OpenTheo

Introduction to Genesis - Part 1

The Bible for Today with John Stott — webteam
00:00
00:00

Introduction to Genesis - Part 1

January 27, 2021
The Bible for Today with John Stott
The Bible for Today with John Stottwebteam

John Stott explains why we must have the firm foundation of Genesis in place if we are ever to build our understanding of Scripture.

Share

Transcript

[Music] We must regard Genesis primarily not as a book of science, because science changes constantly, but as a book of salvation, which is man's abiding, universal, and unchanging need.
[Music]
Welcome to The Bible for Today with John Stot. As the most respected clergyman in the world, according to Billy Graham, and one of the 100 most influential people in the world, according to Time Magazine, there's perhaps been no one who has raised the standard of biblical teaching in the 20th century as John Stot.
An extremely humble man, known affectionately to many as Uncle John,
it was a pastor to pastors and a servant of the global church. From his home church of all souls Langen Place in Central London, he preached over 600 Simmons. We are marking John Stott's centenary by condensing 60 years of preaching into one year, starting with one of his earliest, known recordings, and finishing at the end of the year with the last sermon John preached at all souls church.
It's also appropriate that we are
beginning with an introduction to the book of Genesis. In the early days, John was not in favor of his sermons being recorded as he preached them in church, so would have them recorded afterwards as you will hear today. Although John was a young man at this time, his understanding of what God was saying through the Bible was astounding.
You'll find
it helpful to have your own Bible open to Genesis chapter 1. Nothing is more beautiful than Genesis, read Luther, nothing more useful. I think we should agree with his assessment. The narrative of Genesis is very beautiful and the message it conveys one of great practical usefulness.
It's not for nothing that the book is called
Genesis, meaning a source or origin, because here at the very beginning of the Bible is the spring from which many of the great doctrines of the Christian faith flow forth like rivers. The sovereignty of God as the creator of all things. The original nobility of man is the only creature made in the image of God.
The dignity of work and of marriage as creation
ordinances. The entry of sin into the world and of death through sin. The severity of God's judgment and the glory of his grace.
Also the promise of a Savior who bid the seed
of Adam and Eve on the one hand and of Abraham on the other through who seed all the nations of the world would be blessed. These central doctrines of Christianity are laid out in the early chapters of Genesis like massive foundation stones. The superstructure of biblical theology rests upon them and if the foundations are neglected the superstructure cannot stand.
What I want to do today is to try to answer two introductory questions. The first is what should be unapprenched in the book of Genesis as a whole and the second is what is the main thrust of its opening chapter. First the book of Genesis and our approach to it.
We come to our
study of it as Christian people with Christian presuppositions. We have a presupposition about the God of Genesis, that the God of creation and the God of redemption, the God of science and the God of Scripture, the God of nature and the God of grace are the same God and there is no distinction or conflict between them. We have another Christian presupposition about the book of Genesis, namely that it is part of Old Testament Scripture so that it shares the nature of the rest of Old Testament Scripture and what may be said of the Old Testament as a whole may therefore be said of the book of Genesis in particular.
Let's consider then
the second epistle to Timothy chapter 3 verses 15 to 17 for this passage is one of the clearest expositions of the doctrine of the Old Testament. It calls the Old Testament holy scriptures, sacred writings. Writings which are separate from other writings because they are sacred, writings that are unlike all other writings because they are unique.
It refers in particular
this passage to the origin of the Old Testament where it came from and the purpose of the Old Testament what it is meant for. Seems to me very important that we should consider this because the students of Genesis in the last century and indeed at the beginning of this century have tended to concentrate so much either on the literary problems of Genesis. The supposed documents usually known as J, E, D and P that they have missed its divine origin.
Oh they have concentrated so much on scientific problems of Genesis, problems of geology and evolution for example that they have missed its practical purpose. Let's consider these two things further. Let me bring you these two points.
First as part of Old Testament scripture
Genesis has a divine origin. To Timothy 3 16 all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And there's five words represent the one Greek word literally translated God breathed.
All scripture
is God breathed. The biblical concept of inspiration is not that God breathed into the writers or their writings but that their writings were breathed out by him. They are regarded as emanating from his mouth said that some of the prophets could say the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.
There
are thus his words his spoken utterances and this is the view of the Old Testament held by Jesus Christ and his apostles and it is therefore their view of Genesis. In fact the first twelve chapters of the book of Genesis are quoted from or directly alluded to in the New Testament 35 to 40 times even narrative portions and comments by the human author are regarded as being the word of God. Now that doesn't mean that Genesis have no human authors nor does it mean that the work of these human authors was obliterated by the process of inspiration.
It simply means that through their
human words God breathed or spoke his words. Then you may ask where the human authors. I expect you're familiar with the documentary Hypothesis regarding the origin of Genesis which was first elaborated in detail by Julius Valhison in the 1870s in which he tried to isolate these four supposed documents that are called by the letters J, E, D and P. And this documentary hypothesis with some changes still holds the field in the schools and colleges of our country.
