Rooting Path · Old Testament Survey · Lesson 1 of 7 · In the Beginning: A Good World, a Wayward People · about 18 min
Genesis 1–11. On the timeline this is ‘Primeval History’, and it records only five events: the creation of the heavens and the earth, the fall, Cain killing Abel, the flood and God’s covenant with Noah, and the tower of Babel. This stretch cannot be dated, and this course does not discuss dates; what we look for is who God is, who we are, and what went wrong between us and God.
The first page of the Old Testament:
27God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 31God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. There was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.
Gen 1:27, 31 · WEB
After the man and woman ate the fruit God had told them not to eat (verse 15 is what God said to the serpent):
8They heard the LORD God’s voice walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9The LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” 15I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”
Gen 3:8–9, 15 · WEB
Lesson 1 of How to Read the Bible said that the 66 books are one story. This course walks through the first and larger part of that story—the Old Testament—from the beginning, in seven lessons. Each lesson asks just three things: where is this part of the story? What did God say and do? How does it point to Christ?
The Old Testament begins with ‘good’, not with ‘sin’. God made the heavens and the earth, and made people, and “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” (Gen 1:31) People were made in God’s image—and because this stands in the very first chapter of the Bible, a person’s worth is settled right here: not by what they can do or what they have, but by the fact that they are made in the image of God.
How to understand the ‘days’ of Genesis 1 and the way God created is something churches understand differently; please ask your own church. This lesson looks only at what the chapter wants to tell every reader: the world was made by God, and it was good.
Then people went astray. The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die” (Gen 3:4); eat it, and “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5). The man and woman did not trust God’s word; they wanted to be their own masters and decide good and evil for themselves. Having eaten, the first thing they did was hide: they “hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” (Gen 3:8)
But it is God who speaks first: “The LORD God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Gen 3:9) It is not that God did not know where the man was; this is the voice of someone searching. From this sentence on, the whole Bible is God searching for people.
Sin did not stop with one person. In the next generation, “Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him” (Gen 4:8); later still, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was continually only evil” (Gen 6:5); after the flood, people gathered again to build a tower, to “make a name for ourselves” (Gen 11:4). From a mouthful of fruit, to a human life, to an earth full of evil, to a tower meant to reach the sky—Genesis 1–11 is the record of sin spreading.
Yet in every judgment, God left something behind. At the very moment of judgment, God said to the serpent: “He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.” (Gen 3:15) This was said in the middle of the sentence—before the judgment on the man and woman had even been spoken, this line came first. Before they were driven out of the garden, “The LORD God made garments of animal skins for Adam and for his wife, and clothed them” (Gen 3:21). After the flood, God made a covenant with Noah: “I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth” (Gen 9:13).
After Babel, people were scattered over the whole earth. Immediately after, in Genesis 12, God speaks to one man, so that “All the families of the earth will be blessed through you” (Gen 12:3). The scattered families of the earth are to be blessed through one man—and that is where the next lesson begins.
The New Testament does not say whom Gen 3:15 refers to, and we will not draw that conclusion for the text. But the New Testament does say two things we can carry with us as we read on.
First, sin came in through one man, and righteousness comes through one man: “For as through the one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, many will be made righteous” (Rom 5:19). Second, at the time God had set, “God sent out his Son, born to a woman” (Gal 4:4).
You can carry that line from Gen 3:15 with you as you read on, and see for yourself how it moves through the whole Bible.
Open the ‘Primeval History’ section of the timeline and click through its five events in order: creation, the fall, Cain killing Abel, the flood and the covenant with Noah, the tower of Babel. For each, write one sentence about ‘what people did’, and one about ‘what God did’.
For reference: People—did not trust God’s word, hid from God, killed a brother, were full of evil, wanted to make a name for themselves. God—made a very good world, called out ‘Where are you?’, left that one line in the middle of judgment, made garments of skin for them, remembered Noah and made a covenant with the earth, scattered people over the whole earth. Again and again people left; again and again God searched.
The LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”
Gen 3:9 · WEB
This week read Genesis 1–3, one chapter a day if you like. After each chapter, write one sentence: in this chapter, what did God do?
Just this one thing. When you do it, tap that day below; if you don’t, that’s all right—try again next week.
Good. Tap each day you do it this week:
Putting down roots is not something you do alone. Find a brother or sister you trust (ideally of the same sex) and talk this question over this week:
How did you used to see the God of the Old Testament? Is anything different after this lesson?