Tag: Genesis

It Grieved Him at His Heart, Part 1

“And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart”.  (Genesis 6:6)

I chose the title for this because of the incredible reverse of sentiment from the Lord in only six chapters of the first book of the Bible. As the book begins we see God creating the world. It is a wonderful display of His awesome power and His purpose.  He creates man and woman made in His image.  Before long though, sin enters the picture and what was once bathed in innocence becomes shattered by the Fall.  [The Fall was the willful disobedience of Adam and Eve.]  They broke the fellowship with God and evil was unleashed causing the destruction to begin. One right after the other events began happening.  We had Adam and Eve getting expelled from the garden of Eden, next we saw their first son become a murderer, evil bred still more evil and the world He created became so vile that God spoke those words I began with.  God started out saying, “It was good”, He said it repeatedly but ended by saying, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” (Genesis 6:7)

I hope you read and study the Holy Bible.  It provides a fantastic spiritual history for you.

Before we get into the heart of things let us start with some background information about Genesis.  There are 50 chapters in the book of Genesis comprised of 1,533 verses holding 38,267 words.  The key word for the entire book is “Beginnings”.  A key verse for the topic I am addressing is Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”   The topic I am covering with this title is the first half of the book, “the four great events”.  Another key verse is Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”  Please note that Christ is that seed of woman.

Genesis was written by Moses 1450 – 1410 B.C. and Moses was born at least three centuries after the events in Genesis ended.  In actuality, the book was written by God but breathed through Moses.  We will be dealing with what is called, “The Fertile Crescent”, in chapters 1-11 which spanned more than 2,000 years and 1500 miles. We will learn why God chose Israel to be His redemptive people by the time we end chapter 11.  We will only be focusing on the first 11 of 50 chapters, therefore how God chose Israel will be covered with chapters 12 to 50. In this topic, we will be covering the four great events which are: Creation– God is the sovereign Creator of matter, energy, space and time. Man is the pinnacle of the creation. The Fall– Creation is followed by corruption. Man gets separated from God then gets separated from man. Despite the curse of the Fall, God promised hope of redemption through the seed of the woman (Chapter 3, verse 15). The Flood– As man multiplied, sin multiplied until God had enough and was compelled to destroy humanity with exception of Noah and his family. The Nations– the unity of the human race, we are all children of Adam through Noah. Because of the rebellion at the tower of Babel, God fragments the original culture and language of post flood and scatters people over the face of the earth.  In a future segment, I will cover the second half which is, “The Four Great People”.

Ok, on to the beginning. As I was reading the book of Genesis I connected with several things I hadn’t before. The presence of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, reproduction of its own kind, the unknown population and the amount of grief the Lord experienced. Each time you study a part of the Bible the Lord will allow you some more meat to digest. So He opened my eyes on these.

I won’t go verse by verse through the first seven days of creation because you can read that for yourself.  I will note however that in verse 4 of the first chapter God said the first, “it was good”.  In verse 10 when the waters were separate from the land called earth he said the second, “it was good”. I want to mention that God made the stars to light the earth at night and he separated the light from darkness because we were meant to be in the light.  Good goes to light and evil goes to darkness. See verse 16.  I would also like to point out from verse 11 that He made the grasses and the herbs and the plants and fruit, “Whose seed is in itself.” In other words, it will always be the same. You can’t see wheat growing into a corn stalk or rice becoming apples because it is whose seed is in itself.  How awesome is that. In verse 12 He said, “it is good” once again and again in verse 18 He said it.  Then in verse 21 we see that God saw that it was good.  God then made man and women in His own image. He formed Adam form the dust of the ground. No rain had occurred yet, nor had the ground been tilled.

Before we get too far into chapter 2 of Genesis I have a question for you.  Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus was there during the creation?  That is an incredible thing to get our arms around as human beings. He was there. He always was, even at the beginning we can see the mystery of Jesus Christ. The very first verse speaks of the plurality in the Godhead.  It is indicating the Trinity.  God is the Hebrew word Elohim.  El is a singular term for God and the im ending makes it plural so we have, “In the beginning Gods…” There are other signs and types throughout Genesis which I will visit later, but for now we can already see Jesus the Christ at work in the creation. In Colossians 1:16 it claims it was by Him (Jesus) that all things were created. In 1 Corinthians 8:6 it says all things came from God, but they came through Jesus Christ. Hebrews 1:2, 10-12 says that through Jesus the universe was made and Psalm 102:24-27 refers to Elohim as the One who’s hands made the universe. We must understand that Jesus was speaking the truth when He said He was one with the Father. Let us look at Genesis 1:26, Who is the us? It’s the Father, the son and the Holy Ghost.  Jesus was there and was an instrument of the creation. In Genesis 3:8 who walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden?  God the father is a spirit. (John 4:24) Only Jesus Christ takes on a form. (Hebrews 10:5) We will re-visit this later with the introduction of Melchizedek but there already is plenty of evidence Jesus Christ was there before the world was ever created and is still with us today. The same today as yesterday. Amen! When I think of this I can only say wow! And remain totally amazed and in awe.

