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DISCOVER GENESIS
An exploratory Bible course for disciples of Christ
PART 1 -- The Torah of CREATION (Genesis 1:1 to 2:4)
GENESIS 1
God began everything without strife or death. -- (DATE: Beginning of the year of Adam’s creation)
OUTLINE of Genesis 1
01. God created the heavens and the earth. (1:1)
02. The water-covered earth was waste and void. (1:2)
03. DAY 1 -- God created light in darkness. (1:3-5)
04. DAY 2 -- God created an expanse between waters. (1:6-8)
05. DAY 3 -- God created the dry land, the seas and plants. (1:9-13)
06. DAY 4 -- God created the sun, the moon and stars. (1:14-19)
07. DAY 5 -- God created fish and birds. (1:20-23)
08. DAY 6 -- God created animals on earth. (1:24-25)
09. DAY 6 -- God created man in his image as male and female. (1:26-27)
10. DAY 6 -- God’s assignments for us humans (1:28-31)
11. DAY 7 -- God’s rest completed his creation. (2:1-4)
DISCOVER Genesis 1: The Bible does not reveal God’s origin, but it starts with God working through His Spirit (Genesis 1:2) and His Word (Genesis 1:3; John 1:1-4). In this cooperation of the Trinity (God + divine Spirit + divine Word) there was no strife, as each of them worked in complete harmony, doing what they could to accomplish perfectly and well the work God had set out to do. This included first the creation of the heavens and of a formless and void earth, overflowing with the darkness of the deep, over which God’s Spirit hovered. -- Then God said that there should be light, and it was so. Seeing that this light was good, God separated it from the darkness and called the former day and the latter night. This took until evening had turned into morning, marking the first day of creation. -- On the second day God said that there should be an expanse, which was to separate the waters, so that some were above it and some under it, and he named this expanse heavens. -- On the third day of creation God said that the waters under the expanse should be gathered in one place, so that dry land could appear from under it. He then proceeded to call the land earth and the water seas. And God saw that what he had done was good, and went on to command that the earth should sprout vegetation and plants that would yield seeds and fruit, each one according to its kind. By the time he had confirmed that what he had made was good, another day had passed. -- On the fourth day, God said that there should be lights in the expanse of the heavens, to separate the day from the night. And he made them so that they would be signs for passing seasons, for days and for years as they would light the earth. And God made the two large lights, one to rule the day and one to rule the night and all the stars, which he set into the expanse, to give light by day and night. And once he had confirmed that it was all good, the day had come and gone. -- On the fifth day God said that there should be swarms of living creatures in the seas and birds to fly across the expanse of the heavens. So he made all creatures, big and small, according to their kind, swimming in the seas, and every winged bird, each according to their kind. And when God saw that what he had made was good, he blessed them, so that the fish and sea creatures would populate the seas and the birds the earth. By then, another evening and morning had passed. -- On the sixth day God said that the Earth was to bring forth all kinds of living creatures, according to their kind. And the result was livestock and creeping things and all the beasts of the land according to their kinds. Then God said that he would make man in his own image and likeness, and he would give him dominion over all the fish in the sea, the birds of the heavens and the livestock and animals on all the earth, as well as all the creeping things he had made. And so God created man in his own image, male and female, and he blessed them, so that they would be fruitful and multiply to fill the earth and subdue it. He commanded them to establish dominion over all that is in the sea, sky and earth, giving him and to every other thing that has the breath of life on earth and in the seas the yield of every plant, seed and fruit as food. And God beheld everything he had done the past days and beheld that it was very good. -- On the seventh day God completed his work of creation. With his work on creation done, God rested on this seventh day since he had started this endeavor. For this reason, because God could rest from his work on this seventh day, it is made a holy day, as it marked the completion of God’s creation.
PRAYER: Thank you our heavenly Father, for creating everything in our world with your Holy Spirit and through your divine Word. We praise you and give glory to you for the goodness and beauty of your creation. We cannot comprehend all that you have done and that you created us in your image to be able to know you and understand your divine Word. Thank you that you completed your work of creation so that we can perceive your eternal power and divine nature in the things you have made. Amen.
