Genesis Explained (Updated!)

​But I think perhaps the greatest gospel picture and the greatest fulfillment that we're going to see in the book of Genesis later on is when Adam is put to sleep. And then Eve is taken out of his side and the bride is brought back to the man. And I think the picture of marriage and the oneness that's there is why Jesus would pray in John 17, that we would be one in him as he's one with the father. And I just love the fact that no matter how much we fail and how much we don't deserve God's love, his grace abounds. His mercy is higher than the heavens and Jesus saves us and covers us as he ultimately wants to become one with us as we are his bride, and he is the ultimate bridegroom, and, and I think the story of Genesis is amazing because so many of these gospel, threads are just interwoven whole of the book, and it's the foundation book of the Bible with all the key foundations that everything builds upon I love it

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Well, hello and welcome to the You Can Learn the Bible Podcast where we summarize complete Bible books in single episodes. I am Bode Quirk from youcanlearnthebible. com, here with Joey Rozek, Lead Pastor of Living Springs Fellowship in New Jersey. And now, Joey, we have now just finished summarizing the story of the Bible, and , we're finally getting to do our very first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. What a significant moment this is for our podcast. How you doing today, my friend?

Bodie Bodie. I'm loving this. This is fantastic. This is where it all begins. We are about to give everybody an overview of one of the most important books, not only in the Bible, but perhaps ever written in the sense that when it comes to foundations, this is the book So we just pray for all the listeners, you guys will benefit greatly from what we're about to give to you as an overview of the first book of the Bible. So Bodie, I'm excited to do this with you, brother.

Yeah, this is really gonna be fun, Joey, because now we get to put our seven part framework to work for the first First of all of the 66 books of the Bible that we're going to be summarizing together.

So what we're going to do in this episode is we want to teach you about the essentials of Genesis, where it fits on the storyline, the major themes and ideas, the structure of the book, what this book teaches us and reveals to us about God, what it offers our Christian life, and then of course, some of our very favorite nuances and moments in the book of Genesis, so we are excited to get going.

We actually are going to offer you something else as well, which is a single page PDF summary. If you would like a summary of everything we're going to cover today, at the end of the episode, we're going to give you a link for that, but we also want to remind you that this podcast is available both in audio and video. So you could watch it on YouTube, or you could listen to it on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

So, we really want to equip you. This is such an important book, as Joey already said. So Joey, let's get right into it. If somebody has not read the Book of Genesis, or they want to get properly set up to do it, what do we need to know first if we want to study the Book of Genesis well?

Well, when you open up your Bible and you come to the book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, you are reading the first of five books, actually, known as the Torah. This is law, also meaning instruction. This is the learning that was provided for by God to his people through, namely, Moses. And so we're talking about a time period where when Moses was used by God to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, as they started their journey toward the promised land, he compiled together what was known in oral tradition as the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible.

And as we understand in history, the oral tradition was so strong and there were times that writings were on stone and writings were on whatever materials were available. But by the time that Moses wrote this, which we're going to say is around 1440 BC before Christ, written in the wilderness period. We discover that this first book, Genesis, actually gives us the beginning of the beginnings.

In Hebrew, it's called Bereshit, and God is establishing for us all the key things that all of scripture is going to be built upon. In fact, later on in Psalm 11, verse three, it says, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?

And so as we hit the essentials of this book, let me just tell you this genre of book. Law, it's Torah. Author is Moses. The setting is in the wilderness. It summarizes the oral history, but the purpose of this book is to teach us about man's beginning and how God is working to relate himself to man, and he does that in covenant, where God has an agreement with and has a plan and a purpose for man. the audience of this book, of course, is first primarily Israel, God's people. But of course we have to add Genesis was meant for all of God's people in all generations. And that is what makes this book so important is the foundations that we build everything upon.

Beautiful. Yep. I love it. And so now once we understand the beginning, some of the basics of Genesis, let's go to our second question, which is now, where does Genesis fit in the story of the Bible? Which if most people are listening to this, we're like, well, duh, it's at the beginning. But as Joey already said, Genesis isn't just the first book, it's the origins of some of the most essential things that the Bible continues to unfold and unpack down through the books. So, when we say, where is it at the storyline, it's basically from the very beginning, all the way up to Joseph.

That's what Genesis covers. And so, a couple things you want to know when it talks about the storyline. We want to make sure that we highlight, it doesn't cover God's beginning, God has no beginning. It covers God's eternal existence. It covers the beginning of all creation It also covers the beginning of mankind's formation and fall.

It covers the beginning of the seed of Israel. This is where the seed of Israel is introduced. It's a major theme that we're going to cover throughout this book. But it's also the beginning of God's earliest covenants So it's not just the beginning of the story. It's the beginning of a number of stories and themes that are interconnected and interwoven that Genesis starts to unpack for us. So that's why it's important to ask this. A number of things Joe, anything you want to add before we go to our next

Well, even though the genre of this book is the Torah, the law, I would just add that we have history in this book, we have prophecy in this book, we have poetry in this book, we, we have historical narratives that help us to understand not only the beginning of the universe, the beginnings of the heavens and the earth, but we have some very helpful things that are going to help drive the story along as it relates to why God created man and what he intended for man at the end of all things.

And it's all contained in Genesis. It's all hidden here. And so it's going to be so exciting to give you guys the themes and ideas of this book. And to kind of walk you through as we go into this, I guess, next section, right?

Yeah. Joey, so what are the major themes? We know Genesis is at the beginning, but what really should we be mindful of as through the book and as we read the book of Genesis?

Yeah. We believe that understanding the themes and ideas is extremely helpful when you approach a book of the Bible. And one of the first themes that comes up in Genesis is the triune nature of God, God's eternal nature, and his power. So the opening verse of the book is Genesis 1. 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And that word for God there is Elohim. And we just want to point out it's a plural word for God. And the next verb afterwards, bara, created is in singular. So you already have very beginning this theme being presented. Then we have the idea of mankind made in God's image and likeness. And notice that when God speaks about that in Genesis 1, 26, he says, let us make man in our image and in our likeness, then we have man's rebellion. It's going to be introduced how man disobeyed God and the results that follow the fall of man.

Then we have God's holy judgment. And his saving grace. We're going to see that as a constant theme to the story of Genesis and throughout the whole Bible, actually, we also are going to see God's faithfulness in every generation. There's never been a time where God was not faithful to his promises, to his truth and covenant, and we're going to see that.

And then the call of one man known as Abram, who God changed his name to Abraham, Abraham and the promise of blessing that would come through his promised seed. And of course that promised seed would go all the way to Joseph where the book of Genesis finds its ending and we're gonna see beautiful gospel glimpses and covenant faithful

No, so good. Yeah, I love the glimpses of the gospel that we start to see, and we're gonna, we're gonna show you what we mean by that in a second. So these themes are going to be crucial, and now we're going to see how they play out in the story. Because now we want to go into number four of our framework.

So we talked about the essentials, the storyline, the themes and ideas and now we get to number four, which is the structure of the book and Genesis actually has a pretty easy structure to remember And we're going to walk you through the structure of the book But as we do that, we want to keep in mind our numbers five and six So number five is what do we learn about god?

Number six is what can we apply to our own lives as Christians? So what's going to be fun, Joey, is that we're going to, as we unpack and walk through the structure of Genesis, we're going to really show those application points to our listeners. So let me give you the structure of Genesis.

It's actually, there's going to be a broad structure, and then we're going to go into each of the two major sections of this book, and we're going to walk you through it. So think of it this way. If you can remember four events, and four people That's how the book of Genesis is broadly broken up. So in chapters 1 through 11, the Bible focuses on four key events, Creation, Fall, Flood, and Babel.

And so the idea is that the first part of Genesis, what it does is it establishes the core foundations of the entire Bible, as Joey already said, and of the Christian faith. So here we see the nature of God, and And man, we see our rebellious fall, we see the promised seed, and we see the beginning of God's redemptive plan of salvation

All of that is in part one, which is Genesis 1 through 11. Four events. Then, in Genesis 12 through 50, through the whole rest of the book, it's not four events, it's now four people And those four people are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. And so the second part of Genesis, what it does is it follows the covenant seed through the patriarchal line, but it has a specific emphasis on faith during times of testing and tribulation, and what's cool is that it reveals various types and shadows of the future gospel that is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

So if you can remember four events, chapters one through 11, And four people, chapters 12 through 50, you have the larger structure of the book of Genesis. So we're going to walk you through that right now. Joey, anything you want to add before we start to go into part one, the first four key events of the book of Genesis

Well, just that fact that there's obviously more than four events, We're not giving you every specific person or event detail that's in this book of 50 chapters, but we want you to be able to get a good understanding of the way that God unfolds Genesis, and the way in which these four events and these four people contribute to our understanding of all the rest of the Bible

Awesome. So let's go into it, Joey. Would you introduce us to the first major event in the book of Genesis during this part one, which is chapters 1 through 11?

Yeah, so the first section, we would say is found in the first two chapters. And really, this is a very important thing to note to you, is that the first two chapters of the Bible are without sin. There's absolutely nothing evil in the earth. There's nothing wicked in mankind. There's no sin or destruction or division or disease or sickness, all of that comes after the fall, you see. So the first two chapters are really about God's glory in creation. And so what we discover is that in chapter one, we're seeing Who created all things, which is God Elohim, but we're also seeing that God has a covenant name.

I want to point this out. Genesis one in Hebrew. Every time God is mentioned, it's Elohim in Genesis two, it changes to Yahweh. covenant name for God, and that's what makes Genesis one and two. So unique Genesis one, we have the overview of creation, the six days that are presented here, the Hebrew word Yom, there's an evening and a morning, and then we see all the that takes place in it.

And we see that every one of these created events has a light in front of it. God says, let there be light. And there was light. And what's the purpose of light, but to open our eyes. The Bible says that God's word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path And in Psalm 119 verse 130, it says the entrance of his word gives light.

