God’s Story

Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible called the Pentateuch or Torah, the Hebrew word for “law” or “teachings”. They are also called the Books of Moses or the Law of Moses. These consist of the book of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. 

How could Moses have written about the creation of the world when he wasn’t there? The Bible is God’s word. He provided the words and human authors wrote them down. God was there. He saw all that He created and passed this information along to Moses in order for him to be able to write down God’s Biblical narrative. 

The Bible is the story of God and it is God’s special revelation to us. This means when we read the Bible, the word of God, God is speaking to us because they are His special words and this is how he communicated His story to Moses. But… we have to read it in order to know what God is saying to us. 

The world and everything in it, God’s creation, is His general revelation to everyone. This means that everyone who has ever lived knows that God exists because He has revealed himself through His creation. 

When we wake up each morning to a new sunrise and hear the birds and see the trees and pat our dog and interact with our friends, family and others, we cannot deny that there is an incredible, original, all powerful and creative creator behind this amazing world. Who can deny the beauty of his handiwork?

Genesis 1-2 & John 1:1-14 & 8:12

Creation of the Kingdom

In the first part of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, before there was anything else in the world, there was God. The creation story was not the beginning of God. He was always there. He is eternal which means He had no beginning and no end and He will always be here. Everything that God made is His and it always will be. He is the maker of heaven and earth. 

God is three persons in one: one God made up of the three persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They were all there together as one God, right at the beginning of the creation of the world, God’s Kingdom. Genesis 1:2 tells us that “…the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters”. 

On the first day, at the beginnings of the earth, God spoke Light into being. The light is pure and beautiful and good. The Light is Jesus, the Son. Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life” – John 8:12. 

This is interesting and something we must always remember because God separated the light from the darkness. This will be a theme through the whole Bible; God inviting us to walk with Him and to be children of Light” (Ephesians 5:8-14) while Satan tries to draw us away into his darkness. God separated the light from the darkness so that we can always remember the difference, the contrast between day and night, between light and darkness.

The sun wasn’t created until Day 4 when God created the great lights but we have seen that while the sun was for the day, the Light (Jesus) was for the whole universe and for eternity. Just as the Light was there from the beginning before the sun, so too the Light will be there at the end when there is no longer any sun. Revelation 22:5 says, “…they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them…”.

Jesus was also the Word that was there in the beginning with God and the Word also was God – John 1:1. Jesus was right there at the beginning of Genesis, creating the world. We can see many similarities between the first chapter of Genesis and the first chapter of the Gospel of John. 

In six days, God created the world including every living thing, all the seed-bearing plants and beasts of the earth, every winged bird and the great sea creatures. This was His story of creation, so that the world was ready to sustain life for the first people. 

Adam and Eve were the only created things that were created in the image of God. This was a separate act, distinct from the creation of animals and the first time that God used the plural form of God, the Trinity by using the term “us”. In ancient cultures, only kings were believed to image the many gods but here God was proclaiming that ALL people are made in the image of the one true God. This means that unlike all the animals and everything else, people are the only ones who are able to have a relationship with God. 

Because Jesus came to us in human form as a baby, fully God and fully man, and because of His life, death and resurrection, we too are able to take part in this resurrection to new life, all because of our relationship with Him. When Jesus returns at His second coming, those who believe in and follow Him will be fully transformed into the likeness of Christ. “…as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man” (1 Corinthians 15:49). 

After creating Adam and Eve, God rested on the seventh day as an example for us in how to live well; work hard but then take time to rest and focus on relationship with God. We are not required to keep the Sabbath today (more on this when we read Exodus) as Jesus is our Sabbath rest but it is still important to take time or even a whole day each week to be intentional about our time with God. 

The Sabbath points forward to our ultimate Sabbath rest when Jesus returns and we live with Him forever in His eternal Kingdom. 

