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hello my name is dawn Carson

you are watching the first in a series

of fourteen talks given in Minneapolis

in early 2009 these talks are designed

to help you find out what the Bible says

more accurately they're designed to

introduce you to God as he is talked

about in the Bible as he discloses

himself in events and narrative in

worship in love and holiness through the

pages of this book if you know nothing

about the Bible but would like to learn

this series is for you if quite frankly

you are in principle skeptical about

whatever the Bible says your first step

ought to be finding out what it says and

so this series is for you to if you have

become a believer in Jesus only recently

and worried that you know far too little

about the Bible the series is for you as

well some of you will watch the video

series or listen to the corresponding

audio series perhaps in your car and

nothing more that's fine but some may

want to dig a little deeper but before

you start let me warn you

whether you are beginning this series

out of the mildest curiosity or are

embarking on it out of a passionate

hunger to know and trust and worship the

God of the Bible I am quite sure that at

least some of you will find yourselves

strangely drawn to this God you may find

in delighted and shocked astonishment

that you can no longer push him away

some of you he will capture you'll

probably find it easier to follow this

series if you have a Bible at hand I'll

explain in the series how the Bible is

organized and how to find things in it

as we go along so sit down and let me

have your undivided attention for a few

minutes as we begin at the beginning and

think about the God who made everything

it is an enormous privilege for me to be

with you for this series the God who is

there before plunging into the first

talk it might be helpful if I tell you

where we're going in this series there

was a time in the Western world when

many people had read the Bible

reasonably thoroughly and therefore they

knew how it was put together even those

who were atheists were shall I say

Christian atheists that is to say that

God they disbelieved in was the God of

the Bible their understanding of the God

whom they found incredible was

nevertheless in some measure shaped by

their reading of the Bible but today of

course there is a rising number of

people who really don't know how the

Bible works at all they have never

really read it and so the first place to

begin in trying to understand what

Christianity ought to be who Jesus is is

to start again by reading the Bible

there are lots of ways in which we could

in theory talk about Christianity we

could for example do a brief survey of

the history of the Christian Church or

we might start analyzing what Christians

in various parts of the world believe

but the best way to get at it is to

examine Christianity's foundation

documents there are 66 of them they vary

in length from one page to small books

they were written over a period of 1500

years in three languages the biggest

part was written in Hebrew a very tiny

part was written in a language like

hebrew called aramaic and the last part

was written in greek so all of our

Bibles today the bibles that we hold in

our hands and and pick up and read at

leisure all of these of course are

translations of what was originally

given in these languages these

sixty-six foundation documents are

astonishing light astonishingly diverse

in form in literary job

are letters some are Oracle's some are

written in poetry

some are laments they have genealogies

they have sections that are said to be

Oracle's from God himself

some are horrible wrestling's as as

believers try to understand what on

earth God is doing some are written in a

genre that we just don't use anymore we

call it apocalyptic literature will come

to that next week with astonishing

symbolism that is visually striking and

then on top of that they they they are

astonishingly varied as well in terms of

accessibility some parts you can read

and in anybody with an ability to read a

novel today can make sense of the text

and other parts are full of symbolism

that is archaic no longer used today out

of date because it is located at a

certain time in history now all of these

foundation documents have been put

together and when they're put together

they form the book that's all Bible

means it's it's the book it's the book

of Christianity's foundation documents

and we who are Christians insists that

God has disclosed himself supremely in

the pages of these documents in this

series I shall sketch in what the Bible

says so as to make sense of what

Christianity means what Christianity

looks like if it is constrained by its

own foundation documents because truth

must be said very often Christians

themselves have abandoned those

foundation documents and betray the very

heritage that they have received the

Christian claim however is that this

Bible discloses the God who is there now

in this first session we reflect on the

God who made everything and we begin by

the first book

in this collection called Genesis these

books are put together with chapters and

verses that is if you open the Bible

anywhere you'll find a break with a big

number that's a heading of a chapter and

then some small numbers if you're not

familiar with the Bible if you've never

read it at all the easiest thing to do

to orientate yourself is to open up to

the first few pages where you'll find in

the series order within the Bible all

the names of the books of the Bible

Genesis Exodus Leviticus numbers and so

on all the way through the whole

sixty-six and then you'll get the page

number and you can find the book and

then you'll see there's a chapter number

and a verse number so if I say something

like Genesis 1:26 I mean the first book

of the Bible the first chapter verse 26

and over the course of these fourteen

sessions all would be referring to a lot

of books of the Bible a lot of passages

you won't have time to look them all up

but it's all recorded you can look them

up later and that's how you find them if

you have not become familiar with

handling the Bible in the past

so we begin then with Genesis 1 I'm not

going to read the whole chapter but I

want to pick up parts of it and into

chapter 2 this is what the opening line

of the Bible says in the beginning God

created the heavens and the earth now

the earth was formless and empty

darkness was over the surface of the

deep and the Spirit of God was hovering

over the waters and God said let there

be light and there was light God saw

that the light was good and he separated

the light from the darkness

God called the light day and the

darkness he called night and there was

evening and there was morning.the first

day

and then in successive days various

things are created by this God who says

let there be this or let there be that

and occasionally there is a refrain

added at the end of verse 10 and God saw

that it was good so eventually you get

today 5 and the water teems with living

creatures and birds fly above the earth

across the vault of the sky God created

the great creatures of the sea and every

living and moving thing with which the

water teems according to their kinds and

then the sixth day Let The Land produce

living creatures according to their

kinds livestock creatures that move

along the ground wild animals each

according to its kind and at the end of

the description and God saw that it was

good then God said let us make human

beings in our image in our likeness so

that they may rule over the fish in the

sea and the birds in the sky over the

livestock and all the wild animals and

over all the creatures that move along

the ground so God created human beings

in his own image in the image of God he

created them male and female he created

them God blessed them and said to them

be fruitful and increase in numbers fill

the earth and subdue it rule over the

fish in the sea and the birds in the sky

and over every living creature that

moves on the ground

then God said I give you every

seed-bearing plant on the face of the

whole earth and every tree that has

fruit with seed in it they will be yours

for food and to all the beasts of the

earth and all the birds in the sky and

all the creatures that move on the

ground everything that has breath of

life in it I give every green plant for

food and it was so God saw that he had

made and it was very good and there was

evening and there was morning the sixth

day thus the heavens and the earth were

completed in all their vast a

by the seventh day God had finished the

work he had been doing so on the seventh

day he rested from all his work then God

blessed the seventh day and made it holy

because on it he rested from all the

work of creating that he had done and

then in the rest of chapter two there's

a kind of expansion on the creation of

human beings that we'll come to in due

course now because much of 21st century

culture is convinced that contemporary

scientific thought is fundamentally

incompatible with the opening chapters

of Genesis I'd better say something

about the approach I adopt here four

things number one there is more

ambiguity in the interpretation of these

chapters than some Christians recognize

some Christians are convinced for

example that this pair of chapters read

responsibly insists that the world is

not more than four thousand years older

than the coming of Jesus others insists

that it is entirely compatible with vast

ages some think that each day represents

an age others insert a huge gap between

verse 1 and verse 2 some see this as a

literary device creation week is a

creation week all right but it it is

symbol Laden and and and full of other

things rather than describing a literal

week others devote their energy to

comparing it with other creation

accounts in the ancient world in which

it was written in the Babylonian era for

example there was a document called the

Enuma Elish which describes the creation

of the world and they try to say that

the Christian documents are basically

shaped along the lines of those

Babylonian myths there are huge

diversity of opinion amongst Christians

let alone amongst those who want to

write the entire account off what shall

we do with this

