GENESIS: THE METHOD OF FAITH
by Ray C. Stedman
This Bible is given to us to read. It is a great book, a tremendous
book. Let us begin at the first of the Bible and go through it all, book
by book -- from Genesis to Revelation -- and look at the setting, the message,
and the relationship of each to the whole. This will be a zoom-lens view,
book by book. Such a panorama is one of the most helpful ways to understand
and see the divine pattern of revelation. One of the most powerful and
unanswerable pieces of evidence for the truth of inspiration is to see
the divine pattern that runs through the Bible. How can this be explained
apart from God, that a book as diverse in its authorship, written under
equally diverse conditions should have such a remarkable pattern of truth
unless it comes from one divine author?
We are so familiar with the Bible that we scarcely consider what an
ancient book it is. There is a Greek philosopher named Herodotus, a teacher
and scholar who lived some three hundred years before Christ, who is called
the father of history; he is the first historian whose writings have been
preserved to us. Anyone who has studied something of ancient history knows
about Herodotus. But the outstanding thing about the Bible is that Moses,
who wrote the first five books of our Bible, had finished his books and
was in his grave a thousand years before Herodotus saw the light of day.
That's how ancient Genesis is. It is the book of beginnings. It takes
us back into the very dawn of human history and yet as we read it, it is
as up-to-date as tomorrow morning's newspaper. That, again, is a mark of
the divine afflatus behind this book, the in-breathing of God. The Bible
has so much color and life about it in these revelations of early human
life. Those who are familiar with archaeology know that these cylinders
and slabs and potsherds from the past give us but the faintest glimpse
into the bare facts of life in these ancient lands. There is little of
human interest about them. There is no color, no life, no flesh. But when
you open the pages of Genesis you discover here that these men come alive.
Abraham is better known than some of our more distant relatives. Isaac
and Joseph, with others, are familiar household names to us. We feel that
they're people we use to know back where we came from. They are as close
to us as that, because this book has so marvelously preserved for us the
color, the depth, the flesh and the tone of life in those days.
Genesis is not only a history. Obviously it would have little significance
to us if it were only that. But the book of Genesis is one with a tremendous
message which can be declared in one statement. It reveals to us the inadequacy
of man without God. That is the whole purpose of the book, and, as such,
it strikes the keynote of all subsequent revelation of God. It reveals
that man can never be complete without God, that he can never discover
or fulfill the true meaning of his life without a genuine personal relationship
with an indwelling God.
Now this inadequacy is revealed to us in three realms, realms in which
each of us live. First it is revealed in the realm of natural relationships,
through what we call the natural sciences: cosmology, the study of the
universe, it origin and make-up; then geology, about the earth, all the
manifold aspects of it that we think we know so much of today; and biology,
the study of life itself in all its manifestations. These natural relationships
circumscribe our contact with the physical world around us. The second
area is the realm of human relationships. This takes in what we call sociology,
psychology, psychiatry, along with all the other "psychs" that
are made so much of today. And then finally, the realm of spiritual relationships
-- theology, soteriology and philosophy. In all three of these vital areas,
including many of the particulars with which we are concerned, the book
of Genesis reveals that man apart from God is totally inadequate. This
one message echoes throughout the book like the sound of a bell.
Let me show you what I mean. The first two chapters are largely concerned
with the world of nature. This book opens with the greatest material fact
in our life today -- the fact that we live in a universe. We become aware
of this when we step out under the stars at night and look up. Even the
most ignorant of us ponders what is out there -- the unending stars, these
brilliant lights in the heavens. We wonder at the movement of the heavenly
bodies. Man has stood and gazed in awe and wonderment at this sight for
centuries.
At last we have begun to probe out into the universe around us and have
discovered that we live in a great galaxy, a diffuse body of stars and
planets -- millions of them. Our own galaxy is three hundred thousand light
years across and it's just the home base of us in the universe. First base
is out yonder and center field is WAY out. In this great ball park, we
know of over a million bases out there, galaxies like ours. Our minds begin
to blow a fuse when we start thinking like that, yet Scripture opens with
this -- right on that very note. "In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth" -- and man. That is the story of the beginning
-- of Genesis.
