Video Transcript: Lesson 3 Origins

Welcome to Lesson three of our course on Christian basics. This lesson is about origins. I'm  David Feddes. And I'm presenting material written by Dr. Ed Roels as well as presenting a few  thoughts of my own. As we work our way through this, we're going to hear some questions  and answers about origins and the Bible passages that support them. 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 happened 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. And 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're 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 that 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 in 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'll read the Bible's answers to those questions. Question one, Where did our universe come from? God created the entire  universe out of nothing by his almighty power. Scripture references Genesis 1:1, the very first  verse of the Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Hebrews 11:3, by faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen  was not made out of things that are visible. Revelation 10:6, God created heaven, and w hat  is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it. There are people who doubt  or deny the creation of the world by God. But God has a very good question for such people.  He once asked in the book of Job, where were you, when I laid the foundations of the earth?  He made everything and got it going long before you or I ever existed, and we are in no  position to judge whether or not he did it. Because in the beginning, God was already there.  And you and I weren't, and in the beginning God created the heavens in the earth. Question  two, what was the earth like in the very beginning? Before God formed the Earth into a  beautiful place for a man to live? The earth was formless, dark, and empty. Scripture  reference Genesis 1:2, the earth was without form and void in Hebrew, to-hu va-vo-hu, to-hu  va-vo-hu without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of  God was hovering over the face of the waters. So Originally, kind of a formless mass, but God  is up to something. Question three, where did the sun and moon and stars and all the planets  and animals come from? Genesis one 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. Scripture  references, Genesis 1:3, and God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And as you  continue reading in Genesis one, and God said, and it was so And God said, and it was so  Psalm 102:25, says, of old you, God laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the  work of your hands. Question four, was the original creation good, or bad, or a mixture of 

good and bad. The world that God created in the beginning was good in every way. After each act of creation recorded in Genesis one, 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. Scripture references, Genesis one, God saw that it was good, God saw that it was  

good. God saw that it was good. God saw that it was good. God saw that it was good. And  finally, and God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good, leaves very  little doubt about whether that original creation was good again and again. And again. We  read that God made it good. And he saw that it was very good. It was the handiwork of God,  how could it not be good? Question five, 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.  Scripture references Then God said, according to Genesis 1:26-28, Let us make man in our  image after our likeness. So God created man in His own image in the image of God, He  created him, male and female, He created them, and God blessed them and God said to  them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. This is sometimes called the  cultural mandate, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. God gives people  the ability to reproduce and to be his region's his representatives ruling under his rule, and  subduing the earth and governing it God meant the earth to be very good under the very  good rule of men and women created in His image. Question six. 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, scriptural reference, Genesis chapter two, verse seven, when the Lord God  formed a man of dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the  man became a living creature. Later in Genesis chapter two, then the Lord God said, it is not  good that the man should be alone, I will make my helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused  a deep sleep fall upon the man and while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place  with flesh, and the rib that the Lord had taken from the man he made into a woman. And  there are some who see that use of a rib as God's creation of male and female in His image  and also as companions not one to be dominating the other or to be more valuable than the  other not anything but to be out of his side and to be very precious and dear to the man men  and women are created from the same substance, and God gives them the same wonderful  dignity of being in his image. Question seven, what were the names of the first man and the  first woman, the first man was called Adam, which may mean ground, or dirt from which he  was made or human being. Adam named his wife Eve, which can mean life giver, and  scriptural reference for that, of course, the word Adam in Hebrew is just interchangeable with  the word for man and it is the name of the first Man, and Genesis 3:20, says the man called  his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. Question Eight, 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's likely it was somewhere in the part of the world that we now know. As the Middle East Genesis mentions some rivers such as the Tigris and Euphrates. So maybe it was in that general proximity, although after the flood, there may have been just  different rivers that were named after previous rivers before the flood. So we can't be  absolutely sure that geography today is similar to what it was in the beginning. In fact, it  probably isn't. But we think probably the Garden of Eden was somewhere in what today is  called the Middle East. Scripture reference in the Lord God planted the Garden of Eden in the  east and there he put the man whom he had formed. Genesis 2:8, Question Nine what  responsibilities if God gift 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. Scripture reference Genesis 1:28, God  bless them. And God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it,  and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every  living thing that moves on the earth. There's an echo of that in Psalm 8 where it says, Oh  Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name and all the earth, you've set your glory about the 