I hold that this is transparently a

mixed Jean that feels like history and

really does give us some historical

details that is by history I don't mean

that which has been written down at the

time but that which takes place in

space-time reality yet it is full of

demonstrable symbolism and sorting out

what is symbolic and what is not is very

difficult now how should we shall

negotiate that I will tell you in a

moment

second there is more ambiguity in the

claims of science than some scientists

recognized recently of course the media

have focused on the fresh literary

adventures of people like Richard

Dawkins The God Delusion Sam Harris

Christopher Hitchens and others together

their writings comprise what is now

sometimes called the new atheism and

correspondingly there are robust

responses that have been written of

various sorts all of these books are

predicated on the assumption of

philosophical materialism that is all

that exists all that can exist is matter

energy space and time nothing else so

that anything that claims to go beyond

that or belong to some Dement domain

that cannot be reduced to that must

necessarily be dismissed even laughed at

as the trailing edge of an antecedent

superstition that was declared foolish a

long time ago and shouldn't immediately

be abandoned and yet and yet I

personally know many front-rank

scientists who are Christians I have

spoken in many universities and one of

the surprising things that I have

observed is that

if I go to nearby local churches and

meet some of the faculty in the

universities that are attending these

local churches and are committed

believers there actually tends to be a

preponderance of science teachers and

math teachers and the like over against

arts and psychology and English

literature teachers it's not really that

anybody who's a scientist can't be a

Christian Mysti tissa Khalid that really

is with all respect nonsense so I'm

impressed for example by the little book

by Mike Poole God and the scientists or

another one edited by demske called

uncommon descent intellectuals who find

Darwinism unconvincing there is more

debate going on than is sometimes

perceived but even if you allow some

understanding of origins that belongs to

the dominant modern paradigm in which

our entire known universe developed out

of a big bang something like 15 billion

years ago from highly condensed

unimaginably condensed everything a big

bang that eventually became our universe

even if you subscribe to that whether

under the ages of God or not sooner or

later you're forced to ask the question

where did that highly condensed material

come from now here some get very very

clever there's a book by Alan Guth

called

the inflationary universe and he tries

to work it out that this very very

condensed material which ultimately

exploded in the Big Bang emerged out of

nothing and if you say that the physics

doesn't work he says yes but at the Big

Bang there is what physicists call a

singularity a singularity

is an occurrence in which the normal

laws of physics no longer work but that

means we don't really have any access to

them at that point it's a while this

speculation which causes a critic by the

name of bet linski to write a lot of

stuff that gets into print is simply

nonsensical alan guth derivation of

something from nothing is simply

incandescent horse manure now he uses

another word for manure but I spare you

don't tell me you're deriving something

from nothing when it's transparently

obvious to any mathematician that this

is incandescent nonsense in other words

there are complications in the domain of

science that show that there is not

simply a solid wall a solid front that

makes it impossible for Christians who

want to bow to the authority of

Scripture and Christians who really want

to learn from science to talk

intelligently with each other third

whatever one makes of intelligent design

one of the dominant debates of the day

whatever one makes of intelligent design

as a scientific theory there is a

version of it which I find almost

inescapable let me explain

during the last twenty five years there

have been groups of people mostly

Christians but some non-christians

amongst them as well who point to what

they call irreducible complexity that is

structures in the human being that are

so complex that it is statistically

impossible to imagine how they could

have come to be by chance or chance

mutation or mere selection of the

fittest or any of the standard appeals

that are made in traditional Darwinism

this irreducible complexity demands that

you postulate a designer

now there are some non-believers who

argue that point and of course there are

many Christians who argue that point

then some argue back many unbelievers

and believers yes yes yes but that might

simply mean that we don't know enough

about the mechanisms if you start

filling God in wherever we don't have an

explanation then you're putting God into

the gaps of our ignorance but as we

learn more then the gaps get filled up

and God gets smaller we don't need a god

of the gaps and so the debate continues

but whatever you make of that debate

