Week 1 Genesis LG
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Week 1: Separation, Filling, Blessing
Week 1: Separation, Filling, Blessing
Intro:
Intro:
Genesis 1–11:26 Author’s Preface
On Christmas Eve 1968, astronaut Frank Borman from the Apollo 8 spacecraft, orbiting the moon, read a message for the people of the earth: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Twenty-five years later, Borman reminisced, “I had an enormous feeling that there had to be a power greater than any of us. That there was a God, that there was indeed a beginning and that maybe even our choosing to read from Genesis wasn’t a haphazard thing. Maybe it had been ordained in some way.”
I love this reflection from Frank Borman,
There are only a select amount of people who have seen the world from space but for those who have what comes to mind?
Genesis!
They look at this and think, this can not all be a random accadent!
This can not all be haphazzard. Surley there is order behind all of this and if there is order then that denotes intelligence!
So I have been wanting to split apart Genesis for a very long time now.
Its more of the longer that I read the Bible the more I see Genesis over and over again
Also…
The way I will conduct this class is as a series of lectures.
These are not sermons, I am interruptible, we can have questions
But on the other hand, this is not a life group in traditional terms where we all do a study and discuss.
My hope is to teach some then discuss and teach some and then discuss.
So I would like to get into it today but before I do, I think we should pray
Pray
Genesis 1:1
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
We are we are going to come back to this a lot over the weeks.
In the Re-Sitt (Beginning) This word of course marks the inauguration of the creation story but it also does something else that is important in the Hebrew mind. It also anticipates the end of the universe
Genesis 1–11:26 (1) In the Beginning (1:1)
Beginning” (rēʾšît) is often paired in the Old Testament with its antonym “end” (ʾaḥărît), indicating an inclusive period of time
So why is this important: Right in the very beginning , just in these words we find that there is purpose in creation, there is some kind of Eschatological end that is coming
So the word beginning does not just mean it starts there. It deotes a time period
Genesis 1–11:26 (1) In the Beginning (1:1)
The occurrence of “beginning” (rēʾšît) in 1:1 suggests that it has been selected because of its association with “end” (ʾaḥărît). If so, the author has at the outset shown that creation’s “beginnings” were initiated with a future goal intended, an eschatological purpose
The Biblical authors pick up on creation and this idea of an inclusive period of time and one of the things we will see over and over again is this idea that a new creation is coming…
We will read about it in the next couple of weeks but the story of creation is that it will be corrupted by adam.
And so a new creation will have to come
It may not seem like a lot but I think it is stgnificant that right in the first words of the Bible, In the beginning…It means that there is a purpose and end end to that time period
This is something that the authors of the Bible will see
And they will look at Israel’s disobedience and begin saying things like this!
“See, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.
The last chapter of the Bible will say this
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
Jesus says this about himself
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Look at this. Jesus says I am the beginning…
He also says he is the end…\
The same author who would write revelation would also write this:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Why does John write this?
Because Jesus is the picture of the new creation
He is the new Adam
He is the new
Another commentator says
Genesis 1–11:26 (1) In the Beginning (1:1)
At the commencement of the creation story the passage declares that God as Sovereign knows and controls the “end from the beginning
The idea is that just in the phrase, “In the beginning”
It denotes God’s sovereignty over time
It reveals a greater purpose
It reveals that there will be an end, because the word beginning is grammatically linked to the end
I make known the end from the beginning,
from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say, ‘My purpose will stand,
and I will do all that I please.’
So the first words of The bible denote that there is a purposeful earth that was created for a duration of time.
And if we were to keep going we would find that the text says, In the Beginning, God.
The word for God here is Elohim. What is interesting is that this is a generic term for a deity.
In the Bible it It the same word Elohim that is ascribed to pagan Gods.
What we know is that in the beginning there is a deity that is a creator, he is all powerful
But the rest of the Bible will go to show this God’s character
And one of the things that we have to understand is that digging into the Hebrew bible we all bring with it a perspective.
Like if you have grown up in church likely you will believe that all the times that the old testament mentions idols that they are the same thing as a god.
It is very common to read the first commandment
“You shall have no other gods before me.
and believe that what he is saying is you know, don’t make money an idol…
Or don’t take your household idols and make them more important than the worship of Yahweh.
But what this text is saying is that you shall have no other Elohim before me. I am the Elohim of Elohim and you’d do well to not have another one ahead of me.
Understanding this will help us understand when we get to chapter 6
For the best case study on this we should read Psalm 82
A psalm of Asaph.
God presides in the great assembly;
he renders judgment among the “gods”:
“How long will you defend the unjust
and show partiality to the wicked?
Defend the weak and the fatherless;
uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
“The ‘gods’ know nothing, they understand nothing.
They walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
“I said, ‘You are “gods”;
you are all sons of the Most High.’
But you will die like mere mortals;
you will fall like every other ruler.”
Rise up, O God, judge the earth,
for all the nations are your inheritance.
So what do we notice here?
God serves as the judge of the lesser gods
the lesser gods are the source of some of the moral problems in the world
The lesser gods have some kind of authority when it comes to humans
So in our world view we might believe the bad that happens in the world is a result of adam and eve’s sin
But there is more to it than that. The Bible assumes that sin, the lesser god’s and for lack of a better term, the empires of this world are all a cause of human suffering.
Paul is not ignorant of this…We sometimes de-spiritualize the Bible but it is very supernatural!
His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So what am I saying with all of this:
The Bible has a worldview.
That God acts and is powerful in this world
There are other worldviews: And a worldview is essentially a philosophy that explains all of life
But the interesting thing is that the word is plural. Whereas Yahweh is Singular.
