Mass Destruction – Genesis 18:1-19:27

Posted on by 
Previously posted on January 14, 2013

“Then out of the sky the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah burning sulfur from the Lord. He demolished these cities, the entire plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and whatever grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.” (Genesis 19:24-26, CSB).

One of the most provocative stories in Genesis is the mass destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Perhaps, it is the strange interplay between good fortune and bad fortune expressed in the events leading up to the destruction that makes the story so foreboding.

It’s the middle of an otherwise ordinary day in the arid land where Abraham resides when the heat is at its blistering peak. Abraham is resting at the entrance to his tent when he sees three travelers standing nearby. His nomadic sense of hospitality demands that he invites them to stop and refresh themselves before proceeding on their journey .

Continue reading →

When God Pays A Visit – Genesis 18

Posted on by
JesusAtTheDoor

“Now the Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day. When he lifted up his eyes and looked, behold, three men were standing opposite him…He said, ‘I will surely return to you at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife will have a son’….Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before the Lord. Abraham came near and said, ‘Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?… Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?’” (Genesis 18:1-2,22-23,25, NASB).

Genesis 18 is a theological nexus that reveals the link between God’s mercy and wrath, between human rebellion and redemption. And it does so in a most dramatic way.

Three defining moments occur in this chapter that reveal the cosmic interaction between mercy and wrath, between human rebellion and divine redemption: 1) the announcement of the birth of Isaac; 2) the plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah; and 3) God’s restraint for Lot and his family.

One day while Abraham was sitting on the front porch of his tent, God paid him a visit. God appeared in front of Abraham in the form of three men (a theophany). Some think the three men signify the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The text indicates that two of them were angels so at least one of the three persons appearing at Abraham’s tent was God Himself,  “the Lord” (see vs. 1, 13, 17, 20, 26, 33, 19:1)!

Continue reading →

The Last Laugh – Genesis 17:17; 18:12; 21:2-3,5-6

Posted on by

(Originally posted January 20, 2014)

LastLaugh

“Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, ‘Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’ … Sarah laughed to herself, saying, ‘After I have become old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?’ … So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac….Now Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Sarah said, ‘God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.'” (Genesis 17:17; 18:12; 21:2-3,5-6, NASB).

The name Isaac means, “He laughs.” And, each time the verb “laugh” is used in these verses, it is a wordplay on the name “Isaac.” So, this extraordinary and somewhat humorous story of the miraculous birth of Isaac is actually a story of who gets the last laugh!

God appeared to Abraham when he was ninety-nine years old and renewed His covenant with him. God commanded Abraham and all his male descendants to be circumcised as a sign of His covenant.

Then, God told Abraham that his covenant people will be descended through a son born to his wife, Sarah, who was ninety years old and barren.  Abraham fell on his face before God and laughed at the implausibility of a child being born to a hundred-year-old man and a ninety-year-old woman.

Continue reading →

Can It Be Ishmael? – Genesis 17

Posted on by

(Originally posted January 13, 2013)

“So Abraham said to God, ‘If only Ishmael were acceptable to You!'” (Genesis 17:18, HCSB).

In Genesis 17 God’s promise to Abraham for an heir and a multitude of descendants is reiterated, but this time in greater detail. Since Sarah, Abraham’s wife, was old and had not borne Abraham a child, she offered her Egyptian servant to Abraham to have a child by her. Abraham consented to the marital arrangement taking Hagar as his second wife when he was 85 years old.

Hagar bore Abraham a son and they named him Ishmael. Customs of the time dictated that any child conceived by Hagar would belong to Sarah and Abraham.

When Ishmael was thirteen years old, God reaffirmed His covenant with Abraham and decreed that male circumcision would be the sign or seal of this covenant. Then God informed Abraham that his wife Sarah would give birth to a son, who he was instructed to name Isaac. And, God told Abraham that He would establish his covenant through Isaac.

Continue reading →

Salvation in the Old Testament – Genesis 15:1-6

Posted on by

Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.(Genesis 15:6, CSB).

In studying the Old Testament Christians may question how people were saved in Old Testament times. Early in my seminary studies this was a question I had as well and researched for a paper for one of my classes.

