The Theology of Genesis - God's Sovereignty (S10, E01)

Greetings and welcome to the Faith Chapel Podcast. My name is Jason,

and I am the pastor of Faith Chapel.

In the podcast today, we are starting a series on the theology of Genesis.

Genesis is a foundational piece in the Bible.

In the story of Genesis, we learn so much about God as He reveals Himself to

us in the special revelation that is Scripture.

We begin by looking at how Genesis portrays God's sovereignty.

Thanks for joining us as we dive into this discussion.

What Genesis reveals to us about God.

And we're going to take this through different categories. And tonight we're

going to start with specifically the sovereignty of God and what Genesis tells us about that.

But before we get into any of that, let me pray a sin.

Lord, I come before you today and I ask that you will be here tonight,

that you will speak what needs to be spoken, that you will give us ears to hear

what we need to hear. And I pray for transformation to happen.

Lord Jesus, I pray all of this in your name. Amen.

All right. So the concept of this is really trying to.

Flesh-out theology and what specifically Genesis says about God.

Theology is two words combined, which means it's the study of God.

And God can reveal himself in multiple ways, but there are two primary ways

in which God reveals himself to us.

The first is called natural revelation.

And Romans chapter 1 verses 18 to 20 is an example of how Paul sees natural

Romans 1:18–20

revelation revealing things about God.

It says, But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful,

wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them.

For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky.

Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities,

his eternal power and divine nature.

So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

And so Paul here is explaining that through the natural processes,

we are able to have God revealed to us.

So whether we are studying human anatomy or whether we are looking at the life

cycle of a fruit fly, we are able to study those in nature because God has created them.

In a pattern, in a way that is replicable and that is unique to what he created here.

He has made it obvious when we look at the seasons and the times that he is here.

And this is one of the ways that we learn about God.

But the other main way, the other primary way of how God reveals himself to us is.

Is called divine revelation. And this is where God enters into our existence

and he brings his knowledge to us. He brings knowledge of him to us.

And 2 Timothy 3.16 is an example of this.

Again, it's Paul writing and he says, all scripture is inspired by God and is

useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives.

It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

So it says through this divine revelation of scripture, we are able to know

attributes of God. We are able to learn and study about God.

God is supernatural, which just means outside of nature.

And we can't study him the way that we would study the human anatomy because

it is outside of our observable space.

And we need these two revelations to give us knowledge about God.

And so with that in mind, we are looking in this series, we are looking at different

attributes of God as disclosed in Genesis.

And the reason we're doing Genesis is twofold. I'm encouraging people to read

through Genesis in our Bible reading plan this year, one chapter a week.

And I just want to explore that a little bit more.

But the idea is also grounded in that Genesis is a building block for the entirety of the Bible.

What we know about the Bible we see in, or what we know about God,

we see in microcosms in the book of Genesis, which when.

When it's revealed in other places in Scripture, we get more light to it,

but the main themes about who God is, is disclosed in the book of Genesis.

And today we're in this series, actually. I'm trying to go kind of in order

as we encounter these different attributes of God, and we're starting with the

sovereignty of God, because that is.

Clearly seen in the creation account.

So sovereignty simply means principal, chief, or supreme. And this definition

comes from basic theology and its author, Charles Ryrie.

And so it means principal, chief, and supreme. Ryrie goes on to say,

Sovereignty speaks first of position. God is the chief being in the universe,

then of power. God is the supreme power in the universe.

How he, God, exercises that power is revealed in the scriptures.

A sovereign could be a dictator. God is not.

Or a sovereign could abdicate the use of his power. God has not.

Ultimately, God is in complete control of all things, though he may choose to

let certain events happen according to natural law that he has ordained.

And so what he's saying there is when we look at the totality of scripture,

we're going to look and see that God is in control.

We're going to take a look at specific examples in Genesis here in a little

bit, but this is what we will see throughout the entirety of scripture.

When we get to the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus,

Jesus came here for the purpose of dying on the cross, and God worked that out

in his sovereignty to make that so.

It is something that he did. He worked it out because he is the principal,

he is the chief being in the universe, and he has supreme power in the universe.

So this is one way to think about the idea of sovereignty.

Another is by Wayne Grudem in his book, Systematic Theology,

where he just defines sovereignty as God's exercise of power over his creation.

And so God uses his power, uses his authority to navigate, to put things in

place in his created world to bring about.

What he wants to have happen.

And this leads to a question for some people about, is there anything that God cannot do?

Is there a rock that God could not, could he create a rock that God himself

could not list? Are there limits to what God can do?

And Grudem goes on to explain this concept as he says, Thus, God cannot lie.

He cannot sin. He cannot deny himself. He cannot be tempted with evil.

He cannot cease to exist or cease to be God or act in a way inconsistent with any of his attributes.