We don’t find out until chapter 2 that the creator God mentioned here is Yahweh
Now this will come back and be very important again in the Bible. Yahweh is the personal name of God but Elohim is simply a word that means “spiritual being”
This is my favorite
The king said to her, “Don’t be afraid. What do you see?”
The woman said, “I see a ghostly figure coming up out of the earth.”
So the word for God here is just spiritual being, and people get hung up with this
And he made the heavens and the earth
Air and the dirt
God knows the end from the beginning the top to the bottom
Genesis 1:2
Genesis 1:2
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Now the amount that is happening here in this sentence is actually really impressive
Formeless: Tohu
Empty: Bohu
Formeless & Void
The twin forces of chaos
Wild and Waste.
Genesis 1–11 Tohu wabohu, “Formless and Void”
The phrase tohu wabohu is used to symbolize the chaotic forces of the natural world. The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah used these terms to emphasize God’s absolute power to both bring order from chaos and to unleash chaos in judgment on a rebellious world (
Water in the mind of the ancients was both wild and waste…It was dark and deep and scary but it was life giving.
You need water to get plants to grow
You need water to drink ‘
So it is no wonder that nearly all of the ancient stories of our creation have something to do with bringing order to the chaotic waters.
So lets talk about these for a few minutes
What are some other stories in the Bible where chaotic waters are involved?
Noah & the flood!
The red sea coming down on the Egyptians!
Jesus calming the storm/ Walking on Water?
The thing is that this should give us a new perspective all all of the Bible
At the end of Revelation when the new creation is talked about, it says “there is no sea”
Its not because God hates the ocean, it is becuase this is a very Jewish way of saying that there is no chaos.
All Chaos has been defeated!
The whole idea is when you see these stores that the Tohu wabohu comes crashing back down on humanity again
So lets back up from Noah for a second
Johann Gottfried Von Herder (1744-1803) Said that the days of creation formed an artistic framework
There were two triads of days
It is the spirit of God over the waters that doing the creative work of God…It is God’s presence and authority over the waters
So here is what I want to show you
That the work that God will do in creating the world will both form and fill it
Day Separating/forming Filling Day
1. Light Stars 4
2 Sky/Seas Sea Wind Creatures 5
3 Seas/dry land/Veg Land Animals/humans 6
So the way that God creates is that he defeats chaos
The first three days of creation are an attack on Tohu: Formlessness…God gives form to the creation
The next three days are an attack on Bohu or Emptiness: God then fills creation with plants animals and humans
So the first six days are acts of seperation, then filling then on the seventh day, it is blessing!
So this is cool but who cares right?
Why would the people of God want to tell the creation story this way?
Its it just so we can learn how creation took place or whom we should become?
What kind of people should we be in light of the way that God created?
What if, the people of God wanted to tell their kids the story of God through these words,
Separation, Filled Blessing?
In Genesis 12, Abraham and Sarah have to separate themselves from their homeland, their place of protection and provision…And if they have the faith to do that then God promises to fill the earth with his offspring so that they can be a blessing to the world
Lets look at the story of Noah again
In Genesis 7:11
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.
The waters spring up from the ground and the sky…Essentially reversing God’s creative work
It reverses all of the separating and filling
Tohu and Bohu are crashing down on creation once again
The earth is reverting back to its original design of chaos
But after some time…Lets read what happened?
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.
What is the word there? Wind? Ruach! It is spirit…It is the same exact word as the spriit of God hovered over the deep
And then all of the sudden God’s spirit becomes an instrument of new-creation or re-creating the world again after the flood.
See the people of God wanted their kids to underatsnad that God was separating them out of the world, filling them with his spirit and then letting them be a blessing to the world
from the very beginning words of the Bible, God has defeated chaos and sin…However the primary battle ground is with people. It is God’s desire to separate people out, fill them with his presence and have them to be a blessing to the world
See we are separated out of the world filled with the presence of Jesus so that we can be the embodyment of his character and nature in this world.
Stoppedf Here
Arc Angels
Egyptian Coffin Texts
Egyptian Coffin Texts
A for Allen (1988 and 2003, same text, 343j-344d only) and F for Faulkner (1977).
A I am the Waters, unique, without second.
F I am Nu, the Sole one who has no equal,
A That is where I evolved, on the great occasion of my floating that happened to me.
F and I came into being yonder on the great occasion of my flood, when I came into being.
A I am the one who once evolved – Circlet who is in his egg.
F I am he who flew up, whose shape is (that of) ḏbnn who is in his egg;
A I am the one who began therein, (in) the Waters.
F I am he who originated in the Abyss,
A See, the Flood is subtracted from me (Gen 1:6-7): see, I am the remainder.
F and see, the Chaos-god came out to me; see, I am hale.
A I made my body evolve through my own effectiveness.
F I brought my body into being through my power;
A I am the one who made me. I built myself as I wished, according to my heart.
F I am one who made myself, and I formed myself at my will according to my desire.
Egyptian
Egyptian
The Egyptian sun god Ra repeatedly defeats the serpent of chaos, Apophis(also called Apep), each night as he travels through the underworld on his solar barge. Apophis attacks Ra's boat to prevent the sun from rising and bringing order to the world. Ra is often aided in these battles by other gods, particularly Set, who uses a spear to wound the serpent, and the cat-headed goddess Bastet. In one famous myth, Ra transforms into a cat to defeat Apophis from the inside after the serpent swallowed his barge whole.
· To overcome evil and chaos is to crush a snake
When they are written seperatley they are Tohu and Bohu but they can also be written together, in fact that is where you see them more often
Spirit: Ruach
Deep : Tahom
Formless: Tohu
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:1-2 as a whole
When did time start
Empty:
