Parashat Bereshit
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Today we are returning to a study of this weeks Parashat, or portion, of Scripture which is Gen. 1:1 - 6:8. I have heard it said that the most hated passages of the Bible are the first 3 chapters and the last 3 chapters. Over the last year we have gone into great detail into the last 3 chapters of Revelation, which covers the return of Yeshua and the creation of the new Heaven and Earth. Today we will look at the Creation of our current world.
Author
Author
When we come to a new book, I like to look at the author who wrote it, the date at which they wrote and the issues that surrounded them at the time. If you have walked with us for some time, you will have heard me refer to the Mosaic authorship of the Torah, the 1st 5 books of the Hebrew Scriptures. In fact if you listened carefully at the Torah service last week, you would hear in the last liturgy that we affirm the author as being Moses. But why do we say this?
Well, in a word, “Tradition!”
The traditional (or common) view is that Moses wrote everything from Gen. 1:1 to Deut. 34:4. Leaving only the last 8 verses to be written by Joshua. But when ever we have a tradition it is right for us to ask where this has come from, especially since there is no internal attribution as to the authorship of the Torah. I will call on 2 witnesses: Yehoshua and Yeshua.
From Yeshoshua, a.k.a. Joshua, in Josh. 8:31-32 we read the following:
as Moses the servant of Adonai had commanded Bnei-Yisrael, as written in the scroll of the Torah of Moses, an altar of uncut stones on which no man had wielded any iron tool. They offered on it burnt offerings to Adonai and sacrificed fellowship offerings. There on the stones he wrote a copy of the Torah of Moses, which he had written, in the presence of Bnei-Yisrael.
So twice we see that Joshua claims that Moses wrote the Torah. It is also important to note in Josh. 1:8
This book of the Torah should not depart from your mouth—you are to meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. For then you will make your ways prosperous and then you will be successful.
We are to follow all that is written, and only what is written, not the Oral Torah, otherwise known as the Tradition of the Elders that was eventually written down in the Mishnah.
The second witness is Yeshua. We read that when Yeshua was telling the story about the Rich man and Lazarus, that Yeshua tells us of a conversation that Abraham Avinu had with the Rich man, Luke 16:31
“But Abraham said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead!’ ”
And again, after Yeshua had physically risen from the dead, He reminds his talmidim, Luke 24:44
Then He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you—everything written concerning Me in the Torah of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
So, in simple terms, if you have a problem with a Mosaic authorship, then you have a problem with the words of Yehoshua and Yeshua. If you want to look into the complexities of the Literary-Critical view, which denies the Mosaic authorship, then you will find that you end up having to deny, not only the authorship of most of the rest of the Bible, but also all of the Archaeological discoveries to date. Because as I have said many times,
In every way that archaeology can confirm the Scriptures, it does.
Date
Date
If Moses is indeed the author, then the date of originally writting the Torah would have been around 1500 BCE. Apparently he had a lot of time to sit around and write. Something to do with 40 years sitting in front of a mountain.
I believe that the earlier dating of Moses (1500 BCE instead of 1200 BCE) seems to align better with the archaeology that we see.
Reason
Reason
But this then also gives us the clearest reason for writing, in that, Adonai told Moses how to set up a new nation. Everything from Genesis to Deuteronomy is focus on that. Both Genesis and Exodus are deliberatly targeted against the gods of Egypt, and and reminding the people of the one True and Living god. Leviticus and Numbers help to establish the new legal framework for the Nation of Israel, and Deuteronomy comes in as a summary of everything already written.
Outline
Outline
Today we are looking at the first 6 chapters of Genesis, and one of the ways to outline the first 6 chapters of Genesis is as follows:
The Creation (Gen. 1)
Humanity in Gan-Edan (Gen. 2)
From Innocence to Shame / The Fall (Gen. 3)
Cain and Abel’s Blood (Gen. 4)
The Book of Genealogies / The Sons of Adam (Gen. 5)
The Evil Inclination of All Humanity (Gen. 6:1-7)
The Beginning/Genesis
The Beginning/Genesis
So let us begin:
Or in English, Gen. 1:1-2
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was chaos and waste, darkness was on the surface of the deep, and the Ruach Elohim was hovering upon the surface of the water.
So let me ask you a few questions based upon these 2 sentences.
When did this happen?
Who initiated this?
What was created?
In what state was the Earth?
Now is there anything in these verses that states how long ago this happened? Or how about how long this took to get to this point? So before you get into an argument about how old the universe actually is, please remember that the Scripture does not say exactly.
What we do see from this passage is that Adonai was intimately involved in the creation of the world. The Ruach Elohim was hovering over the earth, like an Eagle.
The image of the Spirit of God hovering over the waters is recalled in Deut. 32:11 by the metaphor of God as an eagle “hovering” over the nest of its young, protecting and making their nest fit for them. The use of this similar divine imagery both at the beginning of the [Torah] and its end suggests a picture of the work of the divine Spirit in both passages.
Creation of Light & Life
Creation of Light & Life
What we do see is that Adonai took the universe that was formless and void, chaos and waste, tohu v’bohu, and in 6 days Adonai filled the universe with light and life. This timeframe is confirmed at Mt. Sinai in Ex. 20:8-11
“Remember Yom Shabbat, to keep it holy. You are to work six days, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Shabbat to Adonai your God. In it you shall not do any work—not you, nor your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your cattle, nor the outsider that is within your gates. For in six days Adonai made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Thus Adonai blessed Yom Shabbat, and made it holy.
When we look at how Adonai created I am always amazed. First Adonai creates the form, and then He fills the form. For instance, we see that on Day 1 Adonai creates light and then on Day 4 he fills the universe with light producing luminaries.
On Day 2 Adonai creates the heavens, and splits the water above the sky from the water of the oceans. Then on Day 5 we see that He fills the sky with the birds and the Oceans with the water creatures.
On Day 3 Adonai creates the dry land, and then on Day 6 we see that Adonai fills the land with vegetation, animals and Mankind.
In many ways, I seek to model my design work after His. I like to create a form, and then fill it. It is similar to setting up a blank canvas, before beginning to paint. Without the canvas, I could sit there with all the paints in the world, and nothing would get painted.
Humanity in Gan-Eden
Humanity in Gan-Eden
When Adonai created the world, it was perfect. Many critics of God want to point at all the pain, suffering and sorrow in the world, and blame Adonai for doing such a poor job. However when we get to Gen. 1:31 we see that the entire world was “very good”.
So God saw everything that He made, and behold it was very good. So there was evening and there was morning—the sixth day.
In chapter 2 we see a description of how Adonai surrounded Mankind with every good and perfect gift, while at the same time still allowing them to have the freedom to choose.
In Gen. 2:15-17 we have the original calling of mankind and only stipulation that was on him.
Then Adonai Elohim took the man and gave him rest in the Garden of Eden in order to cultivate and watch over it. Then Adonai Elohim commanded the man saying, “From all the trees of the garden you are most welcome to eat. But of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you must not eat. For when you eat from it, you most assuredly will die!
Mankind was created to rule over, or manage, the world around us. There was perfect peace.
And woman was create equal to man. There was no striving, there was perfect peace.
Innocence to Shame
Innocence to Shame
But unfortunatly this time did not last long. Jewish tradition says that it only lasted a day, I am not sure. There is nothing in the text to say how long it was. But shortly after creation, mankind rebelled against God.
In Gen. 3 we have the sad tale of how the Serpent caused them to question God’s words and His character. He then tempted them to break the 1 rule that Adonai had made, and mankind fell from Innocence to a place of Shame.
Then Adonai Elohim called to the man and He said to him, “Where are you?”
“Where are you?” This is still the call that Adonai has for us today. Where are you? Have we decided that Adonai can not be trusted? Have we thought that God was holding out on us? Are we not intereted in having to ask anyone for permission? Or do we think that Adonai does not deserve to be listened to and heeded?
We think that things have changed today, but nothing has changed. Even still, we will do anything that we can to avoid shame, we will lie, blame others, and even blame God for the good things He has done for us, but we do not want to accept responsibility for our actions.
But we are the broken ones. We are the ones who have chosen our own way as it says in Isa. 53:6
We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us turned to his own way. So Adonai has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
The Curse
The Curse
Paul points out that “wages of sin is death.” This actually comes from Prov. 10:16
The wages of the righteous are life. The income of the wicked is sin.
On that day Mankind and the whole earth earned death. We see that the serpent was forced to go on its belly and eat dust, something that snakes still do to this day.
Enmity with nature
Pain in childbirth
Disparity of power between men and women
Suffering through all our labours
Ultimately, death.
This is the effect of Adam and Eve not trusting Adonai, this is the effect that we still fill due to their rebellion. None of these effects were Adonai’s desire, nor his design. They were all the result of the sin of mankind.
To this day we still see that pain, suffering, inequality and death are all around us. Sometimes we can trace it directly to an individual who is alive today, but other times, it may be the culmination of generations of “little white lies”, pennies stolen from our parents, lust or anger.
Paul writes in 1 Thes. 4:2-7
For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Yeshua. For this is the will of God—your sanctification: to abstain from sexual immorality; to know, each of you, how to gain control over his own body in holiness and honor— not in the passion of lust like the pagans who do not know God; and not to overstep his brother and take advantage of him in this matter— because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, as we told you before and solemnly warned you. For God did not call us to impurity, but in holiness.
Cain & Abel
Cain & Abel
It did not take long for the first death of a human, and it was not God’s doing. We read in Gen. 4 of how Cain murdered his brother, simply because Adonai accepted Abel’s offering. Cain knew the right thing to do, but chose to give into his anger and murder. Yeshua reminds us in Matt. 5:21-22 that anger leads to murder.
“You have heard it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever commits murder shall be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be subject to judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca’ shall be subject to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be subject to fiery Gehenna.
And it was not just Cain, we see that through the generations of mankind, all choose sin over choosing Adonai’s way. Gen. 6:5-8
Then Adonai saw that the wickedness of humankind was great on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their heart was only evil all the time. So Adonai regretted that He made humankind on the earth, and His heart was deeply pained. So Adonai said, “I will wipe out humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the ground, from humankind to livestock, crawling things and the flying creatures of the sky, because I regret that I made them.” But Noah found favor in Adonai’s eyes.
Why did Yeshua Come?
Why did Yeshua Come?
The New Covenant portion of Scripture is from the first chapter of John.
What we see is that John is recognizing that the universe was created through Yeshua, and that Adonai was breaking into the the world he created in order to bring redemption. John 1:1-5
In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were made through Him, and apart from Him nothing was made that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overpowered it.
All things were made through Yeshua. Last week we talked about vs 14 where the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. Yeshua said in John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal, slaughter, and destroy. I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly!
Yeshua came to bridge the gap between us and God.
John explains the reason for his writing of the Gospel in John 20:30-31
Yeshua performed many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. But these things have been written so that you may believe that Yeshua is Mashiach Ben-Elohim, and that by believing you may have life in His name.
Yeshua came that we might have life!
Paul writes to the believers in Rome, Romans 5:14-15
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in a manner similar to the violation of Adam, who is a pattern of the One to come. But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if many died because of the transgression of one man, how much more did the grace of God overflow to many through the gift of one Man—Yeshua the Messiah.
I will close by reading part of the Haftarah portion, the First Servant Song in Isa. 42:5-7
Thus says God, Adonai, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it, and Ruach to those who walk in it— “I, Adonai, called You in righteousness, I will take hold of Your hand, I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, by opening blind eyes, bringing prisoners out of the dungeon, and those sitting in darkness out of the prison house.
This is speaking of Yeshua! Let us take this opportunity to turn away from sin and death, and turn toward the life offered by Messiah Yeshua!