This means that it is not entirely accurate to say that God can do anything.

Even the scripture passages quoted above that use phrases similar to God can

do whatever he wants must be understood in their context to mean that God can do anything he,

will to do or anything that is consistent with his character.

Although God's power is infinite, his use of that power is qualified by his

other attributes, just as all God's attributes qualify all his actions.

And so we're going to get into this at the very end and look at some of the

ways in which God limits his power.

As I've mentioned before, like he really does control our heartbeats.

He really controls the inhaling and exhaling of our lungs.

Everything is in his purview.

Everything he can control. And there are just some times that he uses, that he...

Allows the natural processes that he has started to take over and to take its course, so to speak.

So there are things that God limits himself to do, like he's not going to lie,

he's not going to deny that he is God, those sorts of things.

But there are things, but all things God can work in and through in this created world.

So God is sovereign. He is completely and fully in control.

And to look at it through the lens of Genesis, we are going to start with the creation story.

The first five verses in scripture is where we're going to be reading from.

And the Bible begins in this way.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.

Then God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw that the light was good.

Then he separated the light from the darkness.

God called the light day and the darkness night.

And evening passed, and morning came, marking the first day.

And so we have here God existing prior to the beginning, and God being the causation

of everything that came.

The terms heaven and earth here really refer to everything, every element,

every rock, every atom, all of those things were non-existent in the beginning, and God

spoke and created all of those things.

That is what Genesis says, and you do have to be sovereign, you do have to be

in control to be able to do those things.

In the Old Testament survey, it says this,

The opening chapter beautifully reveals that all of creation came forth at the

free and sovereign command of God, who is prior to and independent of it,

which just means the creation.

He is free of, he is independent of the creation.

He existed prior to the creation.

This is what Genesis 1 is relaying to us.

He sovereignly spoke it into existence.

He had control over all of these things.

The idea of God creating comes from the Hebrew word bara, and bara means to

create, and it is a key word in the opening chapters of Genesis.

It's used six or seven times in the creation account, according to the Old Testament

survey, and this word has God as its only subject in the Old Testament.

And no mention is made of material out of which an object is created.

It describes a way of acting that has no human analogy.

Only God creates as only God saves.

Human beings are, in English, we do create things, like we create works of art.

We create things out of metal.

We use wood to create houses.

But what bara is used to describe is a creation out of no material thing.

It's absolutely only what God can do.

You and I, we have to use the elements that God has put on this planet to create the things we do.

And in that way, we're kind of made in his image and likeness because he gave us that creativity.

But he is the exclusive one who creates out of nothing.

The ESV study Bible adds this about the word bara.

It is always used in the Old Testament with God as the subject.

While it is not always used to describe creation out of nothing,

it does stress God's sovereignty and his power. He is the one who is able to do these things.

He is completely in control.

He is completely sovereign.

And one more note about the heavens and the earth.

According to the ESV study Bible, again, it says this means that in the beginning

refers to the beginning of everything.

The text indicates that God created everything in the universe,

which thus affirms that he did in fact create it ex nihilo, which is Latin for out of nothing.

The effect of the opening words of the Bible is to establish that God,

in his inscrutable wisdom, sovereign power, and majesty, is the creator of all things that exist.

And this is what creation shows, that God is outside of nature,

that he is outside of time, and that he is in complete control of these things.

I just watched a video on someone converting to Christianity because of looking

at cosmological arguments and,

believing that God is the best answer to the questions that raises in that.

And he talked about how there is a,

a number. It's called the universal constant, I think is what he called it.

And what that number is describing is how fast the universe can expand.

And if it's just a fraction of a number, higher or lower, either A, if it's higher.

That it is expanding faster than what it is right now, then the atoms would

be too far, too spread apart to be able to come together to,

like, we have two elements that make up water, hydrogen and oxygen.

And if the constant was faster, then those two elements wouldn't be together.

And the same is true for all the elements in the universe. Like,

they would just be so far spread apart that it would not, we would not have material things.

But if that constant rate was just a little bit slower, then everything would

not expand fast enough and it would eventually just collapse upon itself.

And this is the, I believe he called it was the universal constant.

And that's a concept that is, I see as evidence for God, but it shows us just

how beautiful and perfect God has created this universe like he knows what he's doing and he is the.

He is the creator of it all. We

exist because of him and he is outside of this. He is not subject to it.

And this adds to his sovereignty. He is in control.

So we see this all throughout the book of Genesis that God is sovereign.

In the flood story, we have, again, God's in control. God is the cause of a lot of things.

So in Genesis chapter 6, verse 17, God says this to Noah, Look,

Genesis 6:17

I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes.

Everything on earth will die.

So God is the cause of the flood. He is bringing it about.

He is bringing the water. He is bringing the rains. He is bringing these things.

And so in this instance, he is in control of the weather.