So God is really turning on the light to help us see what he created, how he created, And the different things that creation, brought forth into the world, as far as the different species, the different, kinds of plants and the animals and all the different aspects of the heavens and the earth. Now, when you get to Genesis two, I just want to point out this at this point, God says, everything he made was good.

He rested on the seventh day. This is really important because we have seven days in our weeks, as we live life. and we get this pattern from this picture of genesis six days. God worked seventh day. He rested Genesis chapter two. We discovered God is zooming in. He's focusing on his covenant relationship with man.

We learn in Genesis two, seven, that he made man from the dust of the earth and he breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life. We see that man comes into being. God is triune father, son, and spirit man has a spirit, soul, and body. Although soul and spirit can be interchangeable at times, we discover that there's a distinction in the fact that God wants to create a man to have a covenant relationship with him. And Genesis 2, 4 introduces the covenant name of God, the Lord God.

And at this point, Bodie, everything is good in the garden. Everything is, blessed. God has given man a mission. He's given him an assignment and The only thing that's not good is he doesn't have a mate yet. And so he says, it's not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper comparable to him. puts and then out of his side a bride.

Genesis 2 24 tells us, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh Understand that God is taking two individual people and he's making them one. But before there was two people, he brought that person out of the man.

And that is very particular. Why did God make the woman different from the man? Because one day there'll be another man, Jesus, who will be lifted up on a cross and out of his side will come a bride and the bride will be brought to Jesus, just like Eve was brought to Adam. So I think that's just powerful and right off the bat to think about.

Right. It is. So yeah, so in chapters one and two, what, what happens is Joey beautifully said, God creates and fills the heavens and the earth. He has a special focus though on his covenant relationship with man as seen through the union of marriage. So then though we get to the next major event, number two.

So God's glory and creation was number one. Now we're at, unfortunately Joey, it doesn't last very long. We have man's sinful fall and aftermath. That's chapters 3 and 4. So here you have Satan's deception basically leads Adam and Eve to disobey the one command God had asked them to do, which was not eat from the tree of, the knowledge of good and evil.

Their disobedience, it brings forth death and corruption into the human race, which was not there by, as Joey already said, by default. But the reason why this is important is because this is now separated them from God. So we have, chapters three and four is really where we see man's sinful fall and aftermath.

And there's a couple of key verses we want to share with you in each of these sections. So here it's basically Genesis 3:9, where after the, fall, we hear the saddest question in the Bible. Don't we, Joey? Genesis 3, 9, the Lord God called to Adam and said, where are you, which showed the broken relationship already in Genesis three. But we also see a hint of something to come don't we that is genesis 3 15 why is genesis 3 15 such an important verse for our listeners

Yeah. Well, this verse is called the proto evangelism in, in Latin. It means the first evangelistic message, the first gospel presentation. This is that first glimpse of the gospel, I will put enmity, almost like a hatred between you. That's the serpent,

hmm.

and the woman, which is Eve and between your seed and her seed, all of a sudden, wait a minute, what do you mean seed of Satan? And then the woman has a seed? Doesn't men have the seed? Well, this is prophetic speaking about the virgin birth that will one day be fulfilled in Jesus Christ Jesus will seed inside the womb of a woman.

We know later on it's Mary, but this is the earliest picture of it. And then notice what it says next. He shall bruise your head. And you shall bruise his heel. This is gospel right here In Isaiah 53 Jesus was bruised for our iniquities and his stripes. We are healed. So God has a redemptive plan for mankind.

Yep. I love it. I love it So that leads us to the third part of this first section, which is chapters 5 through 9 So now we the God's glory in creation man's sinful fall and aftermath Chapters 5 through 9 are about man's depravity and God's grace and the focus here is really the person of Noah

So what's going on is that wickedness starts to increase throughout the world at a rapid pace and it leads to God's judgment by the flood You So God judges the world by flood, but it's also the salvation of God where he rescues and saves and preserves mankind through Noah's Ark. So eight people, Noah and his wife, their three sons and their wives, and two representatives from the animal kingdom go into the Ark.

And they are preserved through God's judgment and wrath. This is chapters 5 through 9. It focuses, of course, mostly on the person of Noah. But there are some key verses we want to make sure you see that are very, very clear. One is that wickedness is, it is just all over the world. So Genesis 6 5 says, The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. Listen to this, Joey. Every intent of the thoughts his heart was only evil continually,

I mean, this is a hopeless scenario going from the garden in Genesis chapter two to the Genesis chapter six, everybody's wicked. Like it is pretty, it's changed so fast, but then you hear that word, " But" in the Bible, right? One of the most important words we ever hear, talk to us about two other this section, Genesis 6, 8 and Genesis 6, 13

Well, what I love is that God still has another glimpse of his gospel plan coming to us. Even when man's heart is so depraved and man is separated from God because of sin. We read this verse, Genesis six, verse eight. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord Uh, grace comes in, you know, the Bible says later on where sin abounds, God's grace abounds much more.

And we see it beginning here in Genesis six, verse eight. The next verse that we would like to draw your attention to is verses 13 and 14, where God says to Noah, basically make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Right. And he's going to tell you to make rooms in the ark. Why make rooms? Because he's going to invite two of every kind of major species of animal into this ark, male and female.