This is not an appropriate occasion for me to examine the hypothesis critically nor indeed do I have the technical competence to do so. But there are four things which I think I must say before passing on. The first is this.
Although the name of Moses has been linked with the Pentateuch,
the first five books of the Bible, by a very ancient tradition indeed, and although he figures said prominently in these five books, especially from Exodus onwards, that obviously he was a primary source of much of what these books contain, yet this does not imply that he rented all. For instance, presumably he did not write the account of his own death, now to learn his own epitaph. Two, we have no difficulty in agreeing that Genesis, which tells the story before the life of Moses, is a compilation from various sources.
Some of these sources were evidently family archives introduced by the formula these are the generations of, which occur some ten times in the book of Genesis. The earliest of these family archives were probably brought by Abraham himself from Mesopotamia when he came into the land of Canyon, for we know that literacy and culture were already very far advanced in Mesopotamia in Abraham's day. Thirdly, we cannot accept the theory that parts of Genesis are virtually forgeries.
The writing back into patriarchal and mosaic days of events which never happened, and of ideas which belonged to a later age, we cannot accept that. Fourthly, we cannot accept a reconstruction of Genesis based on the theory that Hebrew religious ideas evolved from primitive and mystic beginnings, because we believe that Hebrew religion, that is the religion of the Earth Testament, was revealed by the living God. We believe in fact that although Genesis no doubt was a compilation from different sources that were written and edited by men, it is yet like the rest of the Old Testament the God breathed word of God.
So much then for this first point about Genesis that is part of
Old Testament Scripture, it has a divine origin. The second point regarding our approach to the book of Genesis is that as part of Old Testament Scripture, it has a practical purpose. If I may bring you back to 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15, you will see that Paul told Timothy that from a child he had known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make the wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
And then verse 16 that this God breathed
Scripture is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction and righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect or complete thoroughly furnished unto all good works. Going back to verse 15, you will see that the Holy Scriptures are able to instruct us for salvation. That is the grand end and object of Scripture.
And salvation must be understood in
its all-embracing sense, including not only the justification of sinners by which they are accepted in the sight of God, but their centrifocation, the process by which they are made righteous in their character and conduct. Something you see, the Scripture presents Christ to us so that we are justified by faith in Him. It makes us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
And then it goes on to be profitable for doctrine, reproof, etc. that we need a thoroughly furnished unto all good works. I want to draw your attention to this reference to faith in Christ in verse 15 and good works in verse 17.
It tells us that the practical purpose of
Scripture is to save us by faith unto good works. And this is true of all Scripture. All Scripture is God breathed and all Scripture is profitable.
And therefore, if it's true of all
Scripture, it's true of Genesis. We must regard Genesis primarily not as a book of science, because science changes constantly, but it's a book of salvation, which is man's abiding, universal, and unchanging need. In and through the early chapters of Genesis, God's purpose is not to disclose by special revelation scientific truths, which could be discovered by empirical investigation, but rather to reveal religious and moral truths, which, if not revealed by God, could and would never be known.
What we say about these chapters is not that they're unscientific
and may be contradicted by science, but that they are non-scientific, their purpose being different from the aims and objects of natural science. We sum up then our main approach to the book of Genesis. It is twofold.
One, since these chapters are God breathed and have
a divine origin, we must study them with reverence, listening, humbly to God's word as he speaks it through these chapters. Two, since these chapters are profitable and have a practical purpose, we must study them with obedience, resolved to be not any hearers, but doers of God's word. So much for our approach to the book of Genesis.
Now, the second section of this first address
concerns the manthrust of the first chapter of the book. We're going to go into greater detail next time, but I want now to give you a brief bird's eye view of chapter 1. And as we look at it as a whole, there are three major truths which stand out. First, in the beginning, God.
Thus one,
in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now, reader can fail to be struck by the majestic simplicity of this opening sentence. God is introduced with art apology, without explanation, without proof or definition.
The author is, of course, writing to believers in
Israel. And his aim is to affirm that the God of the covenant of Israel is the God of creation. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who redeemed his people from bondage in Egypt, is an empettied tribal deity, equivalent to Kimosh, the God of the Malabites, or Milcom, the God of the Ammonites, but the true and living God who created the universe and man on earth.
The opening words of Genesis, declaring that God is the creator of all things, the heavens and the earth, dispairs of all the various alternatives which have ever been suggested. The universe has its origin, not to some heavenly warfare between the gods, as the pagan creation stories affirmed with what Alexander McCarran calls the monstrosities and pure relatives. Nor to an eternal conflict between good and evil, light and darkness, as some dualistic systems have affirmed.
Nor to the operation of blind, irrational forces,
