The fact Genesis reveals the foundational Truth of God is confirmed by the teaching of Jesus, who treats its account of the Creation, Fall & Flood as literal. *GENESIS 1 reveals a personal supernatural God created this world. So, life did not arise by accident as evolution teaches. He created man in His image, with authority to rule. Man did not descend from apes, but is a direct creation of God. *GENESIS 2 describes His special creation of man (v7), made us in His image to have fellowship with Him (3:8). As our Creator, He is our Owner & Lord, with an absolute right to rule us & define who we are & our purpose. He makes the rules & sets the boundaries. He put Adam & Eve under obedience, and explained the result of rebellion (v17). God defines right & wrong, there are absolutes, and we’re accountable to God; if we rebel, there are consequences & judgment. God created man as male & female (1:27, 2:18-25), the origin of sexuality, with Adam & Eve the original pattern. He instituted marriage between a man & a woman & family. *GENESIS 3 reveals the devil tempted them into sin. As a result, man died spiritually & was cast out of God’s Presence. Sin resulted in man losing God’s blessing & coming under curse, bringing suffering, sickness & physical death. As man was given authority over nature & the animal kingdom, the curse also came on his domain. So, man is sinful by nature, cut off from God & under His judgment. But God shared the Gospel of the Messiah with them (v15) and they trusted in Him (v21). Genesis 3 reveals man is a fallen being, who needs salvation. Only by understanding this does the Gospel make sense. If there’s no personal God, no absolute right & wrong, no sin & judgment, then there’s no need for salvation. *GENESIS 4-6 teaches Adam transmitted the sin-nature in his flesh to all his seed (1:11-25), as seen with Cain (4:7,8) & Seth (5:3) and confirmed by Jesus (John 3:6). Due to the inherited sin-nature, sin multiplied (6:5), necessitating a world-wide Flood, proving God will judge man for his sin. So, the Truth is there’s a righteous God, who expects us to live righteously. But all have sinned and so are under His judgment. We must accept this truth, to understand & believe the Gospel & be saved. He also revealed the Gospel of salvation (the solution to man’s problem), by His provision of salvation for Noah & family from the judgment of the Flood. The ARK is a picture of CHRIST, our refuge from judgment, who offers Himself to us to cover & protect us. Christ, our Ark of Salvation, took God judgment on Himself, so that all who trust in Him & take refuge in Him, will be put in Him & be saved from judgment. The Truth of Genesis is settled for a Christian by seeing what Jesus said about these issues, for if we believe He is the Truth (John 14:6) and the true God, then He knows what’s true & what’s false, and His teaching must be true, the authoritative Word of God, as He claimed (Matt 5:21,27,31, 33,38,43). He spoke as God, the Fount of all authority & will judge us by our response to His words (John 12:48-50). He claimed all His words come from God, and so are without error. This is especially clear in Matthew 28:18-20, where the risen Christ commands His disciples to teach all men: “to observe ALL THINGS I COMMANDED you.” If He’d taught errors He’d not have endorsed everything He taught in His earthly ministry, and tell His apostles to teach the same. Thus, we expect the apostles’ teaching to agree with His teaching on these issues. He affirmed that all of God’s Word (including Genesis) is truth (John 17:17, Matt 4:4, John 10:35, Luke 24:25-27, 44-45), as did the apostles (2Tim 3:16). He often quoted Genesis, treating it as His final authority in disputes. He believed Genesis was historically true. Some examples of this are: *1. JESUS believed in a historical MOSES, and that he wrote the first 5 books of the Bible. He validated Moses & his writings, including Genesis (John 5:39-40, 45-47). *2. He believed in a historical ADAM, the first man, directly created by God, and affirmed Genesis as historical fact (Luke 3:38, Mark 10:6, Matt 19:4, John 8:44), as did the apostles (Rom 5:12-21, 8:19-211Tim 2:13,14, 1Cor 15:22,45, Jude 1:14). Rom 5:12-21 confirms the Genesis account of a literal Adam, who sinned, and from whom sin & death was transmitted to all men. It uses Adam as a type of Christ, so the Gospel is based on the historicity of Adam. *3. He confirmed ABEL (Genesis 4) was a historical character – the first murder victim, CREATION WEEK (Luke 11:50-51), as does Heb 11:4, 12:24). Hebrews 11 confirms the historicity of many Old Testament heroes. *4. He confirmed the historicity of NOAH and the world-wide FLOOD (Gen 6-9, Matt 24:38-39, Luke 17:27), as did the apostles (1Pet 3:20, 2Pet 2:5, 3:6). He also confirmed the literal destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah and Lot’s deliverance (Matt 10:15, 11:23-24, Mark 6:11, Luke 10:12, 17:28-32), as did the apostles (Rom 9:29, 2Pet 2:6-8, Jude 1:7, Rev 11:8).