God’s Garden

Genesis chapter 1 gives us an introduction to God’s story and His creation of the world and everything in it, including man and woman. Genesis chapter 2 goes into more detail about the creation of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden that became their home from where they would rule over God’s Kingdom. 

This is also where we see God’s beautiful design in the first marriage as He declares that man should leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. Adam and Eve obviously did not have an earthly father and mother but right from the beginning, God created them as husband and wife so that they also could become the first earthly father and mother. 

Another Bible theme to remember is that Adam and Eve’s marriage represents the marriage of the bride that God was seeking for His Son, Jesus. The final marriage at the very end of the Bible in the book of Revelation is the marriage of Jesus to His bride, the church of believers. 

Genesis 3-5

Temptation and Fall of Man

In chapter 2, Adam was given just one command from God, “Do not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”. God wanted Adam to love and obey Him freely. God did not want to force Adam to follow Him. Adam was free to choose God’s command or to not choose God’s command. 

Adam told Eve what God said because in chapter 3, Satan speaks to Eve. Eve tells Satan the serpent that if they eat from the tree in the middle of garden, or even if they touch it, they will die. 

Satan’s work from the beginning is to distort what God says and all that He has proclaimed “good”. He did not tell Eve what to do but he planted an idea and told Eve that she would not die. He said instead that she would be like God. 

This lie is the next important theme to remember as we read our Bibles because throughout the rest of the Bible, God’s people constantly believe there is a better way to live apart from God. They think they can be their own god. 

Satan was partly right in that when Adam and Eve fell to Satan’s temptation, their eyes were opened and they did have new knowledge; but it was the knowledge of Good and Evil that God never intended for them to have.

When God confronted them, they were afraid of Him and tried to hide. This was not what the serpent had promised. Adam and Eve played the blame game and Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. 

Satan’s lies are often mixed with some truth. This makes it harder for us to know what is true and to be able to recognise lies. The ONLY way we can know what is true is by reading the Bible. If we listen to what others say, we can only know ABOUT God. If we want to know God and hear Him for ourselves, we must read His Word to us for ourselves. 

When they disobeyed, Adam failed to rule God’s Kingdom by failing to warn Eve. Spiritual death through sin had broken their relationship with God and separated them from Him. Adam and Eve also began to die physically when they sinned. They did not die right away but spiritual death separated them from life with God in His perfect kingdom, the garden.

The First Gospel

After telling them the consequences of their actions, the first sin, God also gave Adam and Eve a reason to hope. He wasn’t prepared to lose them to Satan. The very first mention of the Gospel (Good News) is here in Genesis 3:15 when God tells Satan that he will war against Jesus (Eve’s seed). The rest of the Bible is about this war between Satan and Jesus and God’s claim on His people. The story of redemption begins…

The Gospel means the Good News that Jesus Christ will one day come and defeat Satan. The Gospel is the Good News that Jesus was the Son of God who died on the cross for the sins of everyone and was resurrected again to eternal life. Why did Jesus not stay dead and why is His resurrection important?

Because, Jesus took the punishment for the sins of the whole world with Him on the cross. But… because He was sinless, death could not hold Him down. His death defeated sin once and for all and the weight of sin was lifted from the perfect sinless sacrifice of Jesus. 

When we believe in this Good News about Jesus and repent of our sins, we too proclaim Jesus as our perfect sacrifice for sin and are no longer weighed down by our past. We are perfected through the blood of Jesus. 

Because Adam and Eve had now sinned, God needed to separate them from having access to the Tree of Life that was also in the Garden of Eden. This was to ensure that they could not eat from the Tree of Life and live forever in their sin. 

Take note of the fact that in Genesis 3:24, the entrance to the garden and access to the Tree of Life is toward the east. We will learn more about this as we read through the Old Testament but the Garden of Eden is a foreshadow of the presence of God in the tabernacle and the temple to come. Cain went out east of Eden, Babel was to the East and later in the Old Testament, God’s people were exiled to the east which was Babylon (Babel).