Remember, it doesn't have to be the largest forms of them. They can be even smaller forms. And there's plenty of space in a 475 foot long ark, great room for these animals, two of every kind. And I would just like to point out this, since this is a part of God's redemptive plan to be in the ark is to be saved from the judgment that is to come to be in Christ. Is to be saved from the judgment to

beautiful. Yep. It's another glimpse,

Yeah. Another gospel glimpse. And we saw one in Genesis three, when God covered , Adam and Eve with the skins of an animal, which actually was a foreshadowing of a sacrifice of an animal to cover them. So mankind is filled with guilt and shame and sin, but God keeps showing grace keeps displaying his redemptive plan by covering man's sin and then providing things like ark to enter into, which is so beautiful.

It's so beautiful. Yep. And of course then God floods the earth. These are the only humans and animals that survive and that leads us into the fourth event of the of our first section here So we have creation we have the fall We have basically the story of the flood and now Joey and these are chapters that people might be tempted to skip genesis 10 and 11.

This is where we see both two things the table of nations and the tower of Babel So what happens here is that noah's descendants were commanded to fulfill the original creation mandate, fill the earth and we see a second set of genealogies of Noah's three sons, Sham, Ham, and Japheth, but really what we're seeing, Joey, is a fast forward between one key person, Noah, to another key person who's going to then take us into our second part of the book, and that's going to be Abram.

But right in the middle of this table of nations, it's called the table of nations because this is where all of the people groups that we later see in the Bible. originate from. But Joey, there's a moment in the middle of these genealogies they just kind of stop and all of a sudden there's a really important event that happens right in the middle of those. Would you talk to us about the Tower of Babel and why it is so significant?

Well, at this point, all of the world is sharing a common language, and although there are multiplying people across the earth, remember, this is now post the flood, so Noah, his sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth have become the fathers of three different kinds of people in the world, the Semitic peoples, from Shem, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. From Ham, we see those that even dispersed in Africa. We see all the other European and other nations of the world in Japheth.

But what you discover is as they all come together, they actually want to kind of build a city which can extend high enough, almost as if to say, If you ever try to flood us again to Yahweh or to the gods or whatever they're believing in, there's been now a lot of separation from God and man that's continuing again due to sin, is they try to make a name for themselves. And here's the problem of humanity. Bodie.

Man is always trying to make themselves great. And this is actually what caused the first fall in heaven. When the angel Lucifer became Satan, he wanted to be like them. The most, he wanted to be exalted above all things. And now Satan's seed, as we heard about in Genesis three is spreading into the human race and they're trying to build a tower.

And we call it the tower of Babel, Babel as some would say, but the idea of. This is where they try to make a name for themselves and God sees what they're doing and he comes down and this is the beginning of the confusing of the languages. This is the beginning of the dispersing of the nations and where ethnicities find their distinction.

And so, God confuses them, scatters them, and this becomes a momentous event that will even later on be talked about in Revelation, that the spirit of Babylon will continue to grow in the world when man tries to live life without God, apart from God,

Right? Yes. Even in the book of Revelation, Babylon used as a symbol. It points all the way back the Tower of Babel, including the actual nation of Babylon as well. So two key verses to note. This is Genesis 10: 32. This is basically where it says, The families of Noah, according to their generations and in their nations, from these the nations were divided after the flood.

That's where we get the idea of the table of Nations But Joey just pointed us to the idea of Genesis 11, 14. for where they said in their heart, come, let us build ourselves a city. Whose is the top in the heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves. Lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the earth.

I mean, we can see they were actually afraid of the very thing God commanded. They were commanded to continue to spread up. That's why God intervened in this moment. And so that's why this is really, really important is where we see this fourth event here, which is in Genesis 10 and 11, the Table of Nations and the Tower of Babel.

However, Joey, after the Tower of Babel, it goes back to the genealogies. But it has a purpose, doesn't it? Because we see that the genealogies are pointing to somebody very, very important. And that's where we are going to now go into the book of Genesis. So, Part 1, four key events. Creation, Fall, Flood, and Babel.

But now the genealogies have led us to Part 2, Joey, which is really where it continues to get exciting. The four key people, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. So let me introduce this whole section and you can take us into Abraham and why he's such an important figure.

So here, the idea is that the second part of Genesis, what it does is it follows the covenant seed. Now it gets introduced in part one, but it follows the covenant seed through the patriarchal line. So we go from very, very broad in the beginning of Genesis to very, very specific, one specific family line. But, Joey, it's not just the genealogy, there's an emphasis on faith during the times of testing and tribulation, and it reveals various types and shadows of the future gospel of Jesus Christ

So, now we're in part two. You help us understand the turning point moment, which is genesis 12, 1 through 3, which is now going to take us to the introduction of one of the most important people we ever discover in what's going on at this point

Yes. Well, one of the things we need to see, as you rightly said, is that Genesis 11 ends with the genealogy, which follows the Semitic line of Shem, which leads to a man named Terah and Terah was an worshiper and God sees this and he wants to call a man out of this lifestyle. So he says to Abram, I want you to leave your father, leave this house.