heavens, from the lips of children and infants, you have ordained praise because of your  enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider Your heavens, the work of your  hands, the moon and stars which you have set in place, what is man, that You are mindful of  him, the Son of Man, that you care for him? When we think about how little we are in this vast universe? We think, oh, wow, why would God even pay attention to us. But then it goes on to  say, You made man, man and woman a little lower than the heavenly beings, and crowned  him with glory and honor you made him ruler over the works of your hands, you put all things  under his feet, all flocks, and birds and beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the  sea, all of it swim the powers of the sea, oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all  the earth. You see, that psalm of praise gets it, it gets that God gave us dominion. And even  though we're not very big, God has given us tremendous talents, tremendous intellectual  ability to kind of bodies we need to fulfill that calling. And from the beginning, before things  went wrong for humanity, we were doing a very good job of governing, on God's behalf for the well being of all of his creatures in his creation. Question 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. And the  scriptural reference is Genesis 2:16-17. And the LORD God commanded the man saying, you  must surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for him, the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Notice how good God  is. He says, eat anything you want. He even has what he called the tree of life there. And they could eat that too. If they chose just one tree they could, as a test to see whether they'll obey  God and demonstrate their love, and their trust towards him. Question 11 Did Adam and Eve  obey God's command? They did obey at first. But when Satan and 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, they  believed him and ate from the tree, Instead of obeying, and trusting God, what a terrible day  in the history of the human race, the scriptural reference. Now the serpent was more crafty  than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God  actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband who was  with her, and he ate. So that's what happened. A snake came to them and a snake was able  to talk and to mislead them now, there are people nowadays, we're modern people, lot of silly old folk tale and a story a snake talking Come on, are you joking. They may have noticed that  even today there are certain animals that can make human noises a parrot can make the  sounds of human language. If you talk to a dog, that dog can follow instructions, in many  cases, so even today, there are animals with at least some capacity to express or to  understand and act upon human language. Is it such a stretch that before humanity's fall into  sin, that there was the ability given to a snake to talk and of course, in this case, she may  have thought that snakes could already talk and this, this snake had something else talking  from within it. And it was that ancient serpent called the Devil or Satan, who leads the whole  world astray as it's expressed in Revelation 12:9, that's the scripture that shows us beyond  the doubt that the serpent in the garden was not just a snake talking it was Satan himself, the ruler of all the enemy forces that oppose God, the chief demon, the worst evil spirit in the  universe, that entered into that snake and began talking to Adam and Eve and saying, first of  all, notice what he said, Did God really say, first thing Satan will usually do is get you to doubt God's word. And the next thing he said was, Well, God is just trying to block you from being all you could be. And from being truly happy, he knows that if you eat of it, you'll become like  God. Satan will lie about God's word, and then he will lie about God's character, and he will  make false promises. That's what he did at the beginning. That's what he continues to do. So  that's how humanity fell into sin. Question 12 What was the result of their disobedience? First  of all, Adam and Eve immediately died spiritually. God had told them, they would surely die.  Their bodies didn't drop over dead, the moment they ate that fruit, but they 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 them. It was God's habit to come and walk with them in the garden in the cool of  the day, and to be present to them in a way that they could grasp and that they could really  delight in this company, and all of a sudden that they did not want to be around God  anymore. 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 to their bodily  death. Further, the entire world was affected by their sin. Remember, they were supposed to  be the rulers of the world, for the world's good when they fell into sin. It had a calamitous  impact a deadly impact on the world around them. 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. scriptural references, Genesis 3:8 says, the man and his  wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden, God  came to walk with them, and they ran away. Genesis 3:16, after their fall into sin, God said to  the woman, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing, in pain, you shall bring forth  children, your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. There is going to  be pain now not only in the physical process of having babies, but also children who are often  the delight of their children's hearts, become also the greatest grief of their children's hearts.  The very first child born in the world was a boy named Cain, who would murder the second  one born into the world, his brother, Abel. And so there was terrible anguish, and pain that  came with sin. And of course, there's also a disruption in the previously loving and trusting  relationship of husband and wife. Now, the husband wants to be the big boss and the desire  and the wife's desire is to have power over him and they're in competition with each other.  Genesis 3:17-19 tells us what God told Adam to Adam, he said, Because you have listened to  the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you in pain you shall eat it at all the days of your life,  thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field, by the  sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were  taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Psalm 90 says that God after 70 or 80  years says returned to dust Oh sons of men. And that's what happens we return to dust.  That's the impact of sin in our world. We turn back to dust and even while we're alive in order  to see They live we have to sweat, we have to struggle we have to deal with the thorns and  thistles and problems of life, which have come into the world because humanity no longer  rules the world well, and because God's curse has struck the world because the  representative of the world was wrong and rebelled against God. What a devastating thing  that disobedience of Adam and Eve was, and still is in its impact on humanity. Question 13.  What does the sin of Adam have to do with us today, Adam was the representative of the  entire human race when he sin, 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 as 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  to 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 into temptation, and listened  to Satan rather than God, that's how sin is. We don't know the damage that it's going to do.  God tells us not to do it, we go ahead because we don't think it's going to be that bad. And  the consequences are devastating for Adam. It brought devastation to the whole creation into  the entire human race. For us who are born with Adam's sin nature. The sins we commit often  poison our children in turn, and the things we do wreak havoc and devastation in the lives of  other far beyond maybe what we ever expected or intended. The Scripture references  Romans 5, the last verses tell about parallels between Adam and Christ and it tells the  damage that came through the sin of the first man's sin came into the world through one man and death through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned. Romans 5:12,  Romans 8:22, the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until  now, the creation groans since the fall into sin, because the creation longs for the glorious 

