IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH (Genesis 1:1)

The universe was created, a fact that many in the scientific community are now willing to accept. Scientific investigation into the nature of the Creator and the purpose of creation is carefully avoided.

Scripture reveals that God’s purpose in setting up the Universe was to provide a nursery in which to raise up His family. This creative activity extended over 6 epochs ("days"). Towards the end of the 6th "day", man appeared on the earth (perhaps a million years ago), i.e. these were the so-called 6th day or pre Edenic men and women. The Hebrew word yom, translated "day" in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, also means: total period of time, an age, a day of twenty-four hours, or a millennial day of a thousand years.

Following the six great epochs of creation (Hebrew: bara to create, i.e. make from nothing, form, fashion, prepare) described in the first chapter of Genesis, the Lord set about using what He had made to achieve His family plan. During the current epoch, i.e. the 7th "day", God chose a particular man formed (Hebrew: yatsar, to fashion, form, frame, constitute) from the already created dust of the ground, i.e. the elements of the earth, and breathed into him the breath of life thereby making him an enlivened soul or spiritual man. The Lord God then placed this unique being in His own domain, the Garden of Eden, thereby separating this Adam and all other adams. It should be noted that in Scripture, the Hebrew word Adam is used:

                    1.collectively to indicate mankind in general; and

2.singularly to identify the particular man that God placed in Eden.

The difference between 6th and 7th "day" man is profound. The former was made in the image (Hebrew: tselem image, own likeness, copy of an object, idol) of God, that is, the 6th "day" man was to God as a statue is to the person it represents. God does not have the physical appearance of a man, for He is a Spirit; but He, for example, is lawful, judges, reasons, experiences emotions, creates and communicates: and these characteristics were displayed in varying degrees in pre-EDENIC mankind. However, as a statue cannot react with it sculptor, so too 6th "day" man could not converse with his Creator.

On the other hand the Word of God states that Adam and Eve, Heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day." (Genesis 3:8) The Hebrew words appearing here as "walking" and "cool" are respectively halak (to be in the habit of walking) and ruach. The basic meaning of this latter word is "wind" and in the Old Testament is generally translated "spirit" as is the equivalent Greek word pneuma in the New Testament. A better rendering of this passage would be: "And Adam and Eve heard the voice of the Lord God (Jehovah Elohim) Who was in the habit of walking in the garden in the spirit of the seventh day", that is, God regularly presented Himself in Eden as the Holy Spirit and talked with this man and woman.

Because Adam and Eve heeded the prompting of Satan and rebelled against the LORD God (Genesis 2:16-17), the history of their descendants was to be strongly influenced by the following:

1.There would be hatred between Satan and the woman. The woman Eve was a prophetic type of the woman Israel and of the Church, (Genesis 2:21-25, Ephesians 5:30-32, Romans 7:4).

2.There would be hatred between Satan’s progeny and that of the woman. Again this speaks prophetically of the opposing concepts of Satan and of the woman Israel, and later, those of the Church. Satan’s progeny were not demons, devils, spooks, hobgoblins, etc., but disobedient men and women (John 8:39-44, 1 John 3:8-10,) These are they who down through history have sought to frustrate God’s great purpose.

1st identification of Esau

3. A particular descendant of Eve would bruise Satan’s head and in return His heel would be bruised. This prophecy speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ Who was to come and destroy the works of Satan (1 John 3:8), and in so doing He Himself would eventually die.

4.Adam and Eve were condemned to die. This judgment referred not only to their mortal bodies, but also to their souls (Ezekiel 18:4). If this were the end of the matter, Satan would have completely defeated God in His plan to raise up a family to Himself. It was for this reason firstly that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten of the Father, came and sojourned with humanity so that He could, as a man without sin, allow Himself to be sacrificed on the cross of Calvary thereby making full restitution under God’s law for Adam’s sin (John 1:29).

5.Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden, that is from the presence of God. No longer, because of their sin (disobedience to God’s way), could they communicate directly with their Creator as before. God’s 7th "day" man and woman were now in a hopeless situation indeed, for although they had a knowledge of the Lord God, they, like 6th "day" man, could not converse with Him. If this were the end of the matter, then again this would represent failure on God’s part. Indeed the second reason why God’s Son came and ministered to men was so that they might be Baptised with the Holy Spirit, thereby becoming spiritual people. As Jesus explained, "God is a Spirit and true worshippers must worship him in Spirit and in truth"; the natural cannot contact the Creator (John 4:23-24). The net result of Jesus’ physical presence on earth was to "open a door", so that anyone of Adam’s fallen race could, by being filled with the Holy Spirit, re-enter God’s "Eden" (John 10:9, Revelation 3:7-8), i.e. the Spirit-filled Church.

[3874 B.C.] ADAM’S RACE (Genesis 4 to 6)

Life for Adam and Eve outside Eden soon became a nightmare when Cain, their first-born son, murdered his brother, Abel. At the end of nine generations Adam’s seed had so debased themselves that the intents and desires of their hearts (minds) were directed only to evil continually (Genesis 6:5). As a consequence the Lord God was so sickened by their debauchery that He determined to annihilate this reprobate progeny of 7th "day" man.

Even at this desperate moment in history, however, God’s purpose was not to be abandoned because Noah, the tenth in line from Adam and of pure descent, was found by God to be righteous in his generation. Accordingly, the Lord instructed him to prepare a "water-free zone", i.e. a great ark or boat in which he, his family, and animals of that region would be preserved from the great deluge that would destroy Adam’s sinful race. It should be noted that the terminology used in the early chapters of Genesis does not refer to the entire global surface of the earth, but rather to the region of it occupied by descendants of the Edenic Adam.

Following the flood Noah’s family multiplied and spread far and wide as follows:

Here concludes Chapter one