Genesis Session 1 Review and Supplements
Genesis Session 1 Review and Supplements:
Review:
Torah (Heb: “Teachings” a.k.a. “Pentateuch”) were the only scriptures that the people of God had for a long time. They set the stage for the rest of the OT.
Moses is traditionally known as the author of the Torah, although there are obvious parts that God used others to compile, edit, or add to the writings. (Take for instance: the section that covers Moses’s death is not written by Moses.) Estimated to be written between 1400 and 1600 BC
Genesis: Church tradition holds that God showed Moses the creation account in a vision to be written out under inspiration. (Think of Joseph, Daniel, or John with Revelations.) How else are you going to communicate something utterly out of this world and beyond someone!?!
God spoke to his people “in their language” and accounting for the context of the ANE. The imagery of Genesis is meant to interact with the context of God’s people when they received it. (cf. Enuma Elish, Epic of Gilgamesh, etc.)
Genesis Chapters 1-11 are a Prologue of sorts:
3 Stories:
a.) Creation of world and expulsion
b.) Cain and his people - up to flood
c.) The forming of nations / post-flood world
3 “Falls”
a.) 1-3; Death (Fall of humanity / human rebellion)
b.) 4-9; Sin (Continued deterioration of humanity / Fall of angels / Spiritual rebellion)
c.) 10-11 Demonic Powers (Dividing of Nations / Handing Over)
God created the Heavens and the Earth
Trinity is Present in first three verses: God (The Father), The Spirit of God, God the Son (Light and Word cf. John 1:1)
Creation begins with the act of ruling over “formless” and “void” chaos and “deep darkness” as well as over primordial “waters” that represent the same. cf. Below
God brings order and his rule over the “chaos” = Creation, the beginning of creating
The imagery of Genesis 1 is deep / layered: Days, Waters, Lights, Stars all are pregnant with meaning.
(Application) Creation comes about because God conquers the chaos…There is indeed chaos in this world… “darkness”… that needs to be “put in its place” … put in order!
(Application) God works in our lives - reigns over the chaos for us… we are a byproduct of it… The devil wants to destroy us… the fact that he hasn’t yet is a testimony to God protection… keeping at bay… holding back… gathers… his Spirit ruling over and above the chaotic dark waters that want to drown us!
(Application) God has called us into this creative work as image bearers… we too bring order to chaos and fill the empty spaces with God’s beauty and truth.
(Application) This is the story of the Cosmos NOW - still in need of order over Chaos… Filling empty spaces. - Hence: Subdue and have dominion over…Not ancient or bygone…Not just in the heavenliness… but here on earth…Not just God alone, but God with us as his image bearers …
Cosmic “Waters” and the Creation of Earth:
Psalm 24:1-2 - “The earth is the LORD's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.” (Founded on, resting on)
Gen. 1:6-8 - “And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.” (Creation = gathering and separating)
Gen. 1:9-10 - “And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.” (Creation = putting boundaries, gathering together, it is good)
Psalm 104:1-9 - “Bless the LORD, O my soul! O LORD my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent. He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind; he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire. He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight. The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.” (All of this Psalm is steeped in this, notice the rebuking, setting boundaries, holding back, etc.)
Proverbs 8:27-29 - “When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth…” (drew a circle = set boundaries and confine, literally like putting in a cell, cf. Assigned limits, waters cannot “transgress God’s commands”)
Job 9:8- “who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea;…” (trampling waves of the sea = process of stretching out heavens)
Job 38:6-11 - “On what were its bases sunk,
or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?
Psalm 29:3-4 - “The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD, over many waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.” (Authority “over waters”)
Psalm 74:12-17 - “Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. You split open springs and brooks; you dried up ever-flowing streams. Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun. You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth; you have made summer and winter.” (Yam /Yamm is translated “sea” but is also the sea-serpent god of the Ancient near-East; forming the world and God’s people meant destroying this monster, etc. / Leviathan = sea monster)
Job 7:12 - “Am I the sea, or a sea monster, that you set a guard over me?” (God guards the sea monster… holds it back)
Job 9:8- “who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea;” (God / Creation =Trampling waves of the sea yet again)
Hab 3:8-15 - “Was your wrath against the rivers, O LORD? Was your anger against the rivers, or your indignation against the sea, when you rode on your horses, on your chariot of salvation? You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows. Selah You split the earth with rivers. The mountains saw you and writhed; the raging waters swept on; the deep gave forth its voice; it lifted its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their place at the light of your arrows as they sped, at the flash of your glittering spear. You marched through the earth in fury; you threshed the nations in anger. You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck. Selah You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret. You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters.” (God is defeating both the earthly wicked, and the cosmic wicked for the sake of his people… he is a warrior against chaos and evil.)
Is. 51:9-11 - “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the LORD; awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over? And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” (God is the conqueror of Rahab the sea-serpent / Dragin.. he cut her into pieces. cf. Marduk and Tiamat, etc.)
Psalm 77:16,19 - “When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled…Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen.”
Nahum 1:2-4 - “The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither; the bloom of Lebanon withers.” (God as a warrior, fighting against evil - drying up and withering the “sea” and “rivers”; obvious the water imagery is linked to the imagery of the ANE, etc.)
* Note: This is not an exhaustive list
Spiritual Beings (“Angels”) and the Relationship to Stars / “Heavenly Hosts” / Things in the Heavens
Job 38:4-7 - “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (“Morning Stars” are spiritual beings singing while God creates)
Is 14:12-14 - “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’” (cf. The Devil and “Angels” called stars; also, the overlap between the celestial and the spiritual.)
Jude 1:6,12-13 - “And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day…These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.” (Wandering stars as term for evil teachers who lead astray, compared to angels who left position; they share the same fate - gloom and darkness forever.)
Nehemiah 9:6 - “You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.” (Heavenly Host = both stars and spiritual beings / “Angels”)
Deut. 4:19 - “And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven.” (Note they are the things being worshipped, and aligned with the people and gods around them.)
2 Kings 17:16-17 - “And they abandoned all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made for themselves metal images of two calves; and they made an Asherah and worshiped all the host of heaven and served Baal. And they burned their sons and their daughters as offerings and used divination and omens and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.” (The “hosts of heaven” are both stars as well as pagan gods (rebellious spiritual beings) that war against YHWH / God Most High.)
2 Kings 21:3 - “For he rebuilt the high places that Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he erected altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as Ahab king of Israel had done, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them.”
Gen. 2:1 - “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.”
Daniel 12:3 - “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” (Shining Stars = also equal those faithful to Lord, stars and people / “angels” linked )
Phil 2:15-16 - “…that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.” (Faithful “shine like lights” in the world, same descriptions as the lights in the world at creation.)
Rev. 1:16,20 - “In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength…As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lamp stands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lamp stands are the seven churches.” (See also Rev. 2:1)
Rev. 2:28 - “And I will give him the morning star.”
Rev. 3:1 - “And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.”
Rev. 6:13 “and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale.” (Note rebellious kings fighting, spiritual powers they are aligned with, etc.)
Rev. 8:10-12 - “The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter. The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night. (See also Rev. 9:1)
Rev. 12:1-4,9 - “And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth…And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Rebellious angels and Devil / Satan / Dragon linked with stars)
Rev. 22:16 - “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” (JESUS = the bright morning star = stars are more than simply balls of gas burning in space… tied to spiritual beings and the unseen realm.)
* Note: This is not an exhaustive list. It is worth looking at “Heavenly Host” as synonym or correlation for both.