Let me read this to you. It says, now the Lord said to Abram, get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you. And in you, listen now, in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Even there you can see God's plan has always been for the world. Always been for the nations. We know in the future we read for God so loved the world, but it has to begin with a man who will bring a lineage into the world that's going to produce the Messiah, which is the seed, the promise seed, and that's going to be in, a land That will later be known as Israel and also then a lifestyle that will lead to what we will know as the way of Christ, the way of the Lord.

And so all of this begins with the covenant that we call the Abrahamic covenant. Now, God has already done the covenant of marriage. He's already done the covenant that he made with Noah, but this is another example of the importance of covenant. God is making an agreement here, a promise here, even that he's going to be faithful to fulfill.

And it's going to be a blessing to the nations of the world. For those who are found in this seed, which of course is Christ. And so Abraham is the first key person in all of this. And so really from chapter 12, all the way to 22, we're going to really highlight the life of Abraham. And of course, what else is Abraham known as?

He's known as the father of Abraham. Faith, many of the monotheistic religions of the world, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all look at Abraham as the father of faith. But, this passage of scripture, Genesis 12 to 22 really shows the clear story of how God calls Abram out of the house of idolatry to begin a lineage for his promise seed through a covenant maiden, and then tested through faith and, and Bodhi, Abraham goes through a lot of tests.

Doesn't he in faith through chapters?

Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Well, this is where it's really, really important to understand some of the key verses, Genesis 15 6 is huge because This is where we see the mention of righteousness, it says, and he believed, so God basically tells him, he tells him the promise again in Genesis 15, and he says, and he believed the Lord, and he believed in the Lord, and it was accounted to him as righteousness, which is so beautiful because in the New Testament, Paul is going to use this verse as the exact same description of what we receive in Christ.

This is how we receive righteousness. It's always been through faith. Some people think that the New Testament is so different from the Old Testament. It's not, and verses like Genesis 15, 6 are so important. the covenant gets even repeated in Genesis 17, 6 and 7, , where God says, I will make you, Abram, exceedingly fruitful, which is really important because his wife could not have any children.

So this is a huge, huge promise for Abram to hear. It says, I will make nations of you and kings shall come from you. I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you you.

So this is a massive promise that only God can make possible, Joey, because Abram and Sarah, his wife, who can't have children, they can't make this happen on their own. They need God to intervene.

And so, that is of course why their son, Isaac, is such a crucial and important figure. Talk to us now about isaac, because Abraham's and Isaac's story begin to overlap. But Genesis 22 is a pivotal moment. Why?

Yes. Well, as you rightly set the stage, Bodie, when you talk about the context of Sarah not being able to have a child, it also reiterates the point that salvation is impossible without God's divine intervention. In the story of Genesis 22, God asks Abraham to sacrifice or to offer his only begotten son. Now, of course, he already had another son at this time named Ishmael, but Ishmael was a child of the flesh because this was their attempt to try to fulfill God's promise.

But Isaac was actually the fulfillment of God giving a true son to Sarah. Where the other son was through her handmaiden Hagar. And so what happens here is Abraham goes to the Mount Moriah and he goes with two other people and he brings his son and then the two men they disperse and all you have left is the father and the son, and what you have is the father laying the son on an altar and the son's basically asking where's God?

The lamb for the sacrifice or where's the animal that's going to be sacrificed. this is what Abraham says. He says, Genesis 22 verses 14 to 16. And Abraham called the name of the place. The Lord will provide or Yahweh Yaira, as it is said to this day in the Mount of the Lord, it shall be provided.

Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven. And said by myself, I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son blessing, I will bless you and multiplying. I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand, which is on the seashore and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies in your seed. All the nations of the earth shall be blessed because You have obeyed my voice. Notice Bodie, the seed, the seed keeps coming up. And I just want to say one more thing on this.

This is the first place in the Bible where love comes up And so this word love, ahabba comes up for the first time and it has to do with a father's love for a son, which is so interesting. And then this is also the first time in the Bible where worship shows up And what you see is that worship is not shown through singing at first. It's It's shown through obedience, surrendered life and obedience to God is the highest form of worship. And that's exactly what Abraham does. And that's why God blesses him is because he was willing to hold nothing back from God.

God never intended that Isaac would be put to death. This was a foreshadowing of what would come when the father in heaven would send his only begotten son, Jesus, who would die on a cross for our sins, and whoever would believe in him would not perish, but have everlasting life That's the gospel, it's beautiful

Yeah. Amen. And what's important about Abraham, too, in the New Testament, both James and Paul point to Abraham as an example of obedience and as an example of Justification justification is the theological term when righteousness is applied to you that you did not merit on your own. Abraham, he believed first in Genesis 15, but he trusted in Genesis 22 that's why these are such an important moment. That's why Abram is a key figure throughout the whole Bible

And Bodie, what's amazing is that this is the same mountain that later on Jesus would eventually in Jerusalem in this area, we believe is where Christ would be crucified. And so you see incredible parallels here. You know, there was two men on either side of Jesus when he was crucified and we have two men going up with Abraham.