freedom of the children of God. Romans 8 says, and until we're made completely free, the  creation we were supposed to rule well, we'll continue to have much groaning and sorrow. I  Corinthians 15:22, says simply, in Adam, all die, in Adam, all die. Question 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. He was  born through a miraculous conception of the Virgin Mary, and did not inherit a fallen and sinful human nature, although he was fully human. Scripture references Romans 3:10, none is  righteous, no, not one. Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And I could just multiply verse after verse after verse after verse, about how all of forsaken God  and together become worthless, and the verses are many, but these are clear enough, none  is righteous, no, not one. Everybody falls short, except one. In Him. Jesus says, I John 3:5,  there is no sin. And in the book of Hebrews, it says he was tempted in every way like we are,  yet was without sin, and that is, of course, the hope of the human race, there is one who has  not sinned. Question 15 Won't a loving God simply overlook the fact that we're all sinners?  Can't God just say, Oh, no big deal? Come on, let's have a do over. No, though God is gracious and merciful, He is also wholly unjust. He cannot and he will not let sin go unpunished.  Scripture references Numbers 14:18. The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast  love forgiving iniquity and transgression. But he will by no means clear the guilty. Nahum 1:3,  the Lord is slow to anger and greed and power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty  Galatians 6 or 7, Do not be deceived, God is not mocked. For whatever one sows, that will he  also reap. Unless someone or something can take away our sin and guilt. We must be  punished because we are sinners. And God is Adjust and adjust judge gives wrongdoing, what  it deserves? Question 16 Since we're 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. He said that he would eventually defeat the powers of evil and destroy them.  1000s 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, and Scripture references, Genesis 3:14- 15, the Lord God said to the serpent, Satan, I will put enmity hatred between you and the  woman, and between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head, and you  shall bruise His heel, there is going to be this ongoing conflict, God is not going to let the  demonic and the evil get along with his human creation, he's always going to have something in humanity that is against Satan and Satan against us until a human comes along and  smashes Satan. That was God's promise, even before he pronounced sentence on Adam and  Eve for their sin, he already declared serpent, you are in trouble. I have got plans to deal with  you. And so God, though, sin came into the world, gave hope right away again to Adam and  Eve. Psalm 103, says, as a father shows compassion to his children. So the Lord shows  compassion to those who fear Him, for He knows our frame. He remembers that we're dust.  He says, your dust and to dust you will return. But that's not the whole story. Thank God, it's  not the whole story. He's the God of great love. And he decided not to leave us in the dust,  but to raise us again from the dust. And he sent his son to make things right to pay the  penalty for Adam's sin, to overcome the power of death. And to say that even when our  bodies have turned back to dust, he will raise them again to glorious, everlasting life. But  we're getting a little ahead of ourselves. We'll save some of that good news for later lessons.  The fact is that even in Genesis 3, that terrible chapter of the fall into sin, God already  brought his great good news of triumph over the serpent