it's interesting and the literature is

already voluminous what I find

interesting is that many many writers

who are not Christians in any sense by

their own declaration sometimes speak of

their marvel almost to the level of what

I would call worship at the unimaginable

complexity and splendor and glory of the

universe there's a fascinating book by

Frank Reese Reese without an e at the

end our EES who titles his volume just

six numbers the deep forces that shape

the universe these numbers are bound up

with physical realities such that if the

realities that these numbers describe

were just a little higher in number or

just a little lower in number the

universe as we know it couldn't exist

just exactly the right distance between

one particle and another particle at the

subatomic level

just six numbers out of that Avenue or

others describe the astonishing

complexity of the eyeball and although

they may be completely philosophical

materialists and their orientation they

are so impressed by the complexity and

glory of it all that they almost begin

to teach to treat nature

as a god I would want to say from a

Christian point of view that their

instincts are jolly good except that

there is a God who has disclosed himself

in the glory of what we call nature I'm

not sure that it's right to argue from

the complexity and glory of the six

numbers or the woodpecker's tail

feathers or the eyeball that you can

infer in some demonstrable powerful way

that God exists I don't think that at

the end of the day God is the end of the

argument the conclusion at the end but

if you begin with this God the testimony

to his greatness in what we see all

around us is heart-stopping it's

mind-boggling

and it takes an enormous act of will on

the part of the most cynical of

scientists instead to look at it all and

say ah it's just physics stop admiring

it don't do that there's no design it's

just molecules bumping into molecules

and finally let me say then where I'm

coming from as we work through these

texts about thirty years ago a Christian

thinker by the name of Francis Schaeffer

wrote a little book called Genesis in

space and time what he argued was that

to get rid of some of these endless

heated debates one of the ways to begin

is by asking what is the least the

Genesis one and following must be saying

for the rest of the Bible to make any

sense so I don't want to tell you

everything that I think these chapters

are saying it would take too long in any

case we've only got one hour to devote

to these first two chapters what I want

to suggest to you is

whatever the complexities of symbolism

and literary Jean and the relationship

to science and so forth there is an

irreducible minimum that these chapters

must be saying for the Bible to have any

coherence at all and that's what I want

to lay out for you in the next few

minutes so what do these two chapters

Genesis 1 and 2 tell us first some

things about God

second some things about human beings

and finally some things about how

Genesis 1 and 2 fit into the whole Bible

and into our lives so first some things

about God number one God simply is the

Bible does not begin by a long set of

proofs to prove the existence of God it

does not begin with a bottom up approach

nor does it begin with some kind of

adjacent analogy or the like it just

begins in the beginning God

now if human beings are the test of

everything this makes no sense at all

because then we have the right to sit

back and judge whether it's likely that

God exists evaluate the evidence and

come out with a certain probability that

perhaps god of some sort of other exists

and thus we become the judges of God but

the God of the Bible isn't like that it

just begins in the beginning God he is

he is not the object whom we evaluate he

is the Creator who has made us which

changes all the dynamics this is bound

up with some developments in Western

thought that we should appreciate before

the honey sauce but even right through

the early part of the Renaissance really

down to the time of the Reformation most

people in the Western world presupposed

that God exists and that he knows

everything

human beings exist and because God knows

everything what we know must necessarily

be some small subset of what he knows in

other words all of our knowledge because

he knows everything must be a subset of

what he knows exhaustively and perfectly

that means that all of our knowledge in

this way of looking at reality must come

in some sense by God disclosing what he

knows

by God disclosing it in nature by God

disclosing it to by his Spirit by God

disclosing it in in the Bible that that

was simply presupposed but with the rise

and the sixteen hundred hundreds of what

is now called Cartesian thought under

the influence of Hyundai Descartes

and those who followed him the way of

thinking about knowledge changed and the

axiom that more and more people based

their knowledge upon was the axiom that

Descartes introduced to us although

others had

said something similar earlier I think

therefore I am

he thought that that was a foundation

for knowledge you couldn't deny that you