Next time I will address the Fall in Chapter 2 and the evil overcoming mankind before the flood that brought that grieving to the Lord. For now, please read Genesis and be encouraged by it. The evil and darkness that is in the world can seem bleak but God has a plan. We have hope. You are in His plan and salvation is available.

To jump to part 2 click here.

God bless you,

The Tubthumper

 

In God’s Image, Really?

imageWhat do you think when you read that man was created in God’s image.  We could all write pages and pages on what is all encompassed within being created in God’s image. The first thought I have is that God created us perfect and then man’s sin with Satan’s treachery ruined it all. Have you ever thought about all the absolutely beautiful things in the world? Sometimes I see something and I think “Oh my, that is so beautiful… how can it be?” Can you possibly imagine how beautiful God is? My pastor said yesterday that to be with Him someday and see that awesome beauty will be like I have never, ever seen before. That is a good first thought.  It is a thought about His beauty, His greatness, His power and His love. And how can it be that we would be created in that image?

In Genesis 1:26-27 it says, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

I think these verses actually refer to the nature of man and not how we look. I don’t think it is referring to the physical bodies we are in now. One clue I have is that my body is deteriorating fast and God’s body has none of these effects.

I believe that even in my best years, (and in my prime I was a handsome and fit man if I don’t say so myself) I could never have held a candle to the image of God. Never! We have no clear image of God’s beauty and looks.  No person has ever seen God.  John wrote, “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Jesus said in John14:9, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” 

The very first sentence in Genesis 1:27 say’s a lot. God created, therefore, anyone believing the Bible is truly the word of God must without question put aside any thoughts of evolution. We did not evolve. We were created.  Because we were created in the image of God, He must have had a plan for us. He must have designed a purpose. He must have a divine purpose for each of us when we were created or as a whole when mankind was created. There are scriptures that indicate we were created for Him and we were created for His pleasure. “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him.” (Colossians 1:16) “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” (Revelation 4:11)

The Bible indicates in many passages that God is a Spirit. Because we were created in His image we then have a spirit. We were created in His image and have a body, a soul and a spirit. Certainly and evidently we have no divine trinity like He does but we do have a type of triune existence that is much inferior to His. Much, very much inferior to His.  (Created in his image.) Remember that an image is simply a reflection. We experience the spirit existence when we pray and when we hear that still small voice within. It is the Holy Spirit (God’s spirit) communicating with our spirit. What about the soul, the soul, is hard to understand and cannot be explained because it is one of God’s great mysteries Think of how we think, if you can. I think of my being and who I am deep down.  Actually this soul is the inner you and it is the person God sees. The person you show other humans is not really you. Only you and God know the real you. It is that part that only God knows that is the soul. It is what drives your thoughts, your conscience, your intellect and common sense and it is your will. The will is important because it is there the battle rages between flesh and spirit. The fact we were created with will means we have choice. What a mystery and a wonder this is. With the soul he created us with emotion and the ability to love. Is there another word in the Bible mentioned more than the word love? With some research you will find the word love shows up in different numbers depending on what version of the Bible you are reading.  Regardless of the version, however, love comes up huge.  The King James Bible shows the word love 314 times, the word love’s appears once, the word loved appears 98 times, the word lovedst appeared twice and the word lovely appears 4 times. In the New American Standard version the word love appears 133 times in the Old Testament and 215 times in the New Testament.  In the New International Version the word love shows up 319 times in the Old and 232 times in the New Testament.  Lastly in the New Revised Standard version the word love appears 317 times in the Old and 221 times in the New Testament. Lot’s of love. God is love and he created us with the capacity to love. He wants us to love. Through our loving and His love we glorify God and we demonstrate the Glory of God which is our purpose. Love is one of His pleasures. We were created for His pleasure.

God created us in His image so that He can have fellowship with us and we can fellowship with Him. God desires our fellowship. He desires to share all the glory and beauty of His love with us. We are to stay in fellowship through prayer and the reading of His word.  It seems like God wants to have an ongoing meaningful relationship of love with all He created. Earlier it was mentioned that He created man for His pleasure. His pleasure is to love us and to be loved by us. His pleasure is to have us glorify God.  Those that refuse to accept His love and deny Him do so by exercising that free will He provided in creation. He made it clear that to deny Christ is to deny life. If you are reading this and your life is empty and useless then turn to the one who gives life and love. As Elmer Towns always says, “Believe and live.”

I must conclude with a thesis of what it means to be created in God’s image is that we were created with the capacity to love and it is God’s desire that we share His love.  That is His pleasure.  We are beings that were created as loving beings.  We were filled with God’s love.CreatedinGodsImage5th

There is so much more to be said. Of course we know of the horrible act in the Garden where evil and hate became real. That became real along with the choice to love or to hate. (That is another subject for another time.)

God bless your day today,

“The Tubthumper”