There is sometimes a misconception among Christians that people were “saved” in the Old Testament by keeping the Law (of Moses) while people are saved in the New Testament by grace through faith.

Genesis 15:6 gives us an unequivocal answer to the question: righteousness is imputed by God by faith, not law-keeping. And, that is both an Old Testament and New Testament proposition. In fact, in Romans 1-8 the Apostle Paul makes this proposition and this verse central to his whole argument.

Continue reading →

Confusion – Genesis 10-11

Posted on by

Then the Lord came down to look over the city and the tower that the humans were building. The Lord said, “If they have begun to do this as one people all having the same language, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let’s go down there and confuse their language so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” So from there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth, and they stopped building the city. Therefore it is called Babylon, for there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth (Genesis 11:5-9, CSB).

The tower of Babel was probably a ziggurat, which was a common archaeological structure in ancient Mesopotamian cities. Archaelogists have unearthed dozens of ziggurats in the region, the most famous being the Great Ziggurat of Ur in Iraq. It is a huge, 4,100 year old structure made up of more than 700,000 baked bricks.

Ziggurats, unlike the pyramids in Egypt that were tombs for pharaohs, were stairways for the gods. The defining structure of a ziggurat was a long stairway leading to the top where a room with a bed and table was prepared for the deity. The stairway was not for people to climb up, but for the god to come down.

In these verses God “came down” to look over the city and the tower the people were building up to heaven. But, God didn’t need to be invited or enticed to come down from heaven to the earth nor did He need to descend a stairway to facilitate His descent.

Continue reading →

Uncreation – Genesis 6:1 – 7:24

Posted on by

When the Lord saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time, the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and he was deeply grieved. Then the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.” Noah, however, found favor with the Lord (Genesis 6:5-8, CSB).

Sixteen hundred years after Adam and Eve’s initial act of corruption the moral and spiritual condition of humanity had declined to the extent that God was ready to destroy His creation–or at least the part of it that breathed.

But, to gain the full impact of the story of Noah’s ark, it is helpful to understand some of the wordplay between the creation story and the flood story.

Continue reading →

Acceptable Worship – Genesis 4:1-15

Posted on by

In the course of time Cain presented some of the land’s produce as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also presented an offering—some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering. Cain was furious, and he looked despondent (Genesis 4:3-5, CSB).

The story of the first murder is recorded only four chapters into the Bible. I am always intrigued by the incidents leading up to the murder. God’s regard for Abel’s offering of the firstborn of his flock and His disregard for Cain’s offering of some of the land’s produce creates a theological dilemma for me and seems to be the circumstance that sets in motion the tragic chain of events ending in murder.

Continue reading →

Corrupted – Genesis 2:8 – 3:22

Posted on by

The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed. The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…. The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:8-17, CSB).

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’” “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.(Genesis 3:1-5, CSB).

In these two chapters from Genesis we see the formulation of some fundamental components of the Judeo-Christian ethic–free will, human depravity, moral law and justice.

God planted a garden in Eden and gave the man the responsibility for working in the garden and watching over it. (Why it was necessary for the man to protect the garden is an interesting question for another time.) Two species of trees in the garden are mentioned–the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of the former, Adam and Eve could eat and subsequently experience eternal life. Of the latter, they were commanded not to eat or they would experience death.

Continue reading →

The Good, The Very Good and The Not So Good – Genesis 2:4-25

Posted on by

And God saw that it was good….And God saw that it was good…. And God saw that it was good…. God saw all that He had made, and it was very good…. Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 1:18, 21, 25, 31, 2:18, CSB).

Seven times in Genesis 1, God observed His creation to be good. In Genesis 1:4 after He had spoken light into existence, God declared it to be good. In vs. 1:10 after separating the water from the land, God called that good. After creating plant life in vs. 1:12 God saw that it was good. In vs. 1:18 after setting the solar system in place and spinning the earth on its axis to create seasons and night and day, God calls that good. In vs. 1:21 after creating animals to populate the water and the air, God determined that to be good. In vs. 1:25 after populating the land with animals and insects, God calls that good as well.

Then, after creating humanity as the capstone of His creation (vs. 1:26–30), God observed all He had made and declared it to be not just good but very good.

Continue reading →