QUESTION 1: In what steps did God create the heavens, the earth and all that is in them?
QUOTES: From Genesis 1 we find one verse quoted two times in the New Testament:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27) Part of this verse is QUOTED in
Matthew 19:3-6 -- “3 And Pharisees came up to him (i.e. to Jesus) and tested him by asking, ‘Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?’ 4 He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female,’ 5 and said, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate’.” -- Genesis 1:27 is also QUOTED in
Mark 10:6 -- “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female’.” -- Also from the beginning of Genesis 2 we find one verse quoted in the New Testament:
“And on the seventh day God completed his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.” (Genesis 2:2) Part of this verse is QUOTED in
Hebrews 4:4 -- “For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his works’.”
In addition we find 21 allusions in the New Testament to verses in Genesis 1:1 to 2:4 about creation. They are the following: All of Genesis 1 is ALLUDED to in Hebrews 11:3 (by faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God) -- Genesis 1:1 is ALLUDED to in John 1:1 (In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God) -- Genesis 1:2+6+9 is ALLUDED to in 2 Peter 3:5 (the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God) -- Genesis 1:3 is ALLUDED to in 2 Corinthians 4:6 (the God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ) -- Genesis 1:11+12 is ALLUDED to in 1 Corinthians 15:38 (God gives a seed the body he has chosen, and each kind of seed its own body) and in Hebrews 6:7 (through rain and the blessing of God the land produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it was cultivated) -- Genesis 1:14 is ALLUDED to in Acts 17:26 (‘God made from one man every nation of mankind ..., having determined allotted periods ...’ This last phrase refers to the lights in the expanse of heaven created by God to be for signs and for seasons.) -- Genesis 1:20+24 is ALLUDED to in 1 Corinthians 15:39 (for not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish) -- Genesis 1:24 is ALLUDED to in Acts 10:12 (Peter saw a sheet descending from heaven in which were all kinds of animals and reptiles and birds of the air, which were unclean for him as Jew. Then Peter was to eat these unclean animals as a sign for him to share the Gospel with the Gentiles, who were for him unclean.) and in Acts 11:6 (Peter is now in Jerusalem referring to the vision he had about the many different animals, reptiles and birds, which were unclean for him, and which God commanded him to eat as a sign for him to accept the unclean Gentiles into the church of Christ) -- Genesis 1:26+27 is ALLUDED to in three NT verses: in Ephesians 4:24 (Paul admonished the Ephesians to ‘put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness’, which refers to God creating man in his image) and in Colossians 3:10 (Paul similarly exhorts the Colossians to ‘put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator’) and in James 3:9 (with the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with the same tongue we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. This latter formulation again refers to God creating man in his likeness.) -- Genesis 1:27 is ALLUDED to in four NT verses: in Acts 17:29 (Paul said to the men of Athens referring to us humans: ‘Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone’, which indirectly refers to God creating man in His image) and in Romans 8:29 (For those whom God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.) and in 1 Corinthians 11:7 (For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God) and in 1 Timothy 2:13 (‘For Adam was formed first, then Eve’, which refers to the male being mentioned before the female in this Genesis verse) -- Genesis 1:28 is ALLUDED to in Acts 17:26 (Paul testified to the Athenians: ‘God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth’) -- Genesis 1:30 is ALLUDED to in Acts 11:6 (Peter before the other Apostles in Jerusalem recounts the vision he had: ‘Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air’, which is similar to the list of animals about whom God said that he would provide food for them.) -- Genesis 1:31 is ALLUDED to in 1 Timothy 4:4 (‘For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving’, referring to everything that God had created being very good.) -- Genesis 2:2 is ALLUDED to in Hebrews 4:10 (In reference to God resting on the seventh day, because he had completed his creation, the writer of the letter to the Letter to the Hebrews says, ‘whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.’ This rest we have by faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior).