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Category: Pentateuch Genesis-Deuteronomy

IN THE BEGINNING… Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy – Pentateuch [5 books] It’s the LAW of GOD!
Forgive us our trespasses. Jesus teaches many lessons from these books of the Bible and we have forgotten MANY of the issues and applications to our 21st century life. How can you SHARE from the beginning of the Bible with your SOCIAL ‘Friends’ and talk of Jesus as Lord? Please TITLE your post by the topic, not the verse. Include links to scriptures and helpful references. — Please post or tell us in a COMMENT how you talk of Jesus through this topic and these Old Testament scriptures.

  • Disaster From Disobedience, A Savior From Before Eden – 5

    Temptation: “Did God really say…?”

    Genesis 3:

    The Temptation and the Fall
    3 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”

    Here it begins, original sin.

    I might have easily named this series, ‘Temptation Before Disobedience,’ yet we shall not fall into this pit. Rather than taking the more traveled path of placing blame on the already-fallen Satan, we shall examine the progression of our own disobedience to God.

    Genesis 2:17 .. but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”

    One point of my previous post, knowledge of good and evil comes to man with overwhelming responsibility, as well as consequence for sin. Returning to Genesis 3 and Satan’s temptation for man’s disobedient fall:

    “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” – Genesis 3:5 

    So yes, we know of good and evil independently of obedience to God. Yet are we like God?

    In so many ways this frail, fallen flesh created in God’s imagine no longer reflects the Lord’s righteousness. Each reflection of our sin clouds the clarity of the Lord’s gleaming glory.

    And the Lord said of creation, “It is good;” yet in so many ways since man’s temptation to judge good and evil, it is not so good.

    Before we proceed past original sin, let’s briefly consider the relationship between Adam and Eve with the Lord prior to their temptation.

    God in the Garden Paradise

    No one has ever seen God. – John 1:18

    Image yourself as Adam if you are a man, or as Eve if you are a woman, walking in paradise with the Living God. (You have not yet sinned.) 

    Can you describe your personal relationship with the One who has created you and walks with you in Eden? What is the Lord like? 

    He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. – John 1:2-3

    In this paradise of Eden, the Person of the Lord seems to nurture a newborn existence in a vast and wonderful place. 

    Colossians 1:

    15 He is the image of the invisible God,
    the firstborn over all creation.
    16 For everything was created by Him,
    in heaven and on earth,
    the visible and the invisible…

    17 He is before all things,
    and by Him all things hold together.

    John 1:1

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

    How would Adam or Eve described God before the fall?

    The Creator walks with us! He IS the image of the invisible God in whose image we are also created. The Lord is not an angel (though some later descriptions call Him ‘The Angel of the Lord’). God is a loving Person, a Father if you will, to both of us.

    But then… we both sinned…

    7 “Then the eyes of both of them were opened,” Moses records. It’s not that they were literally blind, but by their new-found knowledge they now saw, heard and realized things they never needed to know.

    Eyes Opened to our Sin

    We heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and we hid  from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. We were naked. Although we had always been naked, something told us that no one else should see us that way, so we clothed ourselves with leaves.

    We heard the familiar voice of the Lord:

    “Where are you?”

    We had never hidden from Him. Adam called out from behind the trees for both of us:

    10 And he said, “I heard You in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”

    “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

    Of course… we had.

    And somehow we knew that it was wrong. Never before had we ever considered that anything we had done had been either right or wrong. We just did it and lived with great joy in paradise.

    Well, you know the rest. Excuses, punishment for our disobedience… 

    We then began our schooling in the differences between blessing and curse. But now it was too late, for we could not go back to the Paradise where we had lived in overflowing joy with the Lord God.

    When the Lord had blessed us He had commanded, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.” Now beyond Eden these words to fill the earth, and subdue it seem burdensome rather than a blessing. And the Lord has said that we now have only a lifetime to begin that which once seemed timeless.

    The Lord says that we now have eyes to see and ears to hear what is good and what is evil. Be careful to do all that is good and shun what is evil He has said. 

    How long, O Lord, until you will return us to your glory? More than a lifetime? 

    And what must it be like to first return to the dust…

    To be continued…

     

     

     

  • Disaster From Disobedience, A Savior From Before Eden – 4

    He was in the world,
    and the world was created through Him,
    yet the world did not recognize Him.

