Reading: Lesson 3 - Origins (Video Slides)

By Edwin D. Roels

Introduction

Many people wonder about the origin of our world. They ask: “Where did everything come from? How did the universe get started? Was there someone who made this beautiful and complex world? Or did everything just happen by chance?”

Today many people believe that everything in our world came about simply by chance. They teach that all that exists in the world came into being through a long, slow process of mindless evolution. There was no one to start the process and no one to guide it. Things just happened! Animals and people and flowers and trees and mountains and hills and everything that exists made their entrance into the world with no purpose and no future. But if that is true, then we human beings are also simply an accident with no real purpose in the present and no meaningful hope for the future. We live for a few years, we die, and we are forgotten.

But that’s not what happened. Human beings didn’t gradually make their appearance in the world without any purpose or direction. They were created by a powerful, loving, and eternal God. They were created as intelligent beings who had the potential of enjoying a wonderful and joyful life with other human beings and also with their Creator. God even created them in his own image, so they could know him and love him and serve him. God also gave them the privilege and the task of ruling over the rest of his beautiful creation so that everything would serve the purpose for which God created it. And if they continued to love and serve him, they would live forever in peace and joy and harmony with the God who created them.

However, the world today is obviously no longer a world of perfect harmony and unending delight. Beautiful flowers wilt and die. Streams and rivers overflow or dry up. Hurricanes, floods and storms bring terrible destruction. People get sick and die. Nation rises up against nation, and people hurt and kill one another. Tensions and strife abound. Misery is found everywhere.

Many people wonder why there are so many good and beautiful things in our world while, at the same time, there are also many things that are neither good nor beautiful. Did the world start out good and then become bad? Or did it start out bad and then gradually get better? Or were there both good and bad things from the very beginning?

In this lesson you will read the Bible’s answers to those questions.

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1. Where did our universe come from?

God created the entire universe out of nothing by his almighty power.

2. What was the earth like in the very beginning?

Before God formed the earth into a beautiful place for man to live, the earth was formless, dark and empty.

3. Where did the sun and moon and stars and all the plants and animals come from?

Genesis 1 says repeatedly, “God said,” and when God spoke, things came into being. Other passages in the Bible indicate that the world was fashioned by the “hands” of the Lord. All of these passages teach us that God was the Creator who used his divine power to bring into being a beautiful, wonderful, and incredible universe.

4. Was the original creation good or bad or mixed?

The world that God created in the beginning was good in every way. After each act of creation recorded in Genesis 1, we read the specific words: “God saw that it was good.” And, at the end of God’s initial creative work, we read that everything God had made was “very good.” Sin had not yet entered the world and the earth was free from corruption, disharmony and decay.

5. Where did human beings come from?

After God had prepared the earth as a home for human beings, he made a man and a woman in his image and likeness to rule over his creation. Though the man was created before the woman, both man and woman were made in God’s image and both had equal standing in the sight of God.

6. How did God create the first man and the first woman?

God first made a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Later, God took a rib from man’s side and made a woman from the rib.

7. What were the names of the first man and the first woman?

The first man was called Adam (which may mean ground or human being). Adam named his wife Eve (which may mean life-giver).

 

8. Where did Adam and Eve live?

God placed them in a beautiful garden called the Garden of Eden. No one knows exactly where this was, but it likely was somewhere in the part of the world we know as the Middle East.

9. What responsibilities did God give to Adam and Eve?

God told them to be fruitful, to fill the earth, to rule over it, and to take care of it. God provided them with everything necessary—mentally and physically—to do what he had commanded them to do.

10. What test did God give to Adam and Eve?

God told Adam and Eve that they might eat from every tree in the Garden of Eden where they were living except for one tree called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” God very clearly and very strongly commanded them not to eat of this one tree. This was to be a test of their love for God, their trust in God, and their obedience to God.

11. Did Adam and Eve obey God’s command

They did obey at first, but when Satan, an evil spirit, came to them in the form of a serpent, he lied to them, tempted them to eat from the tree, and promised them that if they did eat of it, they would become like God himself. They listened to Satan, believed him, and ate from the tree instead of obeying and trusting God.

12. What was the result of their disobedience?

First of all, Adam and Eve immediately died spiritually. That is, they died in their relationship with God. Things were no longer the same between them and God. They lost their fellowship with God, they lost the joy they previously had in walking and talking with God, and they became afraid of God rather than delighting in being with him. They also became aware of their nakedness for the first time and felt ashamed in God’s presence. Their disobedience also led eventually to their physical death. Further, the entire world was affected by their sin. There were still many good and beautiful things in the world after they sinned, but for the first time the world became subject to suffering, pain, decay, and death.

13. What does the sin of Adam have to do with us today?

Adam was the representative of the entire human race. When he sinned, everyone was affected by the consequences of his sin. All of us now come into this world with a sinful human nature which is inclined toward evil rather than toward good. The world in which we live is a world filled with suffering, sorrow, pain, decay and death. And no matter how strong and healthy we may be, we know that our lives, too, will end in death. The results of Adam’s disobedience and sin are far greater and more significant than Adam could ever have imagined when he gave in to temptation and listened to Satan rather than to God.

14. Does this mean that everyone in the whole world is guilty before God?

Yes. There are no exceptions except for Jesus Christ, who was perfectly sinless and was not born with a sinful human nature.

15. Won’t a loving God simply overlook the fact that we are all sinners

No. Though God is gracious and merciful, he is also holy and just. He cannot and will not let sin go unpunished.

16. Since we are all sinners before God, is there no hope for any of us?

There certainly is hope! Even before God pronounced judgment on Adam and Eve for what they had done (Genesis 3:16-19), he promised that their offspring would eventually defeat the powers of evil and destroy them (Genesis 3:15). Thousands of years of human history passed, however, before Jesus came into our world to pay the penalty for Adam’s sin and also for our own sins.