Through the Bible Class

Intro:

In this ongoing class we will explore the Bible and topics as they unfold in Scripture and build up on each other. In the Bible we find God’s self-revelation of who He is as He works through and in fallen humanity. God did not deliver the Bible as a finished book to humanity but instead slowly revealed Himself to us. For example, the Scriptures below tell us that the things record are examples for us and that some things were mysteries.

These things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

1 Corinthians 10:11 CSB

These things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

Colossians 1:26 NLT

This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people.

Preconceptions

We come to the Bible with preconceptions. This is not entirely bad.

We interpret the Bible with theological principles, our worldview and a particular hermeneutical approach.

Worldviews:

Pelagianism

5th-century Christian heresy taught by Pelagius and his followers that stressed the essential goodness of human nature and the freedom of the human will.

Essentially you can do it. If God says be perfect then it is entirely possible to be perfect.

Humanity did not fall in Adam

Problems are, only Jesus is perfect and the Bible teaches us over and over again that we can not actually be perfect.

Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. – Philippians 3:12

Dualism (spirit good matter bad) leads to Docetism

Hermeneutics:

Positive light interpretation

Dispensationalism

Law Gospel

Egalitarianism

Complementarianism

Theological Approaches:

Feminist theology

Liberation theology

We must strive as best as we can to approach the Scripture exegetically or from the text and not Eisegesis or ready into the text.

the text itself We should also understand that there are methods of looking at the text itself and criticism. This is not being critical like complaining but looking at the text and asking questions about authorship, date, composition, and so on. There are no shortage of methods for biblical criticism. That being said I am in favor of canonical criticism which asks questions about the Scriptures as we have them and is not focused on whether or not a book should be in the Bible.

The Tanakh vs English OT

The Tanakh ends with Chronicles which ends on a hopeful note that the temple will be rebuilt. 2 Chronicles 36:23

2 Chronicles 36:23 CSB

This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: The Lord, the God of the heavens, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and has appointed me to build him a temple at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up, and may the Lord his God be with him.

The English OT ends with Malachi which with hope that Elijah will come and turn people’s hearts back.

Malachi 4:5–6 “Look, I am going to send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.””

Authoritative and Translations

When we talk about the Bible being authoritative and the Word of God what do we mean?

The Scriptures in their original autographs are exactly what God wanted written down. What we have is English translations. This does not mean they are not reliable though. We are not translating from copies of the original and they have been shown to be reliable and correct. When there is a question there is usually some sort of note in your Bible. Look at the end of Mark for example.

Genesis 1

Bereshit Elohim Bara = in the beginning God created. God is the subject. creation is the space/time. Creation is the action.

God is the subject of the story.

In genesis 2 we will see the word toldot which means record and each time the story changes to focus on a different person or family we will see that word toldot, but we do not see it with God. I see this to mean because God is without record.

Hebrews 7:2–3 CSB

and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, his name means king of righteousness, then also, king of Salem, meaning king of peace. Without father, mother, or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.

God has no genealogy. He has no record. He is the one who starts the record.

Existence requires three things, time, space, matter. God, to be God exists outside of these things.

The Spirit

It is interesting that we see the Holy Spirit is not absent from the chaos. The language here and the understanding of Ancient Near East people was that the world was chaos in the beginning.

Psalms 3 and 104 talk about the order God brings.

Bara

God created all things. He spoke or commanded. God spoke and it happened.

When God speaks things happen because they cannot be any other way.

Isaiah 55:11 CSB

so my word that comes from my mouth will not return to me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.”

God’s word accomplishes what it is supposed to do.

We also know from the New Testament that it was Jesus that created all things.

John 1:3 CSB

All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.

Colossians 1:16 CSB

For everything was created by him, in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities— all things have been created through him and for him.

Hebrews 1:2 CSB

In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him.

The Fall of Lucifer

As we go through one question people often want to know is when did Lucifer or the devil fall?

We know it had to be sometime after creation because everything God created was good.

Ezekiel 28 could be describing the fall of Lucifer in addition to the fall of the King of Tyre. It might be a dual prophecy talking about both.

