The Historical Narrative of GENESIS April 6, 2025
Biblical Theology = the Story (storyline) of the Scriptures. …”Big Story Chapters” = Creation …Fall …Redemption …Restoration
…More than “wise sayings” or “inspirational writings”—These writings have an agenda! …The Bible is Seeking to “Solve a Problem”!!
Jn 20:30-31 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
2Tim 3:15-17 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
The Scriptures are designed/compiled to “convince” us of this concept called “salvation” (“Redemption”) and a salvation that is “Only in Jesus the Christ”
Our 5 Fallen-World Problems!
(1) Sin .
(2) Flesh
(3) The Devil
(4) The World
(5) The Curse/Judgment of God
“Most attempts to explain the world that are popular nowadays do not, it seems to me, do the job. One school of thought says man’s real problem is that society has failed him in some way. People are bad because they are uneducated, and if they were just instructed properly they would be a lot nicer to each other or would not do stupid things that get them into trouble. Or folks falter because they are poor. Poverty causes crime, and if wealth were spread around a bit more evenly, then people wouldn’t take things that did not belong to them. Eliminate ignorance and poverty (they say), and crime would pretty much be eliminated too.” —Gregory Koukl, “The Story of Reality”, p. 75
The Pervasiveness of These Problems
Gen 4 …Meet Cain—the Killer!
Gen 3:23 - 4:11 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”
8 Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. 9 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 And the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. 11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
v. 23-24 …still keeping the ground—
v. 1-2 …being fruitful and multiplying
v. 3-4 …man’s awareness to “bring an offering” to the Lord
v. 5… Man’s “inner noise”!! (“Cain was very angry”)
…there exists in man some “stuff” that can go sideways at any moment; we’ve got “flammable material” on board (all of us should be wearing a “Caution Sign” (Caution: Flammable Materials on Board)
…Cain is about to put on display the “paralyzing” and “enslaving” nature of the “forces within” …His “Countenance/face has fallen”—He has Lost Motivation …He is Powerfully Confused and Disoriented!—He’s being given the option to “DO-RIGHT”!!
– This is a Powerful Explanation for how the human pathways to destruction operate in man! …Strong FEELINGS, De-Motivated Will, Corrupt Confusion …THEN—v. 7
v. 7 …”If you do well” …”If not, SIN is Crouching at the Door”
…Clearly, a Massive Problem with Man sits in the arena of His WILL!
Rom 7:15-19 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Eph 2:1-3 1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Scripture’s description of the Will’s Entanglements (We should be careful how we throw around the term “man’s free-will”—It is a sloppy phrase that needs more qualifying. …Are you saying that there are NO FORCES acting on the human will? …When I see Cain (or other Biblical Characters) and I see “Sin that is an Active Force” …”the Devil that is a Deceiving Force” …”the Flesh that has it’s own corrupted appetites and impulses” …the World that is corrupted and under the “god-ship” of Satan …Then I am hard pressed to stand here and say that “The Human Will is FREE”
– What I’m left with is either saying that: (a) “These forces are not that bad/not that strong; they’re pretty inconsequential really …or (b) “Man has within him a power to subdue and rule sin, Satan, the flesh, etc.”. (…remember, God created “harmony” between man and creation—the Fall brought chaos & corruption. Man no longer has authority over creation, over demons, over death! …is “Death” or “Sickness” going to act upon you in a way that you are “Free” to Resist?
– Does the Human Will NEED a Savior? …Is it in a condition that MUST first be touched by the Grace of God for that Will to Function in a liberated way? (if God didn’t touch or ‘nudge’ you—would you choose righteousness?)
v. 8 …Life doesn’t have to get TOO Complicated for the Worst to Come Out of Us!!
…There is a corruption that is IN US and it is powerfully operating everyday in a fallen world!
Gen 6 …Meet the Generation of Noah
Gen 6:1-8
1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
v. 5 …Things are NOT improving—the Corruption is Spreading and Deepening!
?? – Does the Bible Teach the “Inherent Innocence” of man and the “Natural Goodness” of humanity? …
v. 7 …The Concept of “The Judgment of God”
…God clearly interacts with human sin and corruption with chosen acts of judgment: there is the consequence of Death (Gen 2, 3); the curse/judgment of man, woman, & serpent (Gen 3); the expelling from Eden (Gen 3); the curse upon Cain (Gen 4); the curse of a global flood (Gen 6)
Gen 11 …Meet the Fallen Tenacity of Self-Idolatry
Gen 11:1-9 1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. 2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. 3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8 So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
• Insights on the Nature of man’s heart & motive …This is a Version of the Creation Mandate—Using skills, intellect, knowledge—but now it is for the purpose of SELF-EXALTATION. …Man wants God’s creation to SERVE His Own Wayward Purpose(s)
• Humanity Has Great “Collective” Power & Capability!! …What will He do with that?
“To anyone who thinks deeper than the morning headlines, the atrocity of September 11 forms part of the wider record of the dark catalog of human evil in modern history and pales besides the worst of the evils. The Ottoman massacre of one and a half million Armenians in World War I and the Rwandan and Sudanese massacres in the 1990’s in which nearly three million people died, are like a pair of grisly bookends that frame the twentieth century as the most murderous century in all history. In between, such atrocities as the Ukraine terror famine, Auschwitz, the rape of Nanking, the Burma railway, the Soviet Gulag, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Cambodian killing fields, and the massacres in Bangladesh and Yugoslavia form an indelible stain on our human story. Leaving aside the hundred million human beings killed in the century’s wars, more than one hundred million more killed by their fellow human beings in political repression, massacre, and genocide. …It is sometimes argued that the modern world is more humane than ever before, and in some ways it is. The paradox, however, is that we save more victims than ever before and slaughter more victims than ever before.” —Os Guinness, “Unspeakable”, p. 4
…THIS is what humanity does with the “Creation Mandate” to use his intellect, talents, and creativity to have “dominion” over the earth! …He takes up His OWN Interests and Self-Exaltation—at the Expense of others!!
“Far from being essentially good—and improving all the time with occasional lapses on the upward evolutionary path to perfection—our human nature is blatantly contradictory. Its nobility and evident goodness are offset by an equally evident propensity to plan and carry out acts of the most malevolent and destructive kind—whether brazenly monstruous, devilishly subtle, or yawningly routine. Quite apart from the gruesome record of the last century, the evidence of history and our own hearts is clear: we are capable of the very best and the very worst.” —Os Guinness, “Unspeakable”, p. 36
What if These “5 Problems” are Still Alive-and-Well in 2025? …what if they touch each of us thoroughly …each relationship …every aspect of life on earth?