Genesis Summary

So we begin our journey through the Word of God, summarizing the content of each book of the Bible. I’m going to give every book of the Bible a subtitle, and the subtitle I’m going to give for Genesis is going to surprise you, and it’s going to take some explanation. I’m going to subtitle Genesis, “Welcome To The Story Of Jesus.” You may say, “Paul, Jesus is never mentioned in Genesis, what are you talking about?” Well, actually He is.

Genesis begins with the story of creation. It's not meant to be a scientific analysis of the creation of the world; it's meant to put God in the center of everything! He's the initiator, He's the controller, He's the designer. Life is about Him. I’m going to say more about this the second time we pass through the Scripture, but you could argue the four most important words in all of Scripture are, “In the beginning God,” because, if God is on the scene first, then everything in the human existence is about Him. He's at the center; we’re not!

But if you look at what Colossians says about Jesus, it actually says these shocking words that should change the way you think about Genesis, “All things were created by him; and without him was nothing made that was made.” The creator of Genesis 1 (Are you ready for this?) is Jesus. You are immediately confronted with the awesome glory, the awesome power, the awesome wisdom, the awesome love of Jesus to create this magnificent cosmos that is the place where we all live.

But that's not all. It doesn't take long in Genesis before we meet Jesus the promised Redeemer. Because what Genesis does is Genesis has embedded in it the three acts of the redemptive drama. Think of a play--Act I: Creation; Act II: The Fall of Human Beings into Sin; Act III: Redeeming Grace. All three of those acts, which will comprise the rest of the whole redemptive story, are found, first introduced to you with Jesus. In the redemptive drama, there is only one hero central character; it’s Jesus: Jesus the Creator, Jesus the Redeemer, Jesus the Hope of all of humanity.

Genesis introduces us to Jesus, and it's right to say that because deep inside of all of us is a hunger for and a need for what only Jesus is ever going to be able to supply. It's wonderful to think that the One who is my Savior is also my Creator. He knows everything about me. He knows the purpose for my existence. He understands how I function and operate. He knows how broken I actually am. He comes with the wisdom of the designer. Jesus as Savior comes with a willingness to exercise His power so that I would have everything I need.

What an amazing start to the Word of God that the very One who will bring all of us to glorious conclusion is the One who brought it all into origin. Isn’t that amazing? Jesus, He is the brackets of the Word of God. He's the One who keeps the drama moving; and from the very first start of Scripture, we are introduced to His glory, the glory that is the only glory that will ever satisfy my heart, the glory that I was designed to live for, Jesus.