God was present with Adam and Eve in the Garden and He will be present with His people in the tabernacle and the temple. The entrance to these was always to the east, signifying the way back to God.

Cain and Abel

Sin and death had entered the world through Adam and Eve and were carried on by future generations. Cain and Abel both brought sacrifices to God but only Abel’s sacrifice was accepted by God. It may have been the quality of the offering or Cain’s attitude that caused God to deny his sacrifice. 

Cain’s unrestrained anger grew out of his jealousy of Abel. Cain obviously talked with God because God warned Cain that he must gain control over his actions and not allow them to lead him into sin. Sin starts with a thought, an idea. If we dwell on this idea, it will take root in our heart and eventually lead to action resulting in sin and consequently death. We must rule over our thoughts, our hearts and our actions with God’s help. We do this by knowing Him through His Word and by trusting Him. 

Cain’s wicked thoughts of jealousy caused him to ignore God, resulting in the first murder. Cain killed his brother Abel.

God punished Cain and cast him out of His presence, again toward the east. But… once again, a gracious God did not leave Cain without hope and He appointed a sign of protection over Cain so that He himself would not be harmed.

Adam lived to be 930 years old so he had plenty of time to have more sons and daughters. The oldest man to ever live was Noah’s grandfather Methuselah, who lived to be 969 years old (Genesis 5:27). Lifespans of hundreds of years were not unusual in ancient times.

Cain would have married either his sister or his niece which was not forbidden until Leviticus 18:6. Genetic defects only develop over a long period of time so were not an issue back then. 

After Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve had another son named Seth. Seth and some of his descendants were more Godly than Cain’s descendants who grew more and more wicked as time went on. They did not want to know God or walk in His ways. 

Cain and Adam’s Family Tree

Do not be discouraged when you come across generations and genealogies in the Bible. At first, these may seem somewhat pointless to you and appear as nothing more than long lists of unpronounceable names. But… as you become familiar with the Bible over future years, some of these names will become more and more familiar. The more acquainted you are with God’s big story, the more meaning these names will take on for you. 

At this point, if you recognise none of these names, please do not skip. At least approach this as an exercise in pronunciation and familiarisation of names that will take on more meaning as you get to know God through His Word. These genealogies prove that the Bible is true and it places these people in their proper place in the historical timeline. The Biblical genealogies also prove that Jesus really was who He said He was. 

Do you like spoilers? If you want to know what happens at the end of God’s story, you can go to the last few chapters of the last book of the Bible, Revelation chapters 19-21. See how many similarities there are between the first 3 chapters of the Bible and the last 4 chapters of the Bible when redemption has come through Jesus and everything is restored to how it was in the beginning.

Here in the first chapters of Genesis, we can see God’s creation of everything; the first man and woman, the first marriage, the first family, the beautiful Garden of Eden, then Satan corrupting everything and sin and death entering the world. Everything else that happens in the Bible between these first chapters of Genesis and the last chapters of Revelation, is the battle between the Light and the darkness, between God and Satan. 

The last 4 chapters of Revelation will tell you who wins and you will see how everything is made perfect again just like it was in beginning. But… at the end, if we believe in Jesus and follow Him, we will be there too. 

Genesis 6-9

Judgment of Man and Second Chances

People continued to become more and more wicked as time went on through the Genesis 1-11 story. There are several theories in 6:2 as to who the sons of God and daughters of men were. The most widely accepted one is that the sons of god were either fallen angels who had relations with the human daughters of men or that they were fallen angels who first possessed human beings and then had human relationships with the daughters of men.

There is also debate around an accurate translation of the Nephilim in 6:4 and whether these were actually giants, a result of the sons of God and daughters of men having children, or whether these were just powerful men. 

Noah and the Flood

God was grieving for the state of man that He had made but He found Noah who was righteous and walked with God, just like Adam and Eve had. God chose to judge the whole world but to start over again by saving Noah and his family. He gave Noah instructions for building the ark that would be their salvation. 

