In Genesis we are shown the importance and value of prayer. Abraham prayed unto God and Abimelech's life was spared (20:17). Abraham's servant cries to the Lord that God would prosper his efforts to secure a wife for Isaac, and God answered his petition (chapter 24). Jacob, too, prays, and God hearkened.
In Genesis the saints rapture to heaven is vividly portrayed. Enoch, the man who walked with God, "was not," for God had translated him. He did not pass through the portals of death. He was suddenly removed from these scenes of sin and suffering and transported into the realm of glory without seeing death.
In Genesis the divine incarnation is first declared. The Coming One was to be supernaturally begotten. He was to enter this world as none other ever did. He was to be the Son of Man, and yet have no human father. The One who should bruise the serpent's head was to be the woman's "Seed."
In Genesis the death and resurrection of the Saviour are strikingly foreshadowed. The ark, in which were preserved Noah and his family, were brought safely through the deluge of death on to the new earth. Isaac, the beloved son of Abraham, at the bidding of his father, is laid, unresistingly, on the altar, and from it Abraham "received him back as in a figure from the dead."
In Genesis we also learn of the Saviour's coming exaltation. This is strikingly typified in the history of Joseph - the most complete of all the personal types of Christ - who, after a period of humiliation and suffering was exalted to be the governor over all Egypt. Jacob, too, on his deathbed, also declares of Shiloh that "unto him shall the gathering of the peoples be" (49:10).
In Genesis the priesthood of Christ is anticipated. The Lord Jesus is a Priest not of the Aaronic system, but "after the order of Melchizedek." And it is in Genesis that this mysterious character, who received tithes from and blessed Abraham, is brought before our view.
In Genesis the coming anitchrist is announced, announced as "the seed of the serpent" (3:15). He is seen, too, foreshadowed in the person and history of Nimrod, the rebel against the Lord, the man who headed the first great federation in open opposition to the Most High.
In Genesis we first read of God giving Palestine to Abraham and to his seed: "And the Lord appeared unto Abraham, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land" (12:7). And again, "For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever" (13:15).
In Genesis the wondrous future of Israel is made known. "And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered" (13:16). "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (22:18).
In Genesis the judgment of God on the wicked is solemnly exhibited. Cain confesses his punishment is greater than he can bear. The flood comes on the world of the ungodly and sweeps them all away. Fire and brimstone descend on Sodom and Gomorrah, till naught but their ashes remain. Lot's wife, for one act of disobedience, is turned into a pillar of salt.
What a marvelous proof is all this of the Divine Authorship! Who but the One who knows the end from the beginning, could have embodied, in germ form, what is afterwards expanded and amplified in the rest of the Bible? What unequivocal demonstration that there was One super, intending mind, directing the pens of all who wrote the later books of Holy Scripture! May the blessing of God rest upon us as we seek to enjoy some of the inexhaustible riches of this book of beginnings.
(more on the Book of Genesis coming)
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