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Parashat Beresheet
- In The Beginning
Laying Good Theological
Foundations For A Successful Life In This World
And Eternal Life In The World-To-Come
For us
to have meaningful lives, we need to know where
we came from, how we got here and where we are
going. Genesis, the divinely inspired Book of
Origins, written by the divinely-inspired prophet
Moses around 1500 BC, does that for us. What we
believe is very very important. If knowledge builds
up and strengthens us, and brings happiness and
success, then ignorance and error weakens and
tears down and results in misery and failure.
If the truth sets us free from the powerful forces
of Satan, sin and death, then believing lies will
keep us enslaved to these damning forces. The
first book of the Bible is Beresheet - which means,
“In The Beginning”. This book of beginnings is
like the foundation of a great house. A great
house must have a good foundation. Our lives are
like a house. For us to have successful lives
in this world and eternal life in the World-To-Come,
we must have good theological foundations. Genesis
does that for us.
Genesis
starts with the most basic foundation of all -
God: In the beginning, God - Beresheet bara
Eloheem. Eloheem is real. He is alive. He
is extremely intelligent and powerful. He is creative.
He created the Heavens and the Earth - this large
and beautiful and complex universe and everything
in it, out of nothing but His own mind, will,
thought, word and power. Good thinking, good theology
that results in a successful life in this world
and eternal life in the World-To-Come must begin
with the reality of the eternal God who was in
the beginning and before the beginning. Life will
never make sense apart from this foundational
truth.
Eloheem
is a God of order and design. He created the universe
in an organized way. He brought form out of formlessness,
order out of chaotic conditions, light out of
darkness. He brought order and design when He
separated the firmament from the waters below
and above; when He separated the dry land from
the oceans; when He created plants and animals
and human beings with the ability to reproduce
on the land, created sea-life to fill the oceans,
created birds to fill the skies, created the sun,
moon and the galaxies to fill the heavens.
Moses
teaches us the foundational truth that Eloheem
is spirit - not made of the material universe.
Not only is Eloheem Himself spirit, but He has
a distinct Spirit. The Spirit of God - Ruach
Eloheem - was moving over the surface of the waters.
The Spirit of God is the invisible presence of
God who is present everywhere throughout the universe.
The Spirit of God has no body, but He is nevertheless
a person. The Spirit of God is a distinct Person,
with mind, emotion and will. Eloheem is immanent
- present everywhere within His creation, but
also transcendent - greater than and outside of
and distinct from His creation.
Eloheem
is a God who speaks. God said, and God said,
and God said ... God is not an impersonal
force or a mere great ideal, but a Person who
is able to communicate His thoughts and His will
outside of Himself by means of words. He reveals
Himself to others by means of His Word - ultimately,
His Word being the Son of God, who is the perfect
expression and revealer of the thoughts and mind
and will of God.
Eloheem
is a God of values, making choices about what
is good and what is bad. God saw that the light
was good. There is good and there is bad,
and God makes those determinations, and has the
right to make those determinations, and He makes
those determinations of right and wrong, good
and evil based on His nature - which is pure goodness.
That means that there are moral and spiritual
absolutes in this God-designed universe.
Eloheem
is a God who has will. He is person who makes
choices. We see His will exerted when He made
the choice to call the light, day, and the darkness,
night. The Creator has the supreme will that can’t
be overcome. The universe and everyone in it will
eventually submit to God’s will - which is a good
thing, since what He wills and wants is always
good and right.
Eloheem
is a God who places special value on human beings,
making them in His image - with the God-like abilities
to think, reason, speak, choose, value, will,
be creative, order the world, design, rule the
other creatures, and reproduce. Human beings have
inherent worth, not because of anything outside
of themselves, but because they are made in the
image of God, and are therefore valuable and precious.
That makes human life, which beings at conception,
special and sacred.
Genesis
gives us a foundational understanding of the singular
yet plural nature of God. Eloheem is a God who
in a mysterious way, is plural and yet singular.
Eloheem (plural) said (singular verb): Let Us
(plural) make man in Our image (plural), in Our
likeness (plural). This mysterious singular
yet plural nature of God is fully reveal in the
rest of the Tenach and the New Testament.
Eloheem
is a God who, because He is good, provides for
the needs of His creatures. He created different
environments for His creatures, and then provided
plants and trees and fruits and vegetables and
grains for human beings, animals and birds to
eat.
Genesis
gives us the foundation of sexuality and the family.
Eloheem created His creatures male and female.