Ezekiel 28:11–19 CSB

The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, lament for the king of Tyre and say to him, ‘This is what the Lord God says: You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every kind of precious stone covered you: carnelian, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and emerald. Your mountings and settings were crafted in gold; they were prepared on the day you were created. You were an anointed guardian cherub, for I had appointed you. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked among the fiery stones. From the day you were created you were blameless in your ways until wickedness was found in you. Through the abundance of your trade, you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I expelled you in disgrace from the mountain of God, and banished you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. Your heart became proud because of your beauty; For the sake of your splendor you corrupted your wisdom. So I threw you down to the ground; I made you a spectacle before kings. You profaned your sanctuaries by the magnitude of your iniquities in your dishonest trade. So I made fire come from within you, and it consumed you. I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of everyone watching you. All those who know you among the peoples are appalled at you. You have become an object of horror and will never exist again.’ ”

God places boundaries and nature listens. Humans are the ones who do not follow the rules set by God.

Things reproduce after their own kind. Yes this speaks to evolution. We have records and we can see microevolution or things changing but they change within a species. I may be wrong but nothing I find in the scientific data available shows any species changing from one to another.

Week 2:

The creation account in genesis is similar to other creation accounts but instead of warning gods creating God creates with intentionality.

Everything has a boundary. It has a place because Jesus tells it where its place is. Job 38:10-12.

Everything is done with exacting precision.

Things are placed where they belong.

The story of creation was not entirely foreign to people but God is redeeming the narrative.

God still redeems the narrative. He still makes things right in their time. Ecc 3:11

In the OT

Isaiah 43:1

In the NT

1 Peter 2:10

Think through the stories in the Bible where God changes a name.

Jacob becomes Israel.

Abram becomes Abraham.

Sari becomes Sarah.

Hoshea becomes Joshua.

Simon become Peter.

God redeems and changes the narrative. All throughout Scripture we see this pattern that God takes what is known one way and redeems it.

We see this both in telling of Creation here and in the final consummation of the Kingdom of God.

Revelation 21:1–5 CSB

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away. Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.”

The story of God, the Gospel is a story of restoration and redemption from beginning to end.

Back to the text.

When everything is ready God creates Adam and Eve. When it is finally ready humanity is brought in to the picture. Humanity is not created until everything is ready.

God says let us asas or create or form humanity in our image.

A few things:

God formed us. He did not speak into existence but took time to form us. 

This tells us a lot about God and how He works with us.

We often want God to just fix it or fix us and sometimes He does but His normal way of working, the standard practice is for Him to mold us and form us.

Isaiah 64:8 CSB

Yet Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we all are the work of your hands.

He asas us and fashions us.

The word for God elohim when used for the God of the Bible is plural and there are three possible explanations.

1) plural of majesty.

2) trinity.

3) God is revealing things to the divine counsel. All three have implications and can be true.

1) God is too big to be caught up in a word. When know this is true from YHWH where God declares He is self existent or that He will be what He will be or do what He will do.

2) we see the  work of the Trinity from the beginning to the end.

3) God reveals his will and we see the divine counsel throughout the OT. Isaiah 6:8 is a fine example.We are image bearers of God. We represent God, we have dignity as people, we have value as people, we are more than just created things, we have emotions like God, we do work like God. We are to do the work of Him Luke 10:36

We get the Edenic Covenant:

Rule over everything, have dominion.

To name something is to have dominion over it.

We were called to have dominion we lost that but that is jumping ahead.

Psalm 8 CSB

For the choir director: on the Gittith. A psalm of David. Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth! You have covered the heavens with your majesty. From the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you have established a stronghold on account of your adversaries in order to silence the enemy and the avenger. When I observe your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you set in place, what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him? You made him little less than God and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet: all the sheep and oxen, as well as the animals in the wild, the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea that pass through the currents of the seas. Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth!

God made everything and He is magnificent. He called us to rule over everything to have dominion. This is not to lord over creation but to steward it well as an image bearer of God. The loss of dominion is not full but partial and so we are fighting against things. but again that is jumping ahead.

So we jump into chapter 2 now

The beginning of chapter 2 is the end of the general creation account. We will see this quite a bit in Genesis this quick movement and then slamming on the brakes to focus in on something.

Some have said there are two creation accounts in Genesis but that is not the case. What we have is creation as an overview and then a refocus on day 6, specifically the creation of humanity.

Verse 7 tells us that it is God’s breathe in Adam that made him a living being.

We try and find life apart from God all the time but it is His breathe that gives us life.