Oh, yeah.

what's interesting is that Isaac is laid on the altar, but then Abraham leaves, but Isaac's not mentioned. And that's going to Be a very interesting because Isaac is the next person we're going to put our emphasis on, the next time Isaac is mentioned. Let me just say this. The next time Isaac's mentioned after this scene is when he marries his bride, which is very intentional by writing. Because God wants us to see that the fulfillment is when the bride is given to the son. And so Isaac sees Rebecca and one day we're going to be the bride for Jesus. And so the Bible is so

So good.

its language and words.

That's what we mean by gospel glimpses. They are everywhere and there's more than we can even show you you. But these are, these are the ones we're showing you are our favorites. So let's talk about Isaac, Joe. So Abraham is the per, is the first person. Isaac is his son. Chapters 22 through 27 focus on his story.

Now, when you think about Isaac, there's two things that you really wanna emphasize. His bride and his blessing. And so remember, Isaac is the miraculous son of promise. Without Isaac, there would be no covenant seed, and there'd be ultimately no Messiah. But Isaac is the miraculous son of promise. He receives a bride prepared for him.

But he unintentionally gives his blessing to his deceitful son by God's sovereign hand. So that's of course later So when we think about isaac There's a couple verses that we really want to make sure that you know about in this section the first one Genesis 25 23 where it says the Lord said to her, that being Sarah, Isaac's mom, this is really important. Two nations are in your womb Two people shall be separated from your body.

One people shall be stronger than the other, and the older shall serve the younger. This is another major theme that we see go throughout the book, so this is really, really important because this is the formation of Isaac's story. So when you think about Isaac chapters 22 through 27, we want you to see that basically Isaac's story as, and just as it was overlapped by Abraham, it's going to be overlapped by his sons, Jacob and Esau. And Isaac gets deceived by his, the next one we're going to look at Jacob, to basically give the blessing that was supposed to go to Esau to Jacob.

And now were gonna start to see kind of how that story folds into Jacob, which of course is going to, of course, fold into story that gets the most time, which is going to be Joseph in a little bit. Joey, anything you want to say about isaac please jump in and then take us right into how it rolls us into the story of Jacob, Isaac's son

Well, you can see why Isaac and Jacob are such prominent people after Abraham. Because when you think about two nations being in a womb, you realize that people being born are actually heads of nations. Uh, this is very important. Jacob represented the head of israel, whereas Esau would represent the head of the Edomites. Any of the enemies that would constantly be at war with Israel. In fact, to this day we still see this war taking place. We still see the battle and the conflict that was in the womb of Sarah. That's now in the world

And so it's, it's continuing to go. But as you rightly said, Bodie, God is providential. And instead of the blessing going to the firstborn son, which would have been Esau, we see that through manipulation, through deceit, Jacob. Is a deceiver his name means supplanter or heel catcher. He's a deceiver and we realized that basically chapters 28 to 36 this third section now in our Part two of the book of genesis is highlighting Jacob, and so what we see is Jacob's an insecure man who plots to secure his own destiny while God deals supernaturally with him in dreams and then in wrestlings to convert his heart and to eventually birth a nation.

You see, uh, Jacob, after all of his contending and striving to try to make a name for himself, to try to get the blessing from his father. And he did get the blessing and he got the birthright, but you know what he didn't get? Bodie, didn't get God's blessing, and so he has to go through a wrestling match, which we learn about in Genesis 32, where he fights what's called the angel of the Lord, which could very well be a pre incarnate Christ in the Old Testament

But he's basically wrestling with him. And what we see is in Genesis 32, verses 26 to 28, It says, and this is the Lord speaking. He said, let me go. day breaks, but he said, I will not let you go, unless you bless me And so he said to him, what is your name? And he said, Jacob. And then he said, your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed. And that's what Israel means. It means prevailed over God. With God or governed by God.

And so Israel becomes the new name of Jacob and it becomes the nation, that will the name of the nation that will be the Messiah lineage, where Messiah will be born in Israel, the Messiah will be the savior of the world, but the one in whom was promised even through this lineage from Abraham to Isaac and now to Jacob and so a very important person, Jacob, what are some things you want to add

Yeah. I think that people, people have heard of Jacob's ladder. And so there's, when we talk about Jacob, it's just worth a mention, Genesis 28, 16 and 17. And these are the kind of the key verses of this, where it says, Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, surely the Lord is in this place. And I did not know it. And he was afraid. And he said, how awesome is this place? There is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven.

So we have to remember Jacob was an insecure, conniving person Jacob really has one of the best movie story arcs of any of the patriarchs, right? So much that he goes really through a full tilt transformation, but he doesn't leave unscathed God actually gives him a limp to remind him of his dependence of God as well But jacob has a very very big heart change

But we have to keep in mind The covenant lineage we've already mentioned, and the fact that Jacob is also, in the same way that the genealogies were preparing for Abraham, Jacob is eventually going to lead us to our last and final patriarch. We're going to get to in a second. Joey, though, anything you want to add before we transition from Jacob to his son, Joseph?