some unexplained evolutionary process as unbelieving humanists would have us believe today, but to a free and sovereign act or succession of acts of the creators will. Moreover, God created these things, all things, and the universe out of nothing. Oh, not that, in Charles Wesley's famous hymn, at his voice creation sprang at once to sight, not that the whole universe came into being instantaneously, but that when God began, he had no raw material to work upon.
There was nothing in existence but himself.
For in the beginning, that is, in the beginning of time, God created the heavens of the earth. Therefore, before this beginning, there was no creation.
There was only God.
This is, in fact, the consistent teaching of Scripture. God inhabits eternity, not time.
Isaiah 57, 15. He is the great I AM, the eternal is self-existent, one. He alone has immortality.
Against our 90 verse 2, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hast formed the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting thou art God. So then God is not dependent on the universe. He existed eternally before he met the universe.
Rather is the universe dependent upon him, and it was with his first act of creation, the time and history began. This truth is also implied by the Hebrew word that is used in verse 1 of the universe, in verse 21 of the origin of animal life and in verse 27 three times of man. According to the commentators on the Hebrew text, it is a very special word.
It's never used of
making or manufacturing material things. Outside the Bible, apparently it is used at the work of artists, that in the Old Testament it is reserved exclusively for the creative work of God. Deilich has written in his commentary, "The Colonel of the Nation expressed by Barra, B-A-R-A," the Hebrew word, is the origination of the absolutely new.
Von Rad, a contemporary Lutheran commentator writes, "It contains the idea both of complete effortlessness and of 'Crayartio X Nihilo' that is creation art of nothing." This is the first truth that stands out of chapter 1 of Genesis in the beginning, God. The second truth is this, "In the end, man." What is planned from Genesis 1 is that before the process of creation began, there was nothing in existence but God, and when the process had finished, there was man. The whole chapter leads the reader on and up to man.
Man is presented as the
crown, the climax of creation, the end product which God had already conceived before the work began and to which he was gradually working. And man's uniqueness is emphasized in the chapter. Although God created all things, both animate and inanimate, only man was created in his image and after his likeness.
And then man was appointed the lord of the lower creation. He was told to
fill the earth and to subdue it, and he was given dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves over the face of the earth. Thus man, God like in his intelligence and his authority, is set forth as the masterpiece of God's creative plan.
So in Genesis 1, the first truth that is emphasized is in the beginning God, the second is in the end man, and the third is in between ordered stages. That is straight away the striking contrast between verses 1 and 2. Thus 1 speaks of the creation of the heavens and the earth. That is the universe.
But verse 2 speaks of the earth only. The earth
was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. It is recognized that God is the creator of the universe and that the earth is only a tiny part of it.
But the Bible is the
story of God's dealings with earth, and especially with the man he made to develop an earth. So Genesis 1, like the Her Bible, is a geocentric book. It centers upon earth and life on earth.
It focuses attention upon earth, and it only describes the rest of the creation in its relation to earth and to man. Next verse 2 comes the description of earth's primeval chaos. The earth was without form and void, etc.
Some people have propounded the theory, made popular in the
Schurfield Bible. That verse 2 describes not the state of earth when God made it, but the state to which he reduced it by a subsequent act of judgment. They point to Isaiah 45, verse 18, which uses the same Hebrew word for chaos and says on earth that God did not create it a chaos.
Some people further embrace this theory because they believe that the days,
the six days of Genesis 1, are to be interpreted literally if periods of 24 hours, and they are then in trouble because they need a long period of time for the rocks and the fossils to form. And so they argue that between verses 1 and 2 of Genesis 1 there was a prehistoric fall, either of angels or of some pre-adamic race or of birth, which led to the ruin of the earth by divine judgment. If that were the case, as they argue then verses 3 onwards describe not the original creation, but the re-creation or reconstruction of earth after some prehistoric disaster.
Now although this theory seems still to be held by quite a number of Christian people, it is really pure speculation. It depends on changing the words and the earth worlds without form and void to what the earth became without form and void, which is not what the text says and apparently is to force the Hebrew words. Moreover, all Isaiah 45, verse 18, and the Hebrew says is that God did not create the earth in order to remain a chaos, but created it in order to be inhabited.
You've been listening to the first part of a message by John Stort on Genesis chapter 1, which he will conclude at the same time next week. During his lifetime John wrote over 50 books, many of which have become classic works with some being translated into 60 languages. He wrote the manuscripts by hand at his retreated whales by the light of an oil lamp, as he did not have electricity connected there until 2001.
Many of the sermons we are featuring in these centenary bookasts form the basis of his books, and today's recommendation is entitled "God's Word for Today's World." Details of this and all John's books can be found at premier.org.uk/JohnStort. The legacy of John Stort lives on and is growing, touching every level of society across the world. Today, Christian leaders throughout the majority world are being equipped to provide pastor training and resources in their own countries thanks to the vision of John Stort, who donated all his bookworlds to support this ministry through Langham Partnership. To find out about this and other ministries John Stort founded, go to premier.org.uk/JohnStort. Join us at the same time next week for more from The Bible for Today with John Stort.
[Music]
[BLANK_AUDIO]