Being made male and female is the Lord’s design
for us to have companionship and being able to
reproduce and create other human beings who bear
the image of God and have the potential to live
forever. By creating us male and female, men and
women are able to come together and bond for life,
and help each other through life, and have children
and stable families in which the next generation
can be raised. Homosexuality is a perversion of
God’s design. It is unnatural. It defies the law
of male-female sexuality that God designed for
us. Homosexuality goes against natural law and
the law of God’s written Word.
Genesis
gives us the foundation of authority within the
family. It is not a democracy. It is a God-ordained
hierarchy. The man is the leader of the man-woman
team, having the ultimate authority in that relationship.
Adam was created first, and Eve was created later.
The first woman was created out of the body of
the first man, demonstrating the man’s primacy
in the relationship. Just as God has the authority
to name things, Adam named Eve, showing his authority
over her. After the husband-wife become a one-flesh
team, that relationship takes precedence over
the former parent-child relationship. Children
need to leave their parents, and join themselves
to their husbands and wives, and form a new, independent
unit.
Genesis
gives us the foundation of the calendar and ordering
time. Eloheem created the Earth so that time can
be ordered. He made the Earth, sun and moon to
that we can have day and night, weeks and months
and seasons and years to order time. From the
beginning Eloheem created a seven day week so
that the Chosen People could rest on that special
day; so that the Church can learn the principle
of the need to rest and worship one day every
seven; so eventually, when Messiah returns, humanity
will enjoy Sabbath rest.
Genesis
gives us the foundation of our desire to live
forever. Human beings have been given the amazing
gift of life, and we have a deep desire to live
forever. The eternal God provided for the needs
of His human creatures to be able to live forever
with Him by creating the Tree of Life. Thank God
that because of the Three-In-One God, Messianic
Believers have the sure hope of eating from the
Tree of Life which will be in the New Jerusalem!
Genesis
gives us foundational truth about the nature of
man. The Tree of Life teaches us that eternal
life is external to man. Eternal life is not inherent
within the nature of man. Man is not born with
an immortal soul that will live forever. Only
humans who eat from the fruit of the Tree of Life
can live forever.
Genesis
gives us foundational truth about morality, about
right and wrong, good and evil. Eloheem provided
for the needs of His human creatures for a moral
and spiritual education with the Tree of the Knowledge
of Good and Evil. The Tree of the Knowledge of
Good and Evil was meant to teach us good and evil.
When he was created, Adam was physically mature
but morally and spiritually immature. Adam was
given a very precious gift - the gift of will,
but he needed to learn how to use his will. He
needed to learn on what basis to make his choices.
He needed to learn what is good and what is bad.
As part of his moral and spiritual education,
the Lord warned Adam in strong and clear terms
not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good
and Evil. If Adam did, the Creator warned him
that the consequences would be catastrophic. He
would be alienated from the Creator, who is the
Source of life and happiness. He would die spiritually
and physically and then die eternally.
As our
first father passed by the Tree of the Knowledge
of Good and Evil, which was in the middle of the
garden so that Adam would see it frequently, and
as Adam trusted the Lord, and obeyed the words
of God, and made God’s will his will, Adam would
learn about good and evil. He would learn that
obeying the word and will of the Creator is the
basis of what is good, and disobeying the word
and will of God is the essence of evil. If Adam
chose to disobey the good God, and eat from the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam would
still learn good and evil, but from the perspective
of falling into evil, and experiencing the harm
that evil brings, and only seeing what is good
from afar.
In chapter
3 we have other foundations. We are informed about
a very real and ancient rebellion that is going
on between God and the Adversary - a powerful
fallen angel who has many other evil angels on
his side. The Bible will never make sense apart
from this foundational truth of the reality of
angels and fallen angels - demons. There are good
angels who serve God and human beings and there
are evil spirit beings, fallen angels, who oppose
God and man. They are in rebellion against God
and try to confuse, corrupt and destroy human
beings who are made in the image of God.
In chapter
3 Moses gives us the foundational truth of the
Fall of Man. The head fallen angel, the devil,
tempted Eve by causing her to doubt the goodness
of God, suggesting that the Creator was withholding
good things from her because He didn’t have her
best interests in His heart (the Creator doesn’t
want you to be like Him, knowing good and evil).
Satan tempted Eve by contradicting God and causing
her to doubt the Word of God (you surely will
not die!). Eve believed these lies and yielded
to the temptation, and ate the fruit of the Tree
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. By doing that,
she sided with the Adversary and became part of
his great rebellion against God. Adam willingly
joined his wife and ate the fruit of the forbidden
tree, and he too joined the rebellion of the fallen
angels.