were thinking even if you were thinking

the very fact that you were thinking

showed that you exist so he was looking

for a foundation that Christians and

atheists and Muslims secularists

spiritual types could all agree was

indisputable and from this foundation

and other approaches he then gradually

built up a whole system of thought to

try to convince people to become Roman

Catholics but notice how his axiom runs

I think therefore I am

two hundred years earlier no Christian

would have said that very easily because

God thinks God knows everything if we

exist that it's because of God's power

our knowledge even our existence are

finally dependent upon him but this side

of Cartesian thought we begin with I I

begin with me and that puts me in a

place where I start evaluating not only

the world around me but morals and

history and God so that God now becomes

simply at best the inference of my study

that changes everything the Bible

doesn't run along those lines God simply

is second God made everything that is

non God God made everything else this

introduces an irreducible distinction

between creator and creature God is not

a creature in this absolute sense we are

not creators his existence is thus self

existence somehow I can use the word I

don't really understand it very well

that is he has no cause he just is

he always has been whereas by contrast

everything else in the universe began

somewhere whether in a Big Bang or in

human conception or somewhere God made

it all that means that everything in the

universe apart from God is finally

dependent upon God number three there is

only one of them this emerges strongly

in the Bible God openly says let there

be this let there be that God made

everything he saw that it was very good

and later on in the Bible this point is

stressed again and again for example in

verses that Jews reverently recite to

this day called the Shema you find it in

the fifth book of the Bible Deuteronomy

chapter 6 we read the words here o

Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one

there's only one of them and yet yet

even in this very first chapter there is

a hint of complexity to his oneness

it's just ant it's hard to know exactly

what it means but it is quite striking

we read through the account of creation

God said this God said that God said the

other and then when it comes to human

beings we read verse 26 God said let us

make human beings in our image that

could be a royal we if you listen to BBC

broadcast you might have listened to Her

Majesty Queen Elizabeth the second

saying we and us where the referent is

clearly herself and even the comics pick

it up and picture her saying we are not

amused

it could be conceivably a royal

reference a kind of royal editorial we

but it is striking that it's introduced

here when human beings are made and that

it goes on not only to speak of the

first person plural when God says let us

but in our image you you can't build too

much on that yet it is strange language

just the same especially in a Bible that

insists again and again and again that

there is but one God and later on this

will get filled out in quite a variety

of ways as we'll see in particular he

makes creatures who bear his image let

me reread verses 26 to 28 let us make

human beings in our image in our

likeness so that they may rule over the

fish in the sea and the birds in the sky

over the livestock and all the wild

animals over all the creatures that move

along the ground so God created human

beings in his singular own image in the

image of God he created them male and

female he created them and God blessed

them now we'll come back to thinking

through what this language of image

bearing means in a moment

number four God is a talking God he is a

talking God the first action that is

described under this general rubric God

created the heavens and the earth is God

said let there be light

now you could understand this to be of

the kind of metaphorical way of saying

that God brought it into being by his

power and he didn't other any words fine

could be except that once Adam and Eve

are made then he actually addresses them

and gives them some responsibilities

this is what you are to do this is what

marriage will look like he speaks to

them so the God of the Bible in the very

first chapter is not some abstract

unmoved mover some spirit impossible to

define some ground of all being some

mystical experience he has personality

and dares to disclose himself in words

that human beings understand right

through the whole Bible that recurs and

recurs and recurs and then in the fifth

place

we're told everything he makes is good

very good

even as the account unravels you

discover here that there is no hint in

chapters 1 & 2 of death or decay of

butchery of malice of hate of

one-upmanship of arrogance of pride of

destruction that there is no hint of any

of this it is very good and constantly

regardless of all the complexities about

God's sovereignty in a world where there

is suffering and the like will come to

more of that as we progress in this

series constantly the Bible insists that

God is good and the foundations of it

are already here in the first chapter