    John 1:10

    What did God intend for man in paradise (Eden) in the beginning?

    Creation of Adam

    Genesis 2:

    7 Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

    This then, is really the beginning as far as man is concerned; but we must ask more. Man, we ask: what did Moses mean to say about the first man of flesh created by God?

    Genesis 1:26-27 KJV excerpt

    And God said,

    Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…

    1:27 וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָֽאָדָם בְּצַלְמֹו בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתֹו זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה בָּרָא אֹתָֽם׃

    So God [‘elohiym] created man [adam] in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

    • References to God are plural, not singular. Yet the One God is not consulting with other gods (a concept we shall not explore here).
    • We are like God, not like the animals of God’s creation.
    • Creation references to man, translated from ‘adam’ include male and female.

    God creates a perfect world, giving men and angels the freedom to obey and serve. But we don’t obey and therefore no longer live in a perfect paradise.

    What is paradise?

    Paradise would be a place where all men and women, all creatures of earth and all angelic beings live together in harmony with God. We take our cultural meaning of paradise from the Greek word παράδεισος, but in the definition of Eden differs. 

    Adam in Eden

    Continuing in Genesis 2:8

    The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He placed the man He had formed. 9 The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food…

    Do you know what it means, ‘Eden,’ that is?

    Pleasure. And man’s role was to care for the garden of our pleasure.

    Garden of Eden Jacopo Bassano, 1570-73 Oil on canvas; Galleria Doria-Pamphili, Rome

    15 The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it.

    Yes such a pleasurable work, tending the perfect place where the Lord walked with man. Follow the Lord’s command and have eternal life (although in Adam’s bliss he knew of no alternative.)

    16 And the Lord God commanded the man,

    “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.”

    A Helper

    Moses then continues with the separate account of the creation of woman from man; that is, Eve. Much is made of her, ‘the female of the species made in God’s image.’ For as Moses testifies:

    18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper as his complement.”

    v.22 KJV And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

    Think of it dear brother, the Lord filled our emptiness of existence without a ‘helper’ at our side with one like us and for us. Therefore she is created as our ‘better half,’ as we become one.

    23 And the man said:

    This one, at last, is bone of my bone
    and flesh of my flesh;
    this one will be called “woman,”
    for she was taken from man.

    24 This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.

    The Knowledge of Good and Evil

    Paradise, an illustration of Eden: man, woman, plants and animals, food and meaningful work. The created heavens above and bountiful beautiful earth in every direction. The Lord walked and talked with them! 

    Genesis 1:28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

    Paradise but for one generation due to just one bad decision.

    One command from God to man and everything else filled with the freedom of eternal joy in Eden on earth. Paradise.

    Again, recalling from Genesis 2:17 “..but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…”

    Why not, you ask? Ah, but we are already sinners questioning God every day.

    For Adam did not have to ask what to do, just obey the Lord’s one command. Think about it, the definition that he did not need was that of good and evil.

    God’s simple command to Adam could easily be defined:

    “Good is to obey God, evil is to disobey God.”

    Why would anyone disobey the all-powerful, all-knowing, compassionate and gracious Lord, who created us to be a human image of Him?

    But of course, we all do… and it is sin, by definition, evil.

    The moment Adam and Eve made their decision to disobey God, the moment Adam and Eve knew that that had chosen evil over obedience; our lives and existence began to overflow with needless questions and numerous wrong answers. 

    Do not blame the serpent or others, demons or even your parents and our first parents, Adam and Eve.

    We were created for obedience to God who defines good. Yet we all choose to go against God of our own free will, just as Satan and various angels had disobeyed.

    God IS God! And we are not.

    Original and Continuing Sin

    In Disaster From Disobedience – 3 we examined the fall of the Tempter and will not dwell on his role in Eden. We now carry the burden of the knowledge of good and evil, we carry the burden of our own sin.

    Next we will examine the progression from Adam’s one command from God to the man’s disobedience through the generations. Evil and sin will lead us to the requirements of the Law and convictions of our disobedience.

    To be continued…

     

     

     

  • Disaster From Disobedience, A Savior From Before Eden – 2

    Disaster – Why start with Eden?

