Watch the video presentation or scroll down to read the written version. They are not a word-for-word match but cover the same material and concepts. The written material is usually more succinct.
Introduction to the Book of Genesis
Genesis. The name itself means the origins, or the genealogies. So not surprisingly, Genesis is a book of beginnings: the beginning of time and space, the beginning of humanity and our relationship with God, the beginning of sin and the need for salvation, and the beginning of the Jewish people through whom redemption would ultimately come.
Genesis covers a vast era of at least 2000 years and covers many stories you are probably familiar with: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah’s Ark, and Joseph with his coat of many colors. But it also covers stories from the lives of the patriarchs that may be unfamiliar to you, like Melchizedek and Isaac’s many wells.
These stories teach us who God is and how He interacts with people. They teach us that while generations of people come and go, God remains the same, steady in His promises and purpose.
The authorship of Genesis is traditionally attributed to Moses, a Hebrew who was adopted by the Pharaoh’s daughter and thus given every privilege of education ancient Egypt had to offer. While the Genesis stories occurred hundreds and even thousands of years before Moses’ birth, the historical stories would likely have been known through oral tradition and possibly other writings that Moses could reference when composing a single narrative.
However, do not assume that a lack of eye-witness accounts in anyway diminishes its value. God worked through Moses to provide us the Genesis account just as He worked through John and Matthew and others to give us eye-witness accounts of Jesus’ ministry. That God preserved these tales demonstrates their value for instructing us of spiritual truths and the way to a relationship with Him.
Genesis introduces us to who God is, who He created mankind to be, the problem of sin, and God’s promise to provide a solution to our broken relationship with Him. It never mentions Jesus by name, but it points to Him throughout the book. To understand who Jesus is and why His life, death, and resurrection were necessary, we must first understand the tales in Genesis from which we learn about sin and sacrifice, intercession and faith, covenants and grace.
In short, Genesis is the framework by which we understand the rest of the scripture and make sense of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus.
So we should start contemplating grace at the place all great stories start: the beginning.
Commentary
Genesis 1:1
“In the beginning” is far more profound than “once upon a time.” Perhaps we could think of this as “when time began”. So this is not just a story of long ago; it is the tale of the origin of time itself.
“God created the heavens and the earth”: this one sentence tells us a lot about God. He is outside time and space, has the power to make something out of nothing, and the creative impulse to will all the universe into existence. Here we learn that God is not an invention of people – He is the inventor OF people. He is not one with the universe – He made the universe. This sentence tells us the account is not particularly concerned with the HOW; it is zeroed in on the WHO. Genesis 1:1 tells us that God is the main character of this narrative and from this we know to watch for insights into His character throughout the rest of the account.
Genesis 1:2
Verse 2 tells us what verse 1 already implied: God is spirit, immaterial, completely other than the created world. Thus we can be sure that any spiritual-sounding teaching that claims God and the universe are one is simply unbiblical.
This also tells us more about God’s character, because if He has the power to create the universe out of nothing, surely He could have immediately created it in its full glory, teeming with life and light and beauty. But He chose not to. Instead, darkness, shapelessness, and emptiness were the blank canvas on which the painting of creation would ultimately take shape. So then, God is not impulsive or hasty; rather, He is a patient planner with a creative vision.
Life Application
There is one very big lesson we can take from these two verses.
God is bigger than any box we try to put Him in.
Sometimes we think we understand Him. We have this picture in our heads of who He is, but any picture is limited by our very finiteness. He is immense. He created the heavens and the earth and He existed before time began. Who are we to presume we can comprehend Him?
So when we approach His throne, we should do so with respect, reverence, awe. We should be overwhelmed by the immensity of who He is.
He is bigger than anything we can ever imagine.