and finally

he comes to an end of his creative work

and he rests that is he stops doing it

it doesn't mean that he's saying am I

tired I have really got to sit down with

my feet up that is rather miss reading

the text he comes to the end of his week

of creation however we understand this

week and at the end of his creative work

he stops he rests and designates this

seventh day in a special way so these

are some of the things about God that

these opening two chapters say right on

the surface of the text now some things

about human beings number one they were

made in the image of God now in one

sense human beings are creatures and

thus they have in common the attributes

of other creatures we know this today

from genetics what percentage of my

genes are shared with a chimp or a

piglet and when the piglet dies and

returns to the dust he does exactly what

I do I return to the dust - we're part

of this created order and if you keep

stressing the continuity and keep

stressing the continuity then eventually

you might come out with a kind of

position that Peter Singer adopts at

Princeton University

who wants in effect all animal life to

have so far as it's possible to work out

at all exactly the kind of rights that

human beings have because after all were

genetically the same stuff we are

physical beings they're physical beings

they live they're born they have they

are born they die so also is our course

Genesis doesn't see things quite that

way

it insists that human beings and human

beings alone are made in the image of

God now as you can imagine that

expression image of God has over the

millennia generated analyst discussion

what does it mean to be made in the

image of God and so philosophers and

theologians have written long tomes

saying well it has something to do with

the facility of language or it has

something to do with our self-identity

of our reasoning processes of love that

might be altruistic of our capacity to

know God and so on and so on and so on

but if you were picking up this book for

the first time and read it and didn't

know anything about all of these debates

I suspect that your approach to this

image of God language would be a little

simpler it becomes a kind of master

concept which is filled in as you go

along

that is we reflect God and the ways in

which we reflect God will get filled in

as the Bible unfolds there's so from

this first chapter God is a talking God

he speaks to human beings and they speak

back to him well there is a commonality

of speech of propositions of knowledge

that is not merely felt but that can be

articulated there is also something of

creativity of course our creativity is

not like gods but God makes things and

he makes things out of nothing we don't

do that but there is implanted in human

beings as a reflection of God because we

are made in His image a certain

creativity we work with our hands my

wife does spectacular needlepoint and

silicon metal thread and quilts things

like that my daughter does the cooking

my wife does this sort of thing I like

working with my hands and wood

some right some some are remarkably

creative in their physicality I have a

son who just looks at every new physical

challenge that comes along and and

plunges in and he is he is almost an

artist as he as he learned scuba diving

or spelunking in a cave or whatever the

new challenges he's in it and he's

almost artistic in his creative ability

to explore some new challenge where does

that come from by and large does not

characteristics of characteristic of

elephants black widow spiders rocks and

then there is there is the capacity to

work God is said to work all of this

creation week and then come to the end

of it and what he gives to the man and

the woman are certain responsibilities

to work in this world to tend the garden

which has teased out across all of

Scripture as as something honorable

Christians should never descend to the

place where working at the manufacturing

floor or working as a secretary or

working driving a bus are doing research

chemistry that's secular I I do that to

pay the bills and then I'm supposed to

be spiritual on Sunday but what I do on

Sunday in spirituality that's just for

Sunday then Monday I go back to my

reagents as I try to develop a new

chemical that will fight cancer rather

if it's God's universe and we are made

in His image then as we work our work to

reflects him and is offered back up to

him with integrity and gratitude it is

significant because we are made in the

image of God

it changes our perspective about who we

are

and then although we have to recognize

that there are differences between God

and us there are other things where we

are similar where we reflect him later

on the Bible God will say things like be

holy for I am holy

so proper image bearing up to reflect

God's holiness will come to what

holiness is a little later on God never

says be omnipotent for I am omnipotent

that is be all-powerful and do anything

that you choose to do because I am

all-powerful there are some differences

between the God who is the creator and

we who are creatures there are some