    Why should a series whose subject is apocalypse and disaster begin with the paradise of Eden?

    The obvious answer may escape the eyes of a perishable mortal facing a life-ending disaster. In an instant we may wonder what’s next, yet in accelerated times we may not have considered what was before.

    What was before me, even before man? How did I get here? Even more importantly, why am I here? Why, and what does my life have to do with my death?

    Certainly disaster will ensnare many: accidents, seemingly random events which bring an unexpected end to an already brief life. That death should overtake a man or woman should not ambush any.

    Yet have you considered your death, the death of man, the death of the earth upon which we walk?

    If so, you may also have considered the beginnings of the same. Our hesitant conclusions about our beginnings may logically lead toward answers to our existence and inevitable conclusions. So from before Eden and paradise we begin.

    IN THE BEGINNING, GOD

    Genesis 1:1

    1:1 בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

    re’shiyth elohiym bara’eth

    In the beginning, God created …

    Before we move forward with creation let’s just take a minute to consider what we believe. Do you believe in God?

    Can you define God?  In fact, you may ask, ‘Why God?’

    In these last days man has observed both creation and destruction of distant universe of which we have but minuscule evidence.

    DNA strand & computer-sequenced 5.5 petabits of data [Harvard research]

    We have mapped mysteries of our flesh, split the stuff of our existence with fearful explosion of devastation. Yet our awestruck wonder of creation fails to comprehend —the impassable great divide

    –between the glory of God —

    and vulnerability of man.

    What is man that you remember him,

    or the son of man that you care for him?

    You made him lower than the angels

    for a short time;

    you crowned him with glory and honor

    and subjected everything under his feet.

    excerpt from Hebrews 2

    In beginning our series:

    We shall consider man next and even the angels and spirits, but first consider the primordial soup of stuff from which great power formed the beginnings of all.

    If you must ask what inertia from nothingness moved hydrogen twice into oxygen, then consider the power to bring both into existence. No logic states, ‘in the beginning was water’ or rock or atoms.

    Who created atoms and universe? In the beginning was… something: yes, One more powerful and more intelligent; yes, even One more wise and more good than all of which we wonder in awestruck human observation.

    If you must deny that things cannot create themselves, then you deny the very purpose for which God, Who IS and Was and Will BE forever, created you for this brief flash of life in our human flesh.

    You are not here for nothing any more than you were created by nothing from nothing. In the beginning, God created …

    From the beginning of the five books of Moses:

    Genesis 1:

    In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

    2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

    4 God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness.

    Let us confess that NO man or alien from planet yet uncreated from nothingness and NO mathematically improbable coincidental collision of primordial matter could possibly have done this!

    Do you see the the light is good and must be separated from the darkness to define the glory of the light? Will you consider separating darkness which brings disaster from that light with which your life is blessed?

    We with eyes to see know the glory of our creation and the defining darkness which beckons our countenance back toward the deep dark chaos opposing the light of of this life.

    The LORD speaks the beginning into existence 

    5 God called the light “day,” and He called the darkness “night.” Evening came and then morning: the first day.

    6 Then God said, “Let there be an expanse between the waters, separating water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above the expanse. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” Evening came and then morning: the second day.

    9 Then God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land “earth,” and He called the gathering of the water “seas.”

    And God saw that it was good.

    11 Then God said, “Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” And it was so. 12 The earth produced vegetation: seed-bearing plants according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.

    And God saw that it was good.

    13 Evening came and then morning: the third day.

    Light separated from darkness to celebrate God

    14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will serve as signs for festivals and for days and years. 15 They will be lights in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to have dominion over the day and the lesser light to have dominion over the night—as well as the stars. 17 God placed them in the expanse of the sky to provide light on the earth, 18 to dominate the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 Evening came and then morning: the fourth day.

    The Beginning of Life on earth

    20 Then God said, “Let the water swarm with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky.” 21 So God created the large sea-creatures and every living creature that moves and swarms in the water, according to their kinds. He also created every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 So God blessed them, “Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters of the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” 23 Evening came and then morning: the fifth day.

    24 Then God said, “Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that crawl, and the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds.

    And God saw that it was good.

    To be continued…