Lecture 2 The Genesis of Humanity Flashcards
The central text for beginning a Biblical anthropology
Murray says this “for our knowledge of man’s origin, we are mainly dependent on the first two chapters of Genesis…” (and I had made the argument last week, we could include in that the first three chapters of Genesis for our knowledge of man’s origin.) “…We are mainly dependent on the first two chapters of Genesis.
Murry goes on to identify three overlapping emphases in the opening chapters of Genesis.
1- in Genesis we discover that the universe had a beginning. The universe is not eternal. There was a time when the world as we know it was not.
Murry says, only of God can eternity be predicated and all that is distinct from God, came to be by his will and word. Everything that exists exists in dependence on God. Only he is self-existent, only he is eternal.
The world has a beginning, you have a beginning, creation has a beginning and all things depend on their creator.
2 - Murray says in the production of the heavens and the earth, there is a sequence and progression. They did not come to be by a single all-embracing fiat. There is ordered process moving to the climax of man’s formation to man as the crown of God’s handiwork.
We all understand in the creation narrative, there is a progression from the first moment when God says, let there be light to when he says let us create man in our image and the whole progression of creation is culminating as it were in the creation of man as the Apex of God’s creation. And so those clear progression there to the narrative of the story.
There is sequence and progression and all of it is reaching a crescendo in the creation of man.
3 - Murray says that in each stage in the progression, God speaks and gives his command. We read repeatedly in the text and God said, and God said.
Murray says, “we are advised of the significance of God’s word and of the efficacy belonging to it.”
Even before the fall creation and Mankind depend on The Sovereign word and efficacious word of God, God’s word is always efficacious it always accomplishes what God intends for his word.
From the beginning, we need the word of God to know God. Sometimes we think that we need the word of God because of our sin and that is certainly true. But we also need God’s word because of our finitude because of our creatureliness.
Part of being a creature is needing the word of God to sustain us.
The biblical-theological themes set forth in the opening chapters of Genesis establish, the foundation for our understanding of the entire Bible.
Without a proper understanding of how the Bible begins. We cannot properly understand how the Bible develops and how the Bible ends. You will simply not understand the plot. If you don’t get the opening chapters and the end of the Bible will make absolutely no sense to you if you gloss over the opening chapters.
These chapters therefore provide us with a basic theological building blocks for developing a Christian worldview.
In Genesis, 1-3. We discover the basis for our belief in God, Humanity, the world, culture, work, worship, marriage, sin, redemption, and so on.
Everything we basically think about, as humans find its origin in Genesis and the opening chapters of the Bible.
We might say that practically every Christian doctrine finds its origin in the Book of Genesis.
TEXTUAL OUTLINE
TEXTUAL OUTLINE
Genesis is structured around a central refrain that is repeated over and over and over again that simply says, this is the book of generations.
toledoth - Hebrew for generation- family history
Toledoth can be used to refer to the beginning of a family record or a genealogy or a history. It outlines the contours of a seed theology.
The term toledoth functions as a narrative marker, that structures, the unfolding plotline of Genesis.
Genesis chapter 2:4 we read “these are the generations of the heavens and the earth. When they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” This is the story of the heavens and the Earth.
Genesis 5:1. “This is the book of the generations of Adam when God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.” The toledoth of creation the toledoth of Adam.
Genesis 6:9. “These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man blameless in his generation, and Noah walked with God.”
Genesis 10 verse 1. “These are the generations of the sons of Noah Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood.”
Chapter 11 verse 10. “These are the generations of Shem when Shem was a hundred years old, he father’s Arpachshad two years after the flood.”
Genesis 11:27. “These are the generations of Taryn, Terrell fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran and her on fathered Lot.”
chapter 25, verse 12. “These are the generations of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian. Sarah’s servant bore to Abraham”
chapter 25. Verse 19. “These are the generations of Isaac Abraham’s son and a brother Ham fathered, Isaac.
Genesis 36 1, these are the generations of Esau that is Edom
36 9. These are the generations of Esau, the father of the Edomites, and the hilly country of seir.
chapter 37 verse 2. These are the generations of Jacob. And Joseph being 17 years old was pastoring in the flock with his brothers.
What’s interesting here is that the assumption in all of these texts is that these accounts are all assumed to be historical accounts.
It’s interesting that the story of Adam and Noah and Abraham is part of the story of the creation of Heaven and Earth. The assumption is all of those are historical. If you follow the structure of the narrative, there is continuity from one account to the next. There is no apparent division between the stories of Adam and the garden, Noah, and the flood, Abraham, and his many children. All of them are assumed in the text to be historical accounts of God’s dealings with his people.
This is the story of creation, the story of humanity, the story of redemption, and there’s no distinction in the text. There’s no clue that the author is saying this part of the text is mythical, and this part of the text is the history of is real.There’s nothing in the text that would give you that basic category.
Furthermore, the sequence of generations points to the basic covenantal structure of Genesis. Each generation amplifies and clarifies, God’s promise to deliver his people through the seed of the woman. We don’t know how that’s going to happen. But, with every generation, there is an amplification and clarification of how God is going to bring deliverance through his promised seed, through the toledoth through the generations, God is going to bring his Messiah.
LITERARY OUTLINE
The nice thing about this literary outline is that it’s really clear.
They focus first on Genesis 1-11 history of creation from Adam to Noah
Following primeval history is what we call patriarchal history.
Genesis 12-50 followed the history of covenant from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.
Sometimes the assumption behind this outline is that the events of Genesis 1 to 11 are not necessarily historical while the events of Genesis 12- 50 are generally regarded as historical.