differences we're not God we're His

image bearers were made in His image and

we reflect him in certain ways God in

the Bible is not only the creator he's

finally the sovereign over all but the

fact that he puts these human beings

this man and this woman in charge over

the rest of the created order not to

rape it not merely to exploit it not to

become ecologically selfish but to be

God's own stewards over the good world

that God has made really makes us I

don't know what else to call it

Vice Regents were made in His image and

as God has made it all and were under

him and charged with the responsibility

of looking after it we're reflecting

something of God even the capacity to

know God to delight in him is wonderful

there's a book by Peter Williams called

I wish I could believe in meaning a

response to nihilism that is a response

to the view that we've merely emerged

from the primordial muck where where is

the meaning in this from the Bible's

point of view

meaning in life is bound up with the

fact that we were made by God and for

God in His image with an eternal destiny

it changes our perception of what human

beings are otherwise we slink into what

one philosopher has called self

referential incoherence what he means by

this is we compare ourselves with

ourselves we have no external standard

by which anything should be judged and

we cannot find an anchor for our being

anywhere and we we then drown ourselves

in temporary pleasures or pursuit of

money or self-promotion but there is no

anchoring that locates us and gives us a

meaning beyond ourselves there's no

scale human beings were made in the

image of God

and in this connection they were made to

work to rule to service God stewards to

be surpassingly God centered then second

they were made male and female now in

Chapter 1 where the creation account is

first given we're told God created human

beings in his own image 1:27 in the

image of God he created them male and

female he created them but in the second

chapter where the creation of human

beings is expanded upon then not only

their commonality what they hold in

common but their differentiations are

also exposed so chapter 2 verse 18 the

Lord God said when madda

when Adam alone lived it is not good for

the man to be alone I will make a helper

suitable for him older English versions

have a help meet for him and hence we

get our word help mate a helper suitable

for him now the Lord God had formed out

of the ground all the wild animals and

all the birds in the sky he brought them

to the man to see what he would name

them and whatever the man called each

living creature

that was its name so the man gave names

to all the livestock the birds in the

sky all the wild animals but for Adam no

suitable helper was found so the Lord

caused the man to fall into a deep sleep

and while he was sleeping he took one of

the man's ribs and then closed up the

place with flesh then the Lord God made

a woman from the rib he had taken out of

the man and he brought her to the man

the man said this is now bone of my

bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be

called woman for she was taken out of

man for this reason a man will leave his

father and mother and be united to his

wife and they will become one flesh so

while the opening chapters insists that

human beings male and female were

equally made in the image of God it also

insists that the woman was made as a

helper but they come together in one

union a sexual union a marriage union

which as the story unfolds develops a

separate unit generation after

generation with the man leaving his

family the woman leaving her family and

settling into a new relationship the two

becoming one that's a little different

picture of marriage than animals merely

doing it or ancient near-eastern harems

with the most powerful monarch having

the most or woman being nothing more

than chattel and possession or a

decidedly intrinsically inferior being

she comes from the man she is one with

him different transparently

but here there is a vision of marriage

which ultimately becomes a model of a

whole lot of other things through it all

of the Bible and then the last thing to

be said about these human beings they

were innocent we read in the last verse

of chapter 2 the man and his wife were

both naked and they felt no shame I'm

sure you've seen these line drawing

cartoons of Adam and Eve in the garden

and there's a little snake coming and an

apple hanging down from somewhere and in

these line diagrams you don't want to

make them indecent so the woman's hair

covers their breasts appropriately and

fig Leafs and other branches they can

they cover the man and the appropriate

slots and so forth and then there's some

one line or two and we all giggle but

what is nakedness signify here do you

know that there is a theory to nudist

colonies oh I know some nudist colonies

are merely an excuse for rounds of

orgies I know that but the best nudist

colonies if I may speak of nudist

colonies on a moral scale the best

nudist colonies had a certain kind of

philosophy to them the idea was that if

you could be completely open and

transparent in one domain then sooner or