We are in a universe which is mainly mystery to us. We know very little
about it and in any direction we choose to go we soon come to a place where
we can go no farther. I was talking with a nuclear physicist one time and
he was telling me something of the complexity of the nucleus of the atom.
He says that it has become so "astronomically" complex that we
simply cannot begin to grasp all that we are discovering about the fundamental
elements of matter. It is right on this point that the Bible begins with
the answers to questions that scientists cannot answer. What is it that
keeps the universe going? Where did we come from? Who made us? Why are
we here? Yet in spite of the fact that the study of the universe is the
theme of science today, science hasn't found an answer to any of these
questions.
Now to these questions, Genesis supplies answers, the only answers that
fit. It reveals to us that the key to human life, including the material
universe and the mystery of our own nature -- plus that invisible realm
of spirit life we know little about -- is spiritual, not physical or material.
That is why we can never know ourselves or the universe or God by studying
nature. We'll never understand it that way. Ultimately we run up against
a closed door. It becomes so complex we cannot grasp it. Why? Because the
Bible tells us the key is in the spiritual realm. When we take this book
and open it up, we discover that we are moving past all the discoveries
of science today into a realm to which science has not yet come where we
have answers to these questions.
It was no less a person than Albert Einstein who put his finger squarely
upon the inadequacies of science when he said, "Science is like reading
a mystery novel." You go down to the drug store and buy a dime novel
(of course they cost more now) and take it home and you go to bed at night.
Everybody else has left the house and it is dark. You get into bed, snap
on the light, prop yourself up with pillows and start reading. In the first
chapter there are two or three murders, with several bodies lying around.
The whole of the story begins to focus on "who done it. " Clues
appear as you read on. In about the third chapter you've decided that the
butler did it. Continuing on, the finger of guilt points more and more
to the butler. But then you reach the last chapter in which suddenly all
the previous evidence is upset and it wasn't the butler after all. It was
the little old lady in tennis shoes who lives on the third floor. She did
it. Now Einstein says science is like that. It is always struggling from
hypothesis to synthesis from a few clues here and there, but it never gets
the answer. And then suddenly some new light comes along that throws the
first estimate all off, and all the previous answers seem of little value.
The interesting thing about Genesis is that it starts right where science
leaves off. It gives answers addressed to faith, admittedly, but never
faith that is a violation of human reason. Science is always facing the
past. Genesis begins where science is seeking. If we look at it this way
we see that there is no essential conflict. Here is a book that is simply
dealing with matters science has not wrestled with, and, indeed, cannot
wrestle with -- the key to the mystery of human life.
Now in chapters three to six the realm of human relationships is seen;
here you have the entrance of man into the picture. This book reveals that
the basic unit of society is the family. For ten to twenty thousand years
of human history there has been absolutely no variation in that pattern.
The family is still the basic element of human life today. When a society
forgets that fact and begins to destroy family life, the foundations of
the nation crumble because a nation is an extension of the family. The
nations of the world are simply great family groups. Consider for a moment
the uniform reaction of Americans on the day in 1963 when President Kennedy
was assassinated! There never was a time when the whole American nation
felt so like a family as when John Kennedy lay in death. We were all one
people. A crisis disclosed that our nation is nothing more than a gigantic
family. Inside the nation, inside the family revealed in the Scriptures
is the single individual. But when the family crumbles, the nation begins
to fall.
These chapters also reveal the failure of man in this basic relationship,
because man tried to be man without God, and the result of course was the
introduction of the principle of sin. Sin is the monkey wrench which has
been thrown into the human machinery that makes us behave the way we do.
As you read the account here you'll see how Cain rejected God and became
a murderer. He went out and founded a civilization that ended in apostasy
and the flood. When Lot tried to move away from God, to get away from the
influence of God in his life, he wrecked his family as a result.
This life pattern in Scripture is given again and again, and though
we live some thousands of years after these events, it is the same story
today isn't it? Every generation has been repeating the same cycle. We
see it all around us in our nation of lovely homes, new cars and gimmicks
-- yet riddled with strife, violence and almost unmentionable immorality.
Increasing crime rates and broken homes on every side all result from,
and testify vividly to, man's failure to live successfully on the level
of human relationships apart from God.
