Genesis: Gateway to God’s Love

Posted on May 22, 2018 Topic : Men's Christian Living, Prophecy
Posted by : Skip Heitzig

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

More than just the first book in Scripture, Genesis is the foundational book of the Bible. Everything else in the remaining sixty-five books builds upon its elemental truths. Until you understand Genesis, you can’t fully grasp the rest of the story. Probably for that reason, the New Testament quotes the book of Genesis more than 200 times, more than any other biblical book. Genesis is absolutely essential to everything that follows.

Even though it contains some of the most familiar stories and recognizable people in the Bible, Genesis is much more than the well-known Sunday school stories and felt-board figures of childhood. It is the book of beginnings. Genesis gives us the roots of the world we live in—the origins of the universe, man, and sin; the fall of man; the institutions of marriage and human government; and the birth of the nation of Israel, through whom the Messiah would come. No wonder so many other biblical authors quote it so often!

The book of Genesis covers at least 2,500 years of human history. We can’t give an exact time, because some controversy still exists as to how long ago “the beginning” took place. No amount of argument or discussion over its details, however, can displace its importance as an introduction to the God who formed the universe and made us all in His image.

You really can’t go back any further than “in the beginning.” The question is, when was “in the beginning”? Many evangelicals hold to a young earth theory, insisting it is no more than 10,000 years old. Some of these folks get dogmatic and say it is just 6,000 years old; they contend that the genealogies in Genesis are exhaustive, and by counting up the years of people’s ages recorded in the biblical text, they arrive at the 6,000-year figure. Along these lines, some even suggest that God built aging factors into His initial creation so that it only appeared to be older. Others react, saying if that is the case, God would be a liar (making the universe look old when it’s not).

Still others disagree with all of the above. They say the universe began anywhere from two to twenty billion years ago. Evolutionists have long believed that processes spanning billions of years have altered inanimate matter into a variety of lifeforms through slow changes and genetic mutations. And it’s not just the evolutionists who insist on this. There are Christian leaders and scientists who advocate this approach to understanding the origins of the universe. Some even elongate the “six days” of creation into six epochal periods or geological eras of unspecified years.

Both groups can get animated about their respective positions as they argue over this issue. The problem, of course, is that none of us were there at the beginning, and so we can only guess the age of the universe. While that can be intellectually stimulating and even fun, years ago I decided to get out of the speculation business. So I don’t know when the beginning took place, but I do know that in the beginning, God. That’s how the Bible begins—not with philosophical arguments for the existence of God. Scripture simply works off the supposition that He exists. And because only He was there, only He can speak with real authority about the age of the earth or the universe and how it came about.

And so Scripture says, in the most understated and simple way, "In the beginning God."

Welcome to Genesis. It all starts here.