Yeah, there's just one last thing I want to really make sure all of our listeners hear is that he gets the vision of the ladder, we discovered this becomes very important in the ministry of Jesus early on when he sees Nathanael under the tree he uses this same terminology and we discover that Jesus is really that ladder From heaven to earth.

And I think it's important that even we point out that Paul the apostle alludes to the story of Jacob's ladder, because when Jacob was done getting the vision, he was laying on a stone and then he, he erected the stone and set it up as a pillar on the ground. Later on, Paul will say in first Timothy three 15 that the church is the pillar and ground of truth.

And so we discover the house of God, which he also calls it. That is Bethel. That's what it means in Hebrew. And so it's a beautiful picture that has so much gospel threads throughout it. And in some 24 verse six, it says, this is Jacob, the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face. So this idea of Jacob seeking the face of God becomes generational and foundational in understanding that we all need to pursue the blessings of God, not of man.

I love it. It's so good. But yeah, and now we're gonna get to the last of our four patriarchs, so we talked about four key events in the beginning and now four key people, abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and now chapters 37 through 50, final section of the book of Genesis is on Joseph. If only I had a podcast partner by this name, it'd be so great.

Joseph, this is so beautiful. We see so many glimpses here. Don't we Joey, when we talk about Joseph. So a couple of things, Joseph basically goes from dreamer to deliverer.

This is really, really important. So with Abram, it's, it's a call and covenant and testing Isaac, his bride and blessing, Jacob goes from deceiver to Israel. Joseph goes from dreamer to deliverer. And so there was some unhealthy dynamics happening in Joseph's family. Jacob's sons, Joseph was favored. And so Jacob's favored son, Joseph, receives this God given dream that basically leads to his brother's jealousy.

He's basically saying, Hey, everybody, you're going to bow down to me one day. Isn't this great? They didn't love that so much and basically, but it also leads to his enslavement in Egypt until God positions him as a deliverer to his people and to the nations.

So this is really, really important that we really see the sovereignty of God in the life of Joseph in a number of key ways. And there's a couple verses here that I want to highlight, Joey. I'm just going to read a couple of verses from this section. And I'd love for you to jump in and offer any insights, because there are so many gospel glimpses, in just this section alone. But for example, Genesis 37, 5, you want to make note of this verse.

Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him even more. So Joseph didn't make this up, but he was honest to communicate what God had given him, and of course they were very angry. And they sold him to Midianite traders, and he ends up in Egypt. But another key verse, Genesis 39, 21, says this, But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy, and he gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.

So that phrase, the Lord was with Joseph, such a key phrase that we see actually repeated a number of times through this section.

And then, of course, later with his brothers of the most well known verses, I'll read here. Now, joey, please jump in. It says, but as for you, you meant evil against me but God meant it for good in. order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive. Quick summary of Joseph. We haven't even begun to scratch the surface, what else, want to add on this incredible patriarch?

Well, these verses certainly give the panoramic of his life. So these are great verses just to see the beginning of a dream given to Joseph. The fact that, listen, he went through family troubles. How many of you out there know that family can be a hard thing? Sometimes there's misunderstandings, there's competition. The brothers were really envious of he was given the coat of many colors by his father. Um, he was the favored son in many ways. Yes. Yes. Yes. Um, he had this dream that had everybody bowing down to him. I mean, at one point, even Jacob's a bit surprised. Like, are you saying your

Yeah.

to you too?

And understand that God's doing something very salvific. In other words, this salvation plan is happening unfolding through the life of Joseph. Joseph life is this beautiful parallel of the life of Jesus. Think about it. Jesus was not accepted by his own people. He was rejected and despised. So was Joseph. Jesus was falsely accused of things. So as Joseph, remember, we're going to see, discover that because the Lord was with Joseph brought blessing wherever he went, but with the blessing came people who didn't appreciate who he was or what he was doing.

Potiphar's wife, cast longing eyes at Joseph. And instead of sinning, Joseph says, I don't want to commit a great sin against God or dishonor Potiphar, who had given him the opportunity to serve at his house once his brothers sold them into Egypt. But what we see with Joseph is an innocent man being falsely accused.

Jesus was an innocent man being falsely accused. And when it seemed like all hope was gone and he was forgotten, we actually discover it's the key, to salvation was the death. It seemed of Joseph was actually life being worked through him. And that last verse that you read in Genesis 50 verse 20 says it so well, because instead of a man that could have got vengeance on his people we discover that mercy triumphs over judgment and what man meant for evil, God meant it for good.

And he brought about it. It to this day to save many people alive. And so what I love about the story of Joseph Bodie is that nobody could have ever planned the life that Joseph had. I mean, Joseph couldn't on his wildest the events that were unfolding in his life was the fulfillment of the dream from God.