More on OpenTheo

What Would You Say to Someone Who Believes in “Healing Frequencies”?
What Would You Say to Someone Who Believes in “Healing Frequencies”?
#STRask
May 8, 2025
Questions about what to say to someone who believes in “healing frequencies” in fabrics and music, whether Christians should use Oriental medicine tha
Why Do You Say Human Beings Are the Most Valuable Things in the Universe?
Why Do You Say Human Beings Are the Most Valuable Things in the Universe?
#STRask
May 29, 2025
Questions about reasons to think human beings are the most valuable things in the universe, how terms like “identity in Christ” and “child of God” can
No One Wrote About Jesus During His Lifetime
No One Wrote About Jesus During His Lifetime
#STRask
July 14, 2025
Questions about how to respond to the concern that no one wrote about Jesus during his lifetime, why scholars say Jesus was born in AD 5–6 rather than
Are Works the Evidence or the Energizer of Faith?
Are Works the Evidence or the Energizer of Faith?
#STRask
June 30, 2025
Questions about whether faith is the evidence or the energizer of faith, and biblical support for the idea that good works are inevitable and always d
God Didn’t Do Anything to Earn Being God, So How Did He Become So Judgmental?
God Didn’t Do Anything to Earn Being God, So How Did He Become So Judgmental?
#STRask
May 15, 2025
Questions about how God became so judgmental if he didn’t do anything to become God, and how we can think the flood really happened if no definition o
Licona vs. Fales: A Debate in 4 Parts – Part Four: Licona Responds and Q&A
Licona vs. Fales: A Debate in 4 Parts – Part Four: Licona Responds and Q&A
Risen Jesus
June 18, 2025
Today is the final episode in our four-part series covering the 2014 debate between Dr. Michael Licona and Dr. Evan Fales. In this hour-long episode,
Is Morality Determined by Society?
Is Morality Determined by Society?
#STRask
June 26, 2025
Questions about how to respond to someone who says morality is determined by society, whether our evolutionary biology causes us to think it’s objecti
Bible Study: Choices and Character in James, Part 2
Bible Study: Choices and Character in James, Part 2
Knight & Rose Show
July 12, 2025
Wintery Knight and Desert Rose study James chapters 3-5, emphasizing taming the tongue and pursuing godly wisdom. They discuss humility, patience, and
Jay Richards: Economics, Gender Ideology and MAHA
Jay Richards: Economics, Gender Ideology and MAHA
Knight & Rose Show
April 19, 2025
Wintery Knight and Desert Rose welcome Heritage Foundation policy expert Dr. Jay Richards to discuss policy and culture. Jay explains how economic fre
Bodily Resurrection vs Consensual Realities: A Licona Craffert Debate
Bodily Resurrection vs Consensual Realities: A Licona Craffert Debate
Risen Jesus
June 25, 2025
In today’s episode, Dr. Mike Licona debates Dr. Pieter Craffert at the University of Johannesburg. While Dr. Licona provides a positive case for the b
What Would You Say to an Atheist Who Claims to Lack a Worldview?
What Would You Say to an Atheist Who Claims to Lack a Worldview?
#STRask
July 17, 2025
Questions about how to handle a conversation with an atheist who claims to lack a worldview, and how to respond to someone who accuses you of being “s
What Are the Top Five Things to Consider Before Joining a Church?
What Are the Top Five Things to Consider Before Joining a Church?
#STRask
July 3, 2025
Questions about the top five things to consider before joining a church when coming out of the NAR movement, and thoughts regarding a church putting o
Why Does It Seem Like God Hates Some and Favors Others?
Why Does It Seem Like God Hates Some and Favors Others?
#STRask
April 28, 2025
Questions about whether the fact that some people go through intense difficulties and suffering indicates that God hates some and favors others, and w
How Is Prophecy About the Messiah Recognized?
How Is Prophecy About the Messiah Recognized?
#STRask
May 19, 2025
Questions about how to recognize prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament and whether or not Paul is just making Scripture say what he wants
Can a Deceased Person’s Soul Live On in the Recipient of His Heart?
Can a Deceased Person’s Soul Live On in the Recipient of His Heart?
#STRask
May 12, 2025
Questions about whether a deceased person’s soul can live on in the recipient of his heart, whether 1 Corinthians 15:44 confirms that babies in the wo