That disobedience
brought Adam and Eve and all of their descendants
under the authority of the Evil One. That rebellious
sin corrupted them. They immediately sensed that
they were naked. They felt inadequate. They felt
guilt and shame. The sin and disobedience and
rebellion of our first parents have been passed
on to all of their descendants and have affected
every aspect of who we are - body, soul, spirit;
mind, emotion and will; the Fall has corrupted
us morally, spiritually and sexually. It has damaged
our relationships with one another and with nature.
Humanity’s
most important relationship - our relationship
with our Creator, was ruined by Adam and Eve’s
rebellion. When next Adam and Eve heard the sound
of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool
of the day, instead of running toward their loving
and good Creator, they ran away from Him. They
were alienated from God, and hid from Him.
Genesis
gives us the foundational truth that Eloheem is
not only wise, powerful and good, He is also gracious,
merciful and compassionate. He could have destroyed
Adam and Eve for their disobedience and rebellion,
but He didn’t. He is the kind of Supreme Being
who does want to destroy those made in His image,
but rather to redeem, save, fix, rescue His creatures.
Human beings are fallen but they are redeemable.
So that
we can be redeemed, the Lord is willing to confront
us, so that we will turn back to Him and be saved.
But, when confronted by the Lord about their disobedience,
our first parents made the choice to not take
responsibility for their failure, but shift blame
to others. Adam said: The woman whom You gave
to be with me, she gave me from the Tree, and
I ate. Eve said: The serpent deceived me,
and I ate.
Eloheem
is willing to forgive us if we turn away from
our rebellion and disobedience, but He also is
just, and while sin is forgivable, there are consequences
for our good and bad choices. The Lord punished
the serpent, and the Adversary who was speaking
through the snake, and Adam and Eve with punishments
that fit their crimes - loss of limbs and humiliation
for the snake; final defeat for the Devil; pain
in childbirth for women and a reaffirmation of
the headship of the husband; a cursed Earth and
hard work and a difficult life for the man, followed
by the First Death - physical death.
But for
fallen Adam and Eve, still bearing God’s image,
marred though that image now was, Eloheem also
made salvation possible - temporary and partial
redemption that would centuries later be followed
by full and final and eternal redemption provided
by the Seed of the Woman - the Messiah. Until
the Son of God came, the Lord provided temporary
and limited redemption by means of the death of
innocent animals. After Adam and Eve sinned, there
in the pristine Garden of Eden, animals were killed,
their blood was shed which provided temporary
atonement for the sins of Adam and Eve. The skins
of the animals were used to provide a better kind
of covering for Adam and Eve’s nakedness and shame
than the inadequate coverings of fig-leaves they
made by their own efforts. This temporary and
partial covering and redemption was combined with
the promise of the future coming of Seed of the
Woman, a unique human being who would be born,
who would provide full and final and eternal atonement.
The Seed of the Woman would defeat the Adversary
and undo all of the damage that the Evil One had
caused.
Adam and
Eve were in a fallen state, and not fit to live
forever in that ruined condition with the eternal
God in His eternal kingdom; so the Lord, in His
wisdom and mercy, exiled them from the Tree of
Life and the Garden of Eden. But, the desire for
the Tree of Life and the desire to return to Eden
the Lord left in their hearts - and ours. There
is something deep within each one of us, some
longing, some desire, to return to the peace and
perfection of Eden and eat from the Tree of Life.
The good news is that the Tree of Life still exists,
and those who come to the Three-In-One God on
His terms will be allowed to eat from the Tree
of Life and live forever in the Paradise of the
New Heavens and the New Earth and the New Jerusalem!
Because
we are now, by nature, unreliable and untrustworthy
and selfish and rebellious, and because we would
be tempted to disobey God and foolishly sneak
back into the Garden and try to eat from the Tree
of Life in our fallen state - which would be disastrous
- the Lord stationed a special order of angelic
beings - cherubeem, at the eastern entrance of
Eden, to guard the entrance and prevent that from
happening.
In chapter
4 we have more foundations - the foundational
truths of human violence and murder and false
religion. Moses introduces us to the first human
beings who were born into this world - Cain and
Abel. The disastrous consequences of the Fall
are manifested in their lives. Cain, the firstborn,
was a farmer. Abel was a shepherd. Both engaged
in religious activity. Cain ignored the foundational
truths of Eden. He offered the Lord fruit of the
ground - a convenient but inadequate offering
which did not have innocent blood that would provide
temporary and partial atonement. Cain’s worship
is the foundation of all false religion - not
coming to God on His terms, but creating your
own man-made terms that cannot satisfy the Lord.
Apart from Christianity and Messianic Judaism,
the world religions and philosophies and world-views
are simply forms of the religion of Cain!
