This is the story of Scripture.

[01:01:31] We were made to partner with God

[01:01:33] to have dominion over the earth but through sin,

[01:01:36] we lost control not of everything but even of ourselves

[01:01:42] but through Jesus, the dominion can be restored

[01:01:46] and we regained the image that was marred because of our sin.

[01:01:51] So really these are important verses for us to wrestle with

[01:01:54] and to understand and I want to give you a few suggestions

[01:01:57] of some implications of the fact

[01:01:59] that humans are made in God's image.

[01:02:01] First of all, here's one implication.

[01:02:03] Human beings have a purpose.

[01:02:06] Evolution teaches that we're mere accidents

[01:02:09] caused by wild chance and happenstance circumstances

[01:02:13] or a mixture of gases

[01:02:15] or descendants of primates or something like that

[01:02:18] but the Bible teaches that we have a mission.

[01:02:20] We're made in God's image.

[01:02:21] He put us here for a reason.

[01:02:23] Another thing that we should conclude is that human beings,

[01:02:26] people, they are valuable.

[01:02:28] They are valuable.

[01:02:29] And we live in a time in the West

[01:02:31] where we still want to, our cultures want to

[01:02:34] still preach that human beings are valuable

[01:02:37] but also disassociate themselves from the very scriptures

[01:02:41] which tie humanity that human beings are valuable in the first place.

[01:02:45] Many cultures of the earth didn't walk around saying

[01:02:47] human beings are valuable, human beings are valuable.

[01:02:50] It was Christians that preached that message

[01:02:52] because of the truth of scripture.

[01:02:54] So we have to confess that.

[01:02:57] We also have to confess.

[01:03:01] Okay so humans being valuable

[01:03:03] that would help us protect us from errors

[01:03:06] like the worship of creation, abortion or genocide.

[01:03:10] These are errors that should be avoided

[01:03:12] and you can avoid them partly by understanding

[01:03:14] that we're made in God's image.

[01:03:16] But another thing we can conclude

[01:03:18] is that both genders are required

[01:03:20] in order to demonstrate God's image.

[01:03:23] Notice that it shows us here

[01:03:25] that God made man and woman in his image.

[01:03:28] He created them.

[01:03:30] Now God throughout scripture chooses to be referred

[01:03:32] to in the masculine.

[01:03:35] But it's clear from the passage that the full image of God

[01:03:38] cannot be known through men alone.

[01:03:42] God said let us make man in our image

[01:03:45] then male and female he created them.

[01:03:48] So for us to express some of the complexity

[01:03:50] of God's image we need both male

[01:03:53] and female to express it.

[01:03:55] Neither of us can express God without the other.

[01:03:59] And then another thing that I think we should glean

[01:04:02] from the understanding that we are made in God's image

[01:04:05] is that God initiated human industriousness.

[01:04:10] Because part of being made in God's image

[01:04:12] is that we are to go fill the earth and subdue it.

[01:04:15] You know we live in a time where corporations

[01:04:18] and businesses are often looked down upon

[01:04:21] by human beings and sometimes for really good reason.

[01:04:25] But the reality is that God sent us

[01:04:28] into this world to subdue it.

[01:04:30] If you took Adam into your house today

[01:04:33] and just showed him around he would trip out

[01:04:36] at everything that existed.

[01:04:38] If you walked over to your kitchen sink

[01:04:40] and turned on the water and water began to come out

[01:04:42] and you filled up a glass of water

[01:04:44] and began drinking it, you probably wouldn't do that

[01:04:46] here on the Monterey Peninsula.

[01:04:48] Maybe you'd wash some dishes and then go to your refrigerator

[01:04:51] and get some water.

[01:04:52] But if you were to do something like that

[01:04:54] Adam would say now how does that work?

[01:04:57] And you could say to him well, you know we have pipes

[01:05:00] that are underground.

[01:05:01] What are those pipes made out of?

[01:05:03] Well we found minerals and material,

[01:05:05] put them all together and the pipes go to a central place

[01:05:08] where the water is stored and it's pumped into our homes

[01:05:11] and he would say it's amazing to me

[01:05:14] that God put all of that material

[01:05:17] here inside of his world that he made for us.

[01:05:21] I didn't even know about any of that stuff.

[01:05:23] I was just drinking out of rivers back in the day.

[01:05:26] So for us I think it's good for us to say

[01:05:29] and to recognize that God initiated

[01:05:32] and encouraged human industriousness.

[01:05:35] Now obviously it can get out of hand and greed takes over

[01:05:38] and really marrs what God has decided or urged us on into.

[01:05:42] But this is something God asked us to do,

[01:05:44] fill the earth and subdue it.

[01:05:47] Now let's move on to the final verses of this passage.

[01:05:51] It says in verse 28,

[01:05:52] and God blessed them.

[01:05:54] And God said to them be fruitful and multiply

[01:05:57] and fill the earth and subdue it.

[01:06:00] And have dominion over the fish of the sea

[01:06:02] and over the birds of the heavens

[01:06:04] and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

[01:06:07] And God said, behold I've given you every plant

[01:06:09] yielding seed that is on the face of the earth

[01:06:11] and every tree with seed and its fruit

[01:06:14] you shall have them for food

[01:06:16] and every beast of the earth

[01:06:17] and every bird of the heavens

[01:06:18] and every thing that creeps on the earth,

[01:06:20] everything that has the breath of life

[01:06:22] I have given every green plant for food

[01:06:25] and it was so.

[01:06:27] So God created us under his blessing.

[01:06:31] It says in verse 28, God blessed them.

[01:06:35] And at this stage of human life

[01:06:38] the plants were given to us for food.

[01:06:42] We're going to learn when we get to conditions

[01:06:45] after the flood that he also gave us livestock

[01:06:48] for food as well.

[01:06:50] It doesn't necessarily mean that he didn't do that

[01:06:53] after the fall occurred

[01:06:55] but at least here in these pre-fall conditions

[01:06:59] human life was sustained by the nutrients

[01:07:03] that were provided from that which grew from the ground.

[01:07:06] And so here we have God blessing

[01:07:08] and handing off creation to humanity.

[01:07:11] And God saw verse 31, everything that he had made

[01:07:15] and behold it was very good

[01:07:17] and there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

[01:07:21] Notice there in verse 31 as we wrap up tonight

[01:07:25] that God saw that everything was very good.

[01:07:30] Up till this point, God has seen that things are good

[01:07:33] but here he calls it very good.

[01:07:36] He's pleased with what he's produced

[01:07:39] with what he's made.

[01:07:41] And from the first day to the sixth day

[01:07:43] we learn a massive truth about God.

[01:07:46] I mentioned it already, God is a redeemer.

[01:07:49] Remember verse two that the earth was without form and void?

[01:07:53] God takes all of that and he shapes this beautiful, wonderful thing.

[01:07:58] He said let there be light in verse three

[01:08:00] and he just kept on going.

[01:08:02] And as the passage develops

[01:08:04] God solves the formlessness of the universe

[01:08:08] in the first three days

[01:08:10] and the emptiness of the universe

[01:08:13] in the final three days.

[01:08:15] So God is a redeemer.

[01:08:17] He can take chaos and formlessness

[01:08:20] and fashion it into something entirely new.

[01:08:24] Israel needed to know that,

[01:08:26] Moses needed to know that

[01:08:28] and thousands of years later, you and me,

[01:08:31] we also need to know that.

[01:08:33] Paul alluded to this in 2 Corinthians four, verse six.

[01:08:37] He said that the same God who said,

[01:08:40] let light shine out of darkness

[01:08:42] has shown in our hearts to give the light

[01:08:45] of the knowledge of the glory of God

[01:08:48] in the face of Jesus Christ.

[01:08:50] You see God redeems people.

[01:08:52] He takes their chaos and he repurposes it

[01:08:55] for his glory.

[01:08:57] And he can redeem us in all of our situations

[01:09:00] for his purposes.

[01:09:02] Amen.