Genesis 12 represents a turning point in the Book of Genesis. Genesis 12 is the hinge of the entire book of Genesis.
The point of slowing down in Genesis 12 is to highlight the promise of God to Adam and Noah is going to be fulfilled in Father, Abraham.
That Abraham is the key to the story. Not that the stories of Adam and Noah are mythical in the story of Abraham is historical.
REDEMPTIVE-HISTORICAL PLOTLINE
Genesis tells the story of redemptive history and is sometimes described in 5 ways.
- Creation
- Fall
- Redemption
- Continuation - The Gap Between
- Consummation
THEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF GENESIS 1
- Genesis 1 is about God, not creation.
- God is the center of creation.
- Before the beginning of all that is God alone existed. As a result, God alone gets the glory.
- And so Genesis one opens with these magnificent words “in the beginning God.”
- Genesis is an exercise in theology, proper.
- The Doctrine of God
- The generic term for God in the Hebrew scripture is Elohim.
- Genesis 1:1, is just as much a declaration of teleogy and doxology, as it is, a statement of cosmogony and Protology.
- Teleology. Telos - reason/cause. What is the end for which we are created? Answer God
- Doxology, a word of Praise. Who do we glorify answer God?
- Cosmogony is a study of origin.
- Protology is a study of first things.
- Typically we go to Genesis and we think in terms of the categories of cosmogony and Protology, but what I’m suggesting to you is we need to think more fundamentally. Through the lens of the categories of theology, in teleology, and doxology. Those are primary. They are fundamental to our reading of Genesis 1.
- Francis Schaeffer. We might say that before the beginning, there was a God who was there. And this God is Not silent. But he has spoken in his word.
- A foundational level Genesis 1:1 provides us with the basis for monotheism and revelation.
- Monotheism is the idea that God is one or there is one true God. Deuteronomy 6.
- Revelation, of course, is the idea that God discloses himself to what he has made.
- the doctrine of Revelation provides us with a foundation of epistemology; knowledge of God, knowledge of ourselves, knowledge of the world.
- Things can be known because God has organized the world in such a way that makes knowledge possible.
- We have a Theology of being and a Theology of knowledge.
- In Genesis 1:1 we’re given the basic building blocks of all of life, theology, philosophy, History, Science, art are all based on these fundamental principles.
biblical cosmogony
- Genesis 1:1 is what theologians call a biblical cosmogony. (the begetting of the world)
- Greek - Cosmos - This idea of the world.
- Greek - Gonos this idea of begetting.
- Put together a cosmogony is defined as an account of the origin of all
- Cosmogony is a study of how it began the origin of the world.
- We have a Biblical account, as to why there is something in the world as opposed to nothing.
- By The Sovereign and omnipotent will of God, everything that came into being exists.
- angels and archangels cherubim, and seraphim, galaxies, and planets, stars and mountains, valleys and oceans, rivers and lakes fish and animals. And you.
- You exist by The Sovereign will of God.
- Without God nothing would have been created that was made. This is the point of John 1:3.
- By The Sovereign and omnipotent will of God, everything that came into being exists.
So Genesis 1 provides us with an answer to the Origin of Species to Echo Darwin.
In Genesis 1:1, not only do we discover that there is a God and that he is infinite and eternal. But we also learned that this God creates.
He creates the World by the word of his power. He speaks the world into existence.
Hebrews 11:3 by faith we understand the universe was created by the word of God. So that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
What’s remarkable is that the word of God, that spoke light into existence is the same word that rose Jesus from the dead. And is the same word that speaks new life in you in the gospel.
2 Corinthians 4. The God who speaks light out of nothing, speakers light into your heart and gives the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Romans 1 is operative in the gospel. So why are you ashamed of it?
That’s the question. If this is the god that we serve, the God who created galaxies by the word of his power and it’s this God who speaks in the gospel and it’s the same powerful word. Why are we ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Why do we doubt that the gospel really changes lives?
Creatio ex nihilo
- the doctrine of Creatio ex nihilo
- This is a Latin term simply means creation out of nothing.
- the word for created in Hebrew is bara.
- What’s interesting about this word is that it is only attributed to God in the Bible.
- God creates by speaking a word. We create by manipulating what he has given.
- And so we have an explanation for the origin of all things and the basis for purpose and personality.
in conclusion
- So, in conclusion, the opening of Genesis denies atheism because there is a God.
- It denies pantheism because God is distinct from creation.
- It denies polytheism. There is only one God.
- It denies humanism because God is the center of the world and
- it denies macro-evolution.
- Positively, we can say the opening account of Genesis provides us with a foundation for theology, philosophy, Revelation epistemology History, Science. Cosmogony, art, reason, relationships. All of these things, find their origin in God origin in Genesis.
- So Genesis 1, therefore is the Cornerstone of the Old Testament and sets the tone for the entire Bible. It’s no small significance therefore that, when the New Testament begins, we read in Genesis and John chapter 1, In the beginning was the word and the Word was with God. The Word was God, and he was in the beginning with God, and all things were made through him. And without him, nothing was made that was made.
You understand that John is intentionally echoing, the opening words of Genesis to remind us of the one who became flesh and dwelt Among Us is none, other than the one who created all things, and therefore he is capable of, redeeming you and me. That’s why Paul and the gospel says in 2nd Corinthians “for the God who said, let light shine out of Darkness, has shone in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. In the face of Jesus Christ, praise be to God.”
For us as Christians, true humanity is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. Questions from you all here.
Romans 11:36
- “for of him and through him and to him are all things. To whom be the glory forever. Amen.”
- Paul said this and it reminds us that God created all and without Him none of this would be here.
