Pastor Scott
Jonas
Beginnings
Genesis 1-4
4/14/18
“In the
Beginning”
Over the
next few months, we are going on a deep dive into the book of Genesis. Next to the Gospels, Genesis is the church’s
most foundational reading. If you get
Genesis wrong, then you will get everything that comes after it wrong. If you don’t understand the truths in the
beginning then you will not understand Jesus.
Genesis is the opening chapter to the history of Salvation. You can’t skip the opening chapter and expect
to follow the dramatic reveal at the end of the story. Easter is that dramatic reveal. Today, we are
going back to the beginning so we can appreciate the resurrection.
I say the
“History of Salvation” on purpose.
Genesis is history. Francis
Schaeffer wrote a book the year I was born called “Genesis in Space and Time.” Schaeffer wants to build the case that
Genesis is rooted in history. The events
that are described happened at a real place at a real time. Moses speaks of Genesis as history that took
place before he was born. Jesus speaks
of Genesis as history. When Jesus was
teaching on the last days he said, “For in those days there will be such
tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created
until now, and never will be.” Jesus
says the history of the World is from the beginning of creation to Jesus
arrival on earth to the end.
Genesis is history but it is
more. It is also the story of
salvation. It is not just to give us
facts and places and names. Genesis
gives us facts and places and names in order to show God’s plan for the
world. He created this heaven and earth
and it was good. His creation rebelled
against Him. He stayed connected to them
through his presence and words. Eventually
he would send the Word to be present for the last phase of salvation. Genesis is the History of Salvation.
Today we focus on the first four
chapters of the book. If you only had
these first four chapters you could still know a lot about God’s plan for
Salvation. Chapter 1, In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth over 6 days and it was good. Chapter 2, goes into detail how God created
man and woman, adam and eve. They too
are good and God creates them in his own image so they can bless the rest of
creation. Chapter 3, the serpent
contradicts God’s words and Eve and Adam fall for it. Sin enters the garden and contaminates the
world. The consequences are death but
God promises a savior. Chapter 4, The
first family is thrown into the bleak wilderness where it is a dog eat dog
world. Brother kills brother. Cain murders Able. The next generation is worse than the first. Everything seems to be decaying. If a savior doesn’t come soon, creation will
destroy itself. That is the first four
chapters of the Bible.
Creation’s dire situation doesn’t
really change from Genesis chapter 4 until Christ comes in John chapter 1. Everything seems to be falling apart in the
rest of Genesis, as well as the eras of Pentetuch, Judges, the Kings and the
prophets. Moses prayed, If a savior
doesn’t come soon, creation will destroy itself. Joshua, King David and Isaiah all prayed the
same prayer. Come Saviour, your creation
desperately needs rescueing. That is why
Genesis 1-4 is so foundational.
Lutherans have always understood
this. We get that the fall is pivotal to
understanding Jesus. Because of Adam and
Eve, we need Jesus. We need his
restoration. If we confess our sins, God
is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.” Adam and Eve sinned which required a new
behavior, “repentance.” Our first
ancestors needed to learn to admit their failure, turn the other way and ask
God to make them new. In Genesis 3 we
became sinners.
I say this is pivotal for a reason. A pivot is hinge like on a door. It connects two objects and allows those two
objects to go in different directions.
Genesis chapter 3 is the hinge between a perfect creation and a spoiled
creation. It connects God saying
“Creation is good” and “Creation knows
evil.” Before this pivot point of the
serpent, everything is functioning as it was designed. Afterwards, people can use themselves in ways
not prescribed by the manufacturer’s recommendations. Before the tree of Good and evil, all is bliss. After, all is misery.
Lutherans recognize this key truth in
our teaching and our worship. The Ten
commandments teach that we can’t fully obey God’s words just like Adam didn’t
fully obey. The Lord’s prayer tells us
we need to repent just like Eve needed to repent. In our Lutheran services, we always confess
that we are by nature sinful and unclean, we have sinned against the Lord in
thought word and deed by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We are sorry that we have not loved God with
our whole heart or our neighbors as ourselves.
We recognize that we justly deserve God’s present and eternal
punishment. We plead with the Father for
the sake of his son to have mercy on us.”
The need for that confession was pivotal in Genesis 3 and it is still
pivotal.
But what if we emphasize Genesis 3
without what comes before or after? What
if we talk about confession without a good creation preceding it and without a
redeemer proceeding? Then we have a
hinge without a door and without a frame.
We have something valuable but it is not complete. We need all three a hinge, a door and a
frame. So too, we need to emphasize a
Good creation, the fall and the savior.
Imagine someone asks you how does God
feel about humanity. You remember your
catechism, the ten commandments and say, “We fail to Love the Lord with all of
our heart and soul and mind.” You think
about the question, “How does God feel about humanity” and remember Genesis chapter 3. You say, “God says we are like Adam and eve,
sinners who need to repent.” You
remember the worship service and say, “We are by nature sinful and
unclean.” You even remember the news and
say, “The world is filled with horrible things.” All of this is true but it is incomplete. It
correctly points to our sin and even our need for a savior but it leaves out
the very beginning of the story. Without
the very beginning we get stuck.
In the beginning, it was just the
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
There was nothing else. No
universe. No Angels. No People.
There was perfect love and unity between the three persons of the
trinity. Imagine an ideal family of
three, that has nothing but Light, Affection and Truth. They didn’t need anything. But they had so much love that they wanted to
share it. They only way to share it was
to create. They formed light and
darkness, planets and stars, land and water, animals and people in order to
spread their happiness. It took seven
days to complete this new system. When
God looked at it all, he smiled and said, “It is good.”
Before we emphasize man’s sinfulness,
we must emphasize the teaching of the introductory chapter. The Lord created everything out of love. Creation was at peace. The way we teach about heaven is the way the
earth was in the beginning. Doesn’t that
make you want to get back there, to that time and place in history? The Lord walked in paradise side by side with
his people. We had that. We could talk to God face to face. We could have a conversation with a
giraffe. There was no death or
loneliness or injustice. That is a
foundational part of the story. You
don’t get that if you begin with “God says we are sinful beings.”
In our historical liturgy we always
have an extensive confession that reminds us of the Fall. But where is the beginning? It’s there, if you look. In the creed, we say ,”I believe in God the
Father almighty maker of heaven and earth.”
It is the first thing we proclaim.
It doesn’t explicitly state the goodness of that original creation. So maybe we need to remember it when we say
it together. As you start any of the
creeds, remind yourself how everything started.
There was no sinful nature.
Everything and everyone was happy.
Mountains were happy, so were oceans, and sheep. “I believe in God the Father, maker of a
happy heaven and earth.”
You can also take yourself back to
the beginning when I say the invocation, “We begin in the name of the father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” That
is all there was before Genesis. They
were complete. Yet they created something
to love. When you hear the words of the
invocation remember what it was like before the history of Salvation.
Then after Genesis 1 and 2 then we go
to Adam and Eve’s terrible descent into sin.
That descent became our nature. They passed on their contaminated bodies
and souls to Cain and Able. Eventually
they passed them on to us. We are born
into the same situation. If there is no
savior then we will not survive. So we
confess and hope.
Then comes the final part of the
story, The Father sends the son. Jesus
lives, and dies. He volunteers to be
crucified side by side with his creation.
Three days later, he rises from the dead. The consequences of sin is being reversed by
the Holy Spirit. We are slowly but
surely returning to the Garden. Someday
we will walk side by side with all of the redeemed. The history of Salvation will end with Jesus
coming down on the clouds and Looking over his creation. He will see the whole earth and say, “It is
good.”