Abel built
on the foundational truths of Eden. He sacrificed
some of the first and best animals from his flock.
That offering did contain the blood of innocent
animals and did provide temporary and limited
redemption. Righteous Abel and his sacrifices
were accepted by Eloheem. Cain and his bloodless
offering were rejected by the Lord, and Cain became
angry and depressed. Cain was confronted by the
Lord, and warned to change his ways, and do the
right things - the things ordained by God. The
Lord warned Cain if he didn’t turn away from the
dangerous direction he was headed, he would be
overpowered and destroyed by the animal-like,
hungry and powerful force of sin. Instead of taking
the Lord’s warning to heart and turning to the
Lord and coming back to Him on His terms, Cain
took out his anger on his brother and killed him.
The Lord justly punished the first man who loved
to grow things, exiling him and promising that
wherever he might try to grow things, the ground
would be cursed.
Chapter
4 gives us the foundation of early human development.
Over the next several generations, humanity quickly
multiplied. The majority of humanity advanced
technologically but worsened morally and spiritually.
Advancements took place in the arts and sciences
- in building, in animal husbandry, in music and
poetry and metallurgy. The one man-one woman foundational
principle of marriage was violated. Men began
having more than one wife at the same time. People
became more violent. In the first recorded poetry,
Lamech bragged to his two wives about getting
into a fight and killing someone. Meanwhile, a
smaller remnant that came through Seth and Enosh
began to call on the name of the Lord. This smaller
group were faithful to the Lord and were God’s
true worshipers. So, the foundational principle
of the remnant - that only a minority of people
in each generation really know the Lord - is revealed.
In chapter
5 Moses gives us a summary of the 10 generations
between Adam and Noah. Lifespans before the Flood
were much longer than ours. They all lived a long
time. They all had children. They all were affected
by the Fall. They all died.
Two men
in between Adam and Noah stand out: Enoch, who
had a close relationship with his Creator and
walked with God. Instead of dying, like everyone
else, the Lord took him. That tells us the foundational
truth that there is another place, a place close
to God, a place that those who walk with God will
be taken to. After death, the faithful remnant
of those who are in a right relationship with
the eternal God will be taken to be with Him -
forever! Methuselah stands out in these generations
because he lived the longest - 969 years! Nevertheless,
he still died, because death had authority over
all of fallen humanity.
In chapter
6, Moses informs us that the “sons of God” had
sexual relationships with women. Sons of God can
refer to either angels or men (see Job 1:6, 2:1,
38:7). Angels can take on a human body for a time,
but are not allowed to engage in sexual relations
(see Genesis 18-19, and “some have entertained
angels and didn’t know it”). If these sons of
God were angels, this was a terrible transgression
(see 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 1:6). If the “sons of
God” refer to people, this means that the descendants
of Seth, the righteous line of human beings who
knew God, intermarried with the descendants of
Cain who were far from the Lord. Either way, it
was not good for the sons of God to have joined
themselves to the daughters of men.
The n’feeleem
- the "fallen ones” were on Earth in those
days. They were powerful men who could be the
result of a union between fallen angels and women.
Or, the n’feeleem could be ordinary human beings,
“fallen ones” in the sense of falling upon others,
as tyrants fall on those they oppress.
By the
tenth generation from Adam and the Fall, humanity
had been almost completely corrupted. So much
continual rebellion against Eloheem and His good
ways, so much wickedness and violence pervaded
the vast majority of humanity that the Lord was
sorry that He made us. He decided to end this
horrible situation by destroying corrupted humanity
with a world-wide flood. But not all of humanity
would be destroyed! The One who wants to redeem
human beings knew that there was a very small
but faithful remnant - Noah and his wife and their
three sons and their wives, who could be saved.
With this small group, humanity could continue,
and repopulate, awaiting the coming of the Seed
of the Woman, and the ultimate Redeemer and Savior
and Restorer!
Again,
what we believe is very important. If knowledge
builds up and strengthens us, and brings happiness
and success, then ignorance and error weakens
and tears down and results in misery and failure.
Genesis contains the foundational truths that
the rest of the Bible is based on. For us to have
successful lives in this world and eternal life
in the World-To-Come, we must have good theological
foundations. May each one of us accept these foundational
truths; believe them; trust them; build our lives
on them. If we do, we will know where we came
from, where we are and where we are going. Our
lives in this world will be meaningful and successful.
We will walk with God, and enjoy the redemption
made possible by the Seed of the Woman, and eat
from the Tree of Life which is in paradise, and
be with the eternal God and be blessed with eternal
life in the World-To-Come!
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