Genesis
In studying the Old Testament
Believers it is important to understand the context in which they lived.
Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
The order of the words in the Word of
God are important. God is perfect and the Word that He gave us is perfect.
According to the Hebrew texts verse one properly reads:
God created the
heavens and the earth in the beginning.
This places the first word in the
bible to be God which is His proper position. Dr. Victor Paul Wierwille gives
us more insight into the first verse in Genesis in his book The Word's Way
page 3:
The words "in the beginning," breashith
in Hebrew, mean "origin" or genesis in Greek. The word
"God," Elohim, is plural to emphasize God's creative
greatness. "Heaven," shamayim, also is in the plural form
to point out the vastness of this expanse. The heavens are so extensive that
even though man has reached the moon, he has not begun to explore the
heavens which God created in the beginning.
Verse one emphasizes the greatness of
God and the magnitude of His creation.
GOD, Elohim, [pause--indicated
in Hebrew] creator and prime mover, created, brought
into existence that which had never before been in existence out of
materials that had never existed before, the vast,
magnificent heavens and the earth in the
beginning before there was anything else but God, at the very
first.
Verse one tells us of God, his
greatness and gives us the original heaven and earth. Verse 2 tells us that
something happened to it.
Genesis 1
:2 And the earth was
[became]
without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
God did not create the heavens and
earth in chaos. In the original Estrangelo Aramaic and Hebrew texts there is
no verb "to be," (from which 'was' is a form) but there is a word
meaning "to become". The second 'was' in the verse is italicized
telling us there is no word present in the text. The first 'was' is not
italicized telling us that there is a word in the text at that point. However,
it cannot be 'was' it is the word for 'became'. A cataclysmic event caused the
earth to become without form and void. This was when Lucifer attempted to
usurp the throne of God. The event was so violent that Lucifer and a third of
his angels were dispelled from heaven and the earth became without form and
void.
In regards to Genesis 1:1 to 1:2, we
don't know how long a period of time that was. The Word of God does not tell
us. However it is roughly calculated that the book of Genesis beginning at
chapter 1, verse 2 covers approximately 4000BC to 1500BC, which is 63% of Old
Testament time, a span of about 2500 years. Remember, any dates given for the
Old Testament are estimates. There are several chronologies published and they
don't quite agree with each other. Any references to time are to help
illustrate the order and scope of the Old Testament.
Since God had created everything in
verse 1 He only had to remake things.
God did all of this for you and me.
Without each integral part of the earth we would not survive. He did all of
this for His man.
All Adam and Eve had to do was Love
God, believe God, and dress and keep the garden.
Believing - definition - it is to have
confidence and trust in the information received to the end that the
information is acted upon.
Romans 10
:17 So then faith
[believing] cometh by
hearing,
and hearing by the Word of God.
Adam & Eve
Unbelief cometh by hearing.
Hearing by the wrong dividing of God's Word.
Genesis 3
:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field
which the Lord God had
made.
And he said unto the woman,
Yea, hath God said,
Ye shall not eat of every tree of
the garden?
What did the serpent attack? He
attacked the Word of God, because without having the Word of God, it is
impossible to believe God. The only way to believe God is to know what His
Word says, and then to have confidence and trust in the information received
to the extent that we act on it. If we do not have the correct or accurate
Word of God we cannot believe God, we will end up believing our opinions or
someone else's.
:2 And the woman said unto the serpent,
We may eat of the fruit of the
trees of the garden:
:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the
midst of the garden,
God hath said,
Ye shall
not eat of it,
neither
shall ye touch it,
lest ye die.
That is not what God
said.
This is what God had commanded Adam and
Eve:
Genesis 2
:16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,
of every
tree of the garden
thou mayest freely
eat:
:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
thou shalt
not eat of it:
for in
the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt
surely die.
Eve omits
freely and every (3:2), taking away God's
abundance.
She adds
fruit (3:2) and "neither shall ye touch"(3:3), making
God's Word unduly restrictive.
She changes
"thou shalt surely die" [i.e.: dying you shall die - emphatic
expression] (2:17) to "lest ye die"(3:3) - not
emphatic enough, a conditional phrase makes God's
Word uncertain.
She also changes
"tree of the knowledge of good and evil "(2:17) to "fruit
of the tree which is in the midst of the garden"(3:3).
Genesis 3
:4 And the serpent said unto the woman,
Ye shall not surely die.
:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be
opened,
and ye shall be as gods,
knowing
good and evil.
The serpent outright
contradicts the Word, "thou shalt not surely die"
Eve allowed herself to be talked out
of the promise of God, the basis for losing the Word is that she, Eve, no
longer believed the Word. The cause of the fall was the loss of the accurate
Word of God. What Eve was saying sounded a lot like the Word of God but it
wasn't exactly what God had said and she ended up believing her opinion, and
didn't receive the same results. This is the first time there was a problem
believing. We don't know how long they were in the garden up until that time.
People will make God seem:
