The Bible's Story: Resurrection, Creation, and Human Dignity

The story of the Bible begins not in Genesis, the story of the Bible begins when Jesus was discovered alive after he had been crucified. It's important to know, as we talked about last week. If Jesus had been crucified and didn't rise from the dead, you need to understand, this would not exist. [00:03:50]

When that tomb was discovered empty, and when his disciples, and by disciples I don't mean the 12 apostles. The hundreds of people that followed Jesus from the banks of the Jordan River throughout his ministry. When they saw him alive from the dead, these men and women who ran for their lives when he was arrested, went into the streets of Jerusalem and proclaimed not what they had read about, not what they'd heard about but what they had seen with their own eyes a resurrected Savior. [00:04:37]

The Apostle Paul and others left Judea and began telling Gentiles, non-Jewish people about the claims of Jesus. And the biggest transition, the biggest struggle for Gentiles who were enamored by the life of Jesus and the message of Jesus. And Gentiles who wanted to embrace the life of Jesus, embrace Jesus as their Savior and as their Lord. The struggle for them was the whole idea of giving up everything they had been brought up to believe, giving up everything that everyone around them had been brought up to believe, and embracing the idea that there was only one God. [00:08:10]

When Gentiles became enamored with one particular Jew, who would that be? - [Congregation] Jesus. - Yeah, it's not a trick question everybody who would that be? - Jesus. - Yes, when the Gentile world became enamored with one particular Jew, they became enamored with the sacred text of the Jews. Now, before Jesus came along this was not the case. I mean there were always a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of Gentiles who followed Judaism as close as they could. [00:11:03]

When they discovered that The Law and the Prophets were the back story to this new story, they became interested in the Jewish text. They weren't interested in Judaism and this causes a problem later on, they were interested in finding Jesus in the text of the Jewish people. Now to their amazement, to their shock and awe. To a degree of amazement, we can't even begin to describe when they began to explore the text of the Jews, when they begin to read it for themselves they didn't even know what to call some of these. [00:12:59]

Genesis is a worldview unto itself. An extraordinary, ahead of its time worldview. In fact, the scientific community, the modern scientific community wouldn't even begin to catch up with the first statement in Genesis until 1927. When a Belgian priest, first suggested the theory that we call the Big Bang Theory. That the universe had a beginning, maybe you know this, now you will. Since the time of Aristotle in the 4th century BC, since the time of Aristotle everyone pretty much assumed that the universe just existed, that it had always existed. [00:19:02]

Genesis tells us the religion that was older than any of the current religions in the first century. Genesis says what no other pagan myth said. Then God said, "Let us make man kind in our image." In the Jewish text the creation of mankind, womankind is the pinnacle not the afterthought of creation which means, don't miss this. Dignity, the dignity of every man, the dignity of every woman, the dignity of every child is established at the very beginning, this was unheard of. [00:25:42]

In the very beginning, God told the Jewish people, "You will make no idols. You'll make no idol of me, Yahweh, you'll make no idol or images out of animals or other people, or anything that crawls on the ground or flies in the air. You will have no other gods before me because there aren't any other gods." And I'm telling you in stark contrast to the Egyptian pantheon of gods that they had just escaped from. God says, "You will not worship nature." [00:27:34]

God created mankind, in his own image, unthinkable. "In the image of God." It's repeated for emphasis. "In the image of God he created them." Ladies, male and female, he created them. Look up here. You've heard me say this before if you've been around. I think every woman should be a Christian. Jesus was the first to elevate the status of women, this is why so many women follow Jesus. [00:28:37]

Genesis:1, creates and gives us, and provides us with the meta-narrative of our lives, the big picture. The ultimate context for human experience a monotheistic worldview. A worldview, and please don't miss this, this is so important. A worldview that answers, life's most important questions, the why questions. The why is there something rather than nothing question. More personal, why are you here? And why do you matter? [00:32:46]

You are not the result of some cosmic conflict between the gods, and you were not created by the universe. God wanted image-bearers who could know and relate to one another, and image-bearers that can know and relate to him and this is my favorite part. And when the time was right. when everything was just as it needed to be, Yahweh the God of Genesis, joined us, but that's later I'm getting ahead of myself. [00:33:04]

In the opening line of the Hebrew Bible, in the opening line of the Hebrew Bible they realized something. That it was very difficult, very difficult for first century Jews to acknowledge. In the opening line of the scripture that they began to adopt as their own scripture, they realized that the Jews had it right all along, which of course only fueled their interest in The Law and the Prophets, the Hebrew Scriptures. [00:34:01]