Lecture 2: The Plan Introduced

Introduction

The Bible is mostly comprised of three acts. Rather than giving these acts a name, I want to give them a description. Giving these acts a description will allow us to keep in mind the purpose of the passages we read. It will also help us identify critical passages that should become familiar references when considering other passages of the Bible, especially passages that are more difficult to understand.

There are three Acts one should consider when reading the Bible:

Act 1 is the introduction of God’s plan (Genesis 1-2)

Act 2 is the opposition of God’s plan (Genesis 3- Malachi 4)

Act 3 is the manifestation of God’s plan (Matthew 1- Revelation 22)

There are a few things we should understand about the Bible, before reading the entire book. There are these cheat codes all throughout it. This course is designed to give you the cheat codes of reading the Bible. And when I say cheat codes, I am referring to specific Bible passages that will, again, become familiar to you over the next few lectures.

Premise: God Had a Plan

The premise of this course and our philosophy for understanding the Bible is that, from the very beginning, God had a plan.

If God’s plan predates us, this means we must study to discover what God was up to long before we arrived onto the scene. In fact, our immediate circumstance is of least importance when compared to the original message that is meant to be shared and understood. However, the original message does include us. Yet, we are to be included in a proper order. Interestingly, we are not included until Act 3 and most have imposed themselves into Act 1 and 2—exploiting the original message and making the Bible difficult to understand.

Charles Finney saw God’s purpose as being synonymous with his design and intention. And I agree that God’s purpose, intent and even His will are all the same. He wrote,

The purposes of God must be ultimate and proximate. That is, God has and must have an ultimate end. He must purpose to accomplish something by his works and providence which he regards as a good in itself or as valuable to himself, and to being in general. This I call his ultimate end. That God has such an end or purpose, follows from the already established facts, that God is a moral agent, and that he is infinitely wise and good. For surely he could not be justly considered as either wise or good had he no intrinsically valuable end which he aims to realize by his works of creation and providence. His purpose to secure his great and ultimate end, I call his ultimate purpose. His proximate purposes respect the means by which he aims to secure his end. If he purposes to realize an end, he must of course purpose the necessary means for its accomplishment. The purposes that respect the means are what I call in this discussion his proximate purposes.

Finney goes on to argue that God’s ultimate purpose and his proximate purposes do not contradict or oppose each other. They work together. Finney’s idea aligns with Scripture.

Isaiah 55:8–11 CSB

8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.” This is the Lord’s declaration. 9 “For as heaven is higher than earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 10 For just as rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return there without saturating the earth and making it germinate and sprout, and providing seed to sow and food to eat, 11 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.”

This passage is placed in the prophecy of Isaiah concerning the restoration of the nation of Old Covenant Israel. In encouraging the Israelites, he provides critical insight concerning God’s Word. He states, God’s Word accomplishes its purpose. There are many other passages that demonstrate this same point.

Isaiah 14:24 CSB

24 The Lord of Armies has sworn: As I have purposed, so it will be; as I have planned it, so it will happen.

As you read through the Bible you will see this premise of God’s purpose expressed over and over again. The biblical writers are very much aware that God is active and involved in creation. One critical mistake that is generally made when reading the Bible is the over-emphasis and concern towards God’s proximate will, which is fixed in time and the avoidance of God’s ultimate will, which is fixed in eternity.

The question becomes…what does God want? What exactly is He doing? What is God’s ultimate plan? We will get to answering this question a bit later. However, the point we want to establish is that God has a purpose and this ultimate purpose is introduced in the very first chapters of the biblical narrative.

So, let’s consider a few biblical passages. These are your cheat codes! We start with the beginning of the narrative—the first two chapters of the book of Genesis. Without these two chapters, we simply have a play with no stage.

Genesis 1 and 2 are two distinct stories in intent and purpose. If you read Genesis 1 and 2 carefully, you will see that Genesis 1 and 2 are telling two unique stories. Chapter 2 is not the author’s way of being redundant. He wants us to see a very important distinction. Missing this point makes understanding the Bible an extremely difficult thing.

When we compare the Genesis 1 and 2 side by side, we will recognize the problem of saying these two stories are one and the same. We will recognize that the chronology of events do not measure up. (See the chart).

Therefore, I propose that Genesis 1 is concerned with the order of the earth and Genesis 2 is concerned with the order of the Garden.

Remember earlier, the three things you need to understand the biblical narrative:

The Bible

Bible Dictionary

History

Here is where we will need our history resources. We want to understand what was it like to 1) read these creation accounts during the times they were written, 2) what were these creations stories intended to communicate to the original recipients. In order to answer these questions we must consult history. We must become as aware as possible about the ancient Near Eastern world.

The book of Genesis was written to the nation of Israel and was necessary, because creation stories existed that fundamentally refuted the idea of a Self-Existing God that was responsible for the creation. (A good historical resource to consult for studies in ancient Near Eastern studies is John Walton’s Lost World of… series. Nevertheless, he reveals that ancient Near Eastern creation stories would have been found in Sumerian, Akkadian, and Egyptian cultures. So, God gives Moses his own creation story, which in many ways compare to the existing ones, only with very critical distinctions. Let’s consider a few of the ancient Near Eastern creation stories to get the point.

Sumerian

The ancient Sumerian myth begins must like the creation story of Genesis 1. It begins with a dark canvas and the presence of the goddess Nammu. Nammu represents the Sea, which gives birth to Anki, the Universe. Anki produces Enlil, air and after a few more created gods, they decide that the earth is a vile representation of a created world from such gods. Therefore, they destroy the earth with a flood.

Egyptian

The Egyptian myth story includes a war between the gods, which ultimately lead to creation.

While the ancient Near Eastern stories were known to be mythological stories, the nation of Israel possessed an actual account of how the order of things came into being. The point of all the the various creation stories, including the Hebrew one, seek to express, not so much the creation of things, but the order that comes from that which has been created to form an orderly creation. The story of Genesis 1 and 2 is a story about how the earth and the Garden of Eden obtained its order.