Here are some comparisons between Genesis 7:17 and Jesus:

• 40 Days = Duration of rain / Jesus tempted
• Lifted up = Ark lifted by water / Jesus lifted up on the cross
• Rose above the earth = Ark rose on water / Jesus resurrected and ascended to Heaven

The people laughed at Noah for building an a giant boat when there wasn’t even any water or rain. 

God told Noah to take all the various kinds of animals onto the ark, two of every kind of unclean animal and seven of every kind of clean animal. “Kind” is a much broader term than species so there were likely less species in those days. Also, the animals were not necessarily fully grown so smaller animals would have taken up much less room in the ark.

Everything that comes under the final judgment will perish like in the flood except for those who believe on the name of Jesus and will be saved, just like Noah and his family.

The Rainbow and God’s Promises

God blessed Noah and his sons and with a beautiful new world from which to begin again, told them to, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth”. 

God placed the rainbow in the sky as a visual reminder to Him, Noah and Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, that from this day forth, God would not flood the earth again. They were free to repopulate the whole earth and it was filled with the descendants of these three men.

Now, the flood did not rid the world of sin but it did rid the world of most of the sinful people who populated the earth. However, we see that Noah who was righteous and walked with God, sinned by getting drunk. This is the new beginning of a long line of Godly men who were far from perfect. 

Instead of honoring his father, Ham embarrassed and shamed Noah, so Noah cursed Ham’s son, Canaan. This is a name we will see again later on as God’s brings His people into the promised land of Canaan. 

This is also where we start to see that throughout His story, God does not use perfect people (SPOILER: There are no perfect people). We find that when God calls someone “righteous”, it means that they followed God and were faithful to Him, not that they never sinned.

Genesis 10-11

Noah’s Family Tree

The descendants of Noah in chapter 10 are called The Table of Nations. It lists many of the genealogies to show how and where all the nations were dispersed after the Tower of Babel. Babel refers to Babylon and is important to remember because it is often considered that it was from here that all of the false religions of the world originated. 

Tower of Babel and Beginning of Nations

After Noah’s descendants are listed in chapter 10, chapter 11 reflects back to how these nations and languages came to be. Just as chapter 2 of Genesis adds more detail to chapter 1, so here, chapter 11 of Genesis adds the missing detail from chapter 10. 

The Tower of Babel highlights how sin concentrated in one place can manifest exponentially. God’s command in Genesis 9:1 was to fill the earth, not to all hang out together in one place and build massive monuments. Here, the people of Babel are disobeying God and wanting to make their own name great by building a great city and a tower to heaven, “…otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4). This was in direct defiance of what God commanded. 

The arrogance of the people is almost humorous in thinking they were capable of building a tower that would reach to heaven. To emphasise how minimal their efforts were compared to God’s, 11:5 says, “The Lord came down to see…”. He couldn’t see it from heaven because it was so insignificant. This is a figure of speech as God is omnipresent (present everywhere) and would have been well aware of what they were doing. It may also have been a theophany (a special appearance or manifestation of God). 

Shem’s Family Tree

The descendants of Shem complete our time in Genesis 1-11 and bridge the years between the generations of Shem (Noah’s son), all the way through to Abram. Next, we will be introduced to God’s call of Abram (later known as Abraham) and a new covenant with him in Genesis 12. 

Genesis 1-11: Important Themes to Remember

1. God separates the light from the darkness. We are called to walk in the Light of Jesus. 
2. The whole Bible story points toward the final marriage of Jesus to His bride, the church that is full of believers in Jesus.
3. Satan’s job is to distort all that God made “good” and to lure us into believing lies about God and to walk in darkness instead of Light.
4. The entrance to the Tree of Life is to the east. 
5. There are no perfect people. God uses sinful men in His story. “Godly” or “righteous” means that they believed in and followed God, not that they were sinless. 
6. Babylon (Babel) is often considered the centre of origin of all false religions. 

The Bible as One Story – Homeschool Bible