later you could foster openness and

transparency in every domain so we begin

with physical transparency complete

openness and maybe down the road we'll

all become wonderfully open candid

honest caring loving people never works

but that's a theory

and it's that association that is behind

this text these two had nothing to hide

and therefore nothing to be ashamed of

tell me you men would you like your

mother wife daughter to know absolutely

everything you think and feel you women

would you like your father husband son

to know absolutely everything you think

and feel or even across the same genders

we hide all kinds of things don't we

because we have so much of which we

ought to be ashamed what would it be

like never ever ever to have told a lie

never ever ever to have nurtured

bitterness never ever ever to have

succumbed to controlling lust never ever

ever to be burning up with hate never to

be puffed up in arrogance always to be

loving God with heart and soul and mind

and strength always always to be loving

the other as yourself then you'd have

absolutely nothing to be ashamed of

you'd be naked

no wonder the very word Eden means

delight now finally here I'm merely

going to prime the pump it'll prepare

the way for things we do in the rest of

the series some things about how Genesis

1 and 2 fit in the whole Bible and in

our own world very quickly number one

this is a necessary background to

chapter three that we'll look at in the

next hour well that makes sense doesn't

it Genesis 1 and 2 come before Genesis 3

but without understanding how good

everything is then we cannot speak of

what happens in the chapter that we

sometimes called the fall to show what

rebellion looks like number two this

creation this doctrine of creation God

made everything actually comes out again

in the writings after the coming of

Jesus as new creation and ultimately and

you heaven and a new earth that is

looking back to the old creation which

by means we'll see succumbed to

rebellion and hatred and idolatry and

sin what what is finally needed is for

God to do to do a new creative Act to

begin again to create people over again

and that in the writing of some of the

New Testament writers is called new

creation and we we press toward and you

heaven and a new earth the home of

righteousness we'll come to that in our

very last session next week the

terminology is all drawn from Genesis 1

and 2 likewise Adam becomes the

progenitor of the race which falls away

in all kinds of ugliness and decay and

self referentiality idolatry Jesus is

called the second Adam that is he begins

another humanity and you race that works

on quite different principles Christians

must belong to this second Adam or

all that the Bible speaks about as the

gospel the good news just makes no sense

at all and this theme of rest will

continue as we'll see the theme of a New

Eden will continue as we'll see above

all this vision shapes our worldview for

example in pagan polytheism that is in

views of the world in which there are

many gods the gods have different

domains of operation here's one God

who's made it all it's different from

the world view for example of hedonism

where the point of the exercise is

simply to find as much pleasure as you

possibly can and then you die but here

the pursuit of pleasure is bound up with

God himself

we were made initially by God and for

God and the best the highest pleasure is

a god-sent earnest that secular hedonist

cannot possibly imagine their pleasures

are too fleeting too small too narrow

and then pantheism teaches us that all

the created world and God are all part

of the same thing there's no

differentiation and thus I am God and

you are God and we're all in this God

existence together and I'm really quite

a spiritual person you know and it's the

crystals that are vibrating in my system

that actually make me feel

transcendently other I'm not mocking

that this is a frame of reference that

many adopt it simply is in the worldview

of the Bible God made everything

which brings us perhaps for our purposes

to the most fundamental and striking

reality of all

it's these two chapters what the Bible

says about creation that grounds the

notion of human accountability of human

responsibility in other words why should

I obey God I mean if he wants to take me

in directions that I don't really like

then I can choose other gods or invent

my own I I can sing I did it my way

III I can simply declare my independence

who is he to boss me around unless he

made me he designed me and I owe him

everything life and breath and

everything such that if I don't see it

that way

then I am out of line with my maker I am

out of line with the one who designed me

I am the one that is fighting against

myself as God made me for all of human

accountability all of human

responsibility before God is grounded in

the first instance on creation he made

us and we owe him

and it's for our good that we recognize

it not because he's the supreme bully

but because without him we wouldn't even

be here and now we're set up for the

Bible's analysis of what's wrong with us

let's take a break you