But God was fulfilling a purpose as Psalm 105 says, when, when actually reflecting back on his life in Psalm 105 verses 17 through 19, it says, he sent a man before them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave, they heard his feet with fetters. He was laid in irons until the time. That is word came to pass

And then of course, Joseph eventually rose up to be second to Pharaoh. He became one of the great leaders of the day and he had this amazing interpretation of. Pharaoh's dream where there's going to be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine and Joseph had this great idea to create storehouses To store up the grain and eventually this is what caused Jacob and his family to go see him And you know, what's interesting bodey. They didn't recognize him in the first visit

yes,

in the second where they recognized who Joseph was. We believe that's prophetic because Israel didn't see Jesus. Jesus has the Messiah in the first coming. But we believe that when Jesus comes back in the second visit and the second coming, the veil will be taken off and they will discover that Jesus is Yeshua Hamashiach. He is the savior, the Messiah of Israel. it's all seen in the story of Joseph. Amazing.

And yeah, well, and I love the eternal perspective Joseph offered, he could have said you guys sold me out you get because remember there was a famine in the land The reason they went into Egypt is because if they did not they would have starved to death. And so god is Providentially arranging and orchestrating all these events not just for the saving of the covenant seed But for the reconciling of hurt and betrayal and brokenness in this family.

And it's so cool to know that in your life right now, God is doing something that you can't see, and the question that before us, as we wrap up our episode, are we going to still trust, even in the absence of clarity, even when everything seems opposite. Do we still trust the heart of God?

That's why Genesis is such a gift to us is we really get to see the origin of everything, but we see the heart of God as well. And I love how Joseph specifically really shows how God can use a circumstance like a worldwide famine to actually not just save his people, but to reconcile a family and to save many lives and to keep his covenant promise that he made all the way back in the garden, , Genesis 3 15 and to Abram.

Genesis is beautiful, Joey. I absolutely love it. So, just to review, part one, four key events, Creation, Fall, Flood and and Babel. Part two, Genesis 12 50, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob & Joseph you can remember this simple framework, you can remember the story of the book of Genesis

So number seven of our framework is what do we personally love about Genesis, we've talked about a lot of this already. Anything else you want to add? If you wrap up our episode, Joe?

Yes, my final thoughts on Genesis is I love this book for so many reasons, Bodie. The gospel is repeated throughout all. of the story. It's just interwoven through the lives of Abraham, sacrificing Isaac on a mountain, but only because God would provide the sacrifice himself. we see that Isaac, has his bride come to him, just like we read is going to happen one day in the future where we, as the bride will be brought to Jesus. Isaac is sort of a picture of Jesus there.

We see in the life of Jacob that the answer is not finding blessings in man giving you favor, but rather God extending his grace over us. and then of course, Joseph parallels the life of Jesus so wonderfully,

but I think perhaps the greatest gospel picture and the greatest fulfillment that we're going to see in the book of Genesis later on is when Adam is put to sleep. And then Eve is taken out of his side and the bride is brought back to the man. And I think the picture of marriage and the oneness that's there is why Jesus would pray in John 17, that we would be one in him as he's one with the father. And I just love the fact that no matter how much we fail and how much we don't deserve God's love, his grace abounds. His mercy is higher than the heavens and Jesus saves us and covers us as he ultimately wants to become one with us as we are his bride, and he is the ultimate bridegroom, and, and I think the story of Genesis is amazing because so many of these gospel, threads are just interwoven whole of the book, and it's the foundation book of the Bible with all the key foundations that everything builds upon I love it

I think my favorite thing, Joey, is just how so many other books point back to Genesis even Revelation, which concludes it. And that's what's so wonderful when you study these books, which we are. We want to summarize independently and but what we want to do is really want to show you how they connect to so many of the other books, because the Bible is a book about God And that's why we love doing this podcast for you to help you see things that you may not notice, to really amplify and sweeten your study of Scripture so Joey, last thought, anything else you got? We're wrapping up.

One last thing. We must mention the tree of life, the fact that the tree of life is in the beginning of the Bible as something above and beyond the fact that God gave life to man, reminds us that when Jesus would come, he says, I've come to give you life and that more abundantly. We discover that later on in Revelation 22, it's the tree of life that is on the tree. I'd have the pure river that flows from the throne of God. And so the Bible begins and ends with the tree of life, reminding us of the abundant life we have in Jesus. And it begins and ends with a marriage because ultimately we're going to become one with Jesus. And so we see that Genesis and Revelation give us the book ends of the Bible. And, uh, this is where it all begins. we hope this really helps you

Yes.

a new passion to read the

book of

Amen. Amen. And as we said at the beginning, we have a PDF one page summary for you that we really kind of highlight some of these key ideas. We gave you a lot today. We hope that this was both helpful and edifying, but that's it, Joey. And so we are wrapping up this episode on Genesis. If you would like that PDF, you can find it at you can learn the bible. com slash notes. That is you can learn the bible. com. That's where you can go and download this one page PDF.

And of course we are at the beginning of our journey. We just did as episode seven, Genesis explained, and now Joey, we are going to be set up to go into the book of Exodus so as we close, what's one thing that our listeners can look forward to in episode eight, Exodus Explained

Well, we're going to see more gospel threads. We're going to see that God is eventually going to hear the cries of his just like he hears our cries, and God is going to raise up a deliverer. God always has an answer to our problems and got ready to lead us out of the things that put us in bondage and into the place of freedom and liberty in christ. That's what we're going to

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