Finally then in the last part of the book, which is one large section
beginning with the middle of chapter six through chapter fifty, you have
the realm of spiritual relationships. It is the largest part of this book
because it is the most important to man -- his spirit and its relationship
with God. This is the story of five men. If you remember the lives of these
five men and what they mean, you will have most of Genesis right in the
palm of your hand. They are Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. Genesis
reveals in the story of these men what man is always seeking. Do you know
what it is? We think that we are seeking after things. But we know that
things aren't what we really want.
All the restlessness and rush of the age in which we live can be understood
as an attempt to focus upon three goals. First, righteousness, the sense
of being right. This is why we are always attempting to justify ourselves.
When anyone accuses you of something, what happens? You start justifying
yourself. You want to be right. Man is forever seeking righteousness. The
second is peace. We want a sense of well-being inside. A chrome-plated
economy based on "education" leading to "high standards
of living" is surely a cheap substitute. How often the word peace
is flung at us in these days, leaving only a hunger for the real thing.
Man is ever seeking peace. And the third thing is joy. He wants a sense
of gladness, of happiness out of life. Those three are the unseen, almost
unconscious, goals of life -- righteousness, peace and joy. Where are they
found? Romans fourteen says "The kingdom of God does not mean food
and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."
(Rom. 14:17) Only God imparts these things to men, and this is the story
of this book.
Now it reveals how men who did not believe or obey God sought these
things in vain. Jacob for a time, as you know, refuses to obey God and
insists on doing things on his own. Out he goes and becomes a wanderer
and a hired servant of his uncle. He ends up being not only a deceiver
but deceived, and life falls apart at the seams for him. Even Abraham falters
occasionally -- he goes down to Egypt and falls into lying and adultery,
and again, life falls apart.
But if this book, Genesis, reveals the inadequacies of man without God,
it also reveals the adequacy of man with God. That is the great message.
In natural relationships you see that man with God is sovereign. If I had
only known Adam back in the days before the fall! What a rich character
he must have been. What tremendous power and knowledge he must have had
of the secrets of nature. When we look at the New Testament and read of
the miracles of the Lord Jesus walking upon the water, changing the water
into wine, stilling the storm with a word, we say to ourselves, "That
is God at work." But the Old Testament says, "No; that isn't
God, that is man. That is what man was intended to be -- the sovereign,
the king of the world."
You find it reflected in the eighth Psalm. David says as he is looking
into the heavens, "What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the
son of man that thou dost care for him?" And then he answers his question,
"Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast
put all things under his feet." (Ps. 8:4,6) You only see that in Jesus.
That is why the writer of Hebrews says, "We do not yet see every thing
in subjection to him. But we see Jesus..." (Heb. 2:8.9) who as a man
is the fulfillment of God's intention for man to be sovereign of the earth.
In the garden before Adam fell, you see him as the lord of creation. He
knew its mysteries, he controlled its activities. Man cannot do that any
longer today. We have the urge to do so, but we can do it no longer.
In the realm of human relationships, the book of Genesis reveals that
man with God is seen as living at peace and in harmony with other men.
One of the most beautiful stories in this book is of Abraham dwelling under
the oaks of Mamre with the Canaanites all around him, the men who had for
many years been his enemies. But God so worked in the life of that man
Abraham that even his enemies were made to be at peace with him. The story
of Abraham closes with the Canaanite tribes coming to him and saying. "Thou
art a prince among us" {cf, Gen 23:6 KJV}. So it is fulfilled what
God says elsewhere that when a man's ways please the Lord he makes even
his enemies be at peace with him {cf, Prov 16:}. This is the key. This
is the secret of life in all our relationships.
Then in the spiritual relationship, Genesis declares that man in fellowship
with God begins to know supreme happiness -- the righteousness, peace,
and joy that men always crave. Realization comes only as he discovers that
the indwelling God is the answer to all his needs.
This is revealed in the lives of five men. Let us quickly review these.
Noah is a picture to us of regeneration. Noah is a man who went through
death in a figure. He was on both sides of the flood. He was preserved
in the ark through the waters of judgment, through the waters of death,
to come out into a new world and a new life. The imaginative writers of
our day are always trying to write a book to depict what would happen after
an atomic holocaust had completely wiped life off the face of the earth
and what it would be like for a new couple to start out in such a world.
Yet none of them seem to realize that is exactly what happened in the story
of Noah and the flood. None of them seem ever to have caught the romance
of Noah and his family starting afresh in a new earth. Nevertheless, they
are a picture of regeneration. The beginning of life as a Christian is
the passing from death into life (in Christ) just as Noah did in the flood.
Then comes Abraham. And what does Abraham teach us? Justification by
faith. Here was a man who lived by faith. Everything that he did was given
to him -- not by any merit of his own, not by any effort of his own. But
as God led him along and Abraham stepped out on the promises, he found
that God's promise was true. Eight times that man's faith was dramatically
tried. If you are ever in a trial of faith, read the life of Abraham. You
will find in his life similar circumstances to the ones you are going through.
Abraham teaches us what it means to be justified, to be the friend of God
by faith.
Then comes Isaac. Isaac is a beautiful picture of sonship, what it means
to be a son of God. If there ever was a boy that was spoiled, pampered
and petted by his father, it was Isaac. He was the son, pre-eminently so.
In the glimpse this book gives of him you see what it means to be the darling
of a father's heart. And I think there is no message more needed in this
day than that which is so beautifully exemplified in Isaac, how God looks
at us and calls us the darling of his heart. "Beloved, we are God's
children now," says John; "it does not yet appear what we shall
be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him." (1 John
3:2) -- We shall be like Christ.
The story of Jacob follows. Jacob was the rascal, the schemer, the man
who thought he could live on his own, by his wits and by his own efforts.
He went out trying to deceive everybody and ended up being deceived. Jacob
is a beautiful picture of sanctification, that marvelous work of God in
which we in our folly, attempting to live life in the energy of the flesh,
are led into the very situations that drive us into a corner where at last,
like Jacob wrestling with the angel, we discover God speaking to us and
we give up. And when we give up our trying, we begin to live. That is what
Jacob did when he gave up at the Brook of Peniel {Gen 32:22-32}, knowing
Esau was waiting with a band of armed men ready to take his life. He wrestled
with the angel of God at the brook; it was there that God broke Jacob.
And as a broken man, limping the rest of his life, he became Israel, prince
of God. What a lesson that is. Some of us are going through this very experience
right now. What an encouragement to us!
Now the last picture is Joseph -- glorification. The man loved of his
father and mistreated by his brethren. While living through this earthly
relationship he is suddenly lifted from the darkness of a prison house
into the glory of Pharaoh's throne to reign and rule as the second person
in the kingdom. Now this is the picture for us of truth for the believer:
What do we look forward to as death comes upon us? Isn't it that we are
translated out of the darkness of this earthly existence, from the prison
house in which we have lived our years, suddenly to the very throne and
presence of God himself.
It is all there, isn't it? The pattern fits so beautifully. We discover
what God intended for the believer and the method by which man reaches
God and appropriates all this. It is revealed in this book as the method
of faith. "Without faith it is impossible to please God," Hebrews
reminds us (11:6). As you believe, it all becomes true. Not as you intellectually
give credence to it, but as you step out on it and act upon it, it all
becomes true in experience.
The final message of Genesis is that God is absolutely necessary for
the completeness of life. Without God you cannot understand the world around
you. You can't understand yourself or your neighbor or God himself. You
will never have any answers without God, but if you have fallen away or
excluded God and found misery and heartache and darkness and futility and
emptiness and boredom -- all the things that are a result of man attempting
to live without him, Genesis declares that if you return on the principle
of faith in God you will find help, spiritual health, and happiness, in
every realm of life. God is the secret of human life. This is the first
note in the Bible and it is also the last.
Prayer
Our Father, we pray that you will give us the urge and the motive to
give ourselves to the writings before us. How many difficulties and troubles
we could avoid, how many heartaches we could pass by if we only knew what
you intended us to know in this book. May our hearts be open with a readiness
to seek and to search and to find and know that we are in a universe --
not silent, not mechanical, not empty in which there is no echo to our
cry -- but a universe uniquely disposed by a Father, with a father's heart.
As we believe this and learn to walk by faith, you fill life for us to
the full. We ask that this may be our experience in Jesus' name. Amen.
Title: Genesis: The Method of Faith
By: Ray C. Stedman
Series: Adventuring through the Bible
Scripture: Genesis
Message No: 1
Date: June 28, 1964
Catalog No. 201
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