In Genesis 8, 1 and 2, we have the same...

Declaration that God is in control of the weather, but it's a different aspect of the weather.

In Genesis 8 verses 1 and 2, we read, But God remembered Noah and all the wild

Genesis 8:1

animals and livestock with him in the boat.

He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede.

The underground waters stopped flowing, and the torrential rains from the sky

were stopped. And it's explicitly saying God stopped the rain.

God sent the wind. He stopped the underwater flow of water.

God is in control of every aspect of the weather and even the flowing of undersea

springs and things like that.

He controls it all.

So in the New International Commentary on the book of Genesis,

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

chapters 1 through 17, the author writes these words, God's remembrance of Noah

spurs him into sending a wind over the earth that starts the process of drying out the land.

One need only recall that the Hebrew word ruach translates as both spirit and

wind in order to decipher here a blatant connection with Genesis 1-2.

At creation, or just prior to creation, the divine Ruach, spirit there,

hovers majestically restraining the waters.

Here, the divine Ruach, here meaning wind, brings about the evaporation of the waters of judgment.

And so with the seas being held to their place in Genesis 1-2 when the dry land appears.

When the waters start to recede on the face of the water, it is really declaring

that God is totally in control.

So we're going to move on to the Tower of Babel story. This is in Genesis 11, verses 7 through 9.

Genesis 11:7–9

And in this story, we're going to see that God is in control of scattering the people.

And he is in control. He has the sovereignty to control and to confuse the languages of the people.

So in Genesis 11, we read, God's saying, come, let's go down and confuse the

people. with different languages.

Then they won't be able to understand each other.

In that way, the Lord scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the cities.

And so here we see an aspect of what God is going to do.

He has this divine command after the flood to go and fill the earth.

That's what he tells Noah and his sons.

But what do they do? They start gathering together in cities.

They aren't subduing the earth. They aren't spreading God's image all around the world.

They're just putting it in one place and their arrogance grows.

They say, we can build a tower up to the heavens.

We can be like God in that way.

And so God comes down and he shows his sovereignty by changing their languages,

by bringing that confusion on the earth and by scattering the people around.

Those are things that God is said of doing in this passage. He is the one in control.

We see it later on in Genesis chapter 20, verses three through seven.

Genesis 20 · chapter mention

And this is the second time that Abraham lies about Sarah being his wife.

And this is what.

Genesis records. But that night God came to Abimelech, who's the one who took Sarah into his harem.

In a dream and told Abimelech, you're a dead man, for that woman you have taken is already married.

But Abimelech had not slept with her yet.

So he said, Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation?

Didn't Abraham tell me she is my sister? And she herself said, yes, he is my brother.

I acted in complete innocence. My hands are clean.

In the dream, God responded, yes, I know you are innocent.

That's why I kept you from sinning against me and why I did not let you touch her.

Now return the woman to her husband and he will pray for you, for he is a prophet.

Then you will live. But if you don't return her to him, you can be sure that

you and all your people will die.

So here we see God being in control of even our dreams.

He is able to communicate. He is able to reveal things to people through their dreams.

And this happens in the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis.

This happens to Pharaoh in the book of Genesis. And even beyond.

I think of the story of Nebuchadnezzar and the dream that he has and how God

communicates to him through that way.

And so God is in control of the things that we can even see in our dreams.

What we would think are our private thoughts.

God has sovereignty over these things, and he controls the activities that humans do.

He uses a divine revelation here to say to Abimelech, this is not the person

that is for you. She is already married.

Send her back to her husband.

And so God is in control of this. And the reason this one is so important for

God to intervene in this way is because of God's promises to Abram.

So the ESV study Bible says it like this.

So God intervenes to ensure that Abimelech does not touch Sarah.

In contrast to chapter 12 verses 10 through 20, which is the first time Sarah

is taken as someone else's wife,

this episode emphasizes in a variety of ways the important point that Sarah

has not had intercourse with the king.

Otherwise, Abimelech could be the father of the son born to Sarah in the next

chapter, chapter 21, verses 1 through 3.

And then it also adds, throughout Genesis, dreams are often used as a medium of divine revelation.

And so those are some of the ones that I already pointed out.

And God is in control of these processes.

He has the ability to interject in dreams. He has the ability to use dreams to communicate.

Either direct messages to people like here to Abimelech, or through pictures

and through the interpretation as with Pharaoh and Joseph, he is able to tell

people what their dreams are and what they mean.

He is sovereign.

Another one is Jacob's prospering. And I mentioned this in a sermon not that long ago, but this is the,

this is where Laban goes and he cheats Jacob. He takes all of the striped,

all of the spotted lambs and goats out of the flock.

And Jacob tries something to recoup the losses that Laban has taken from him.

And that's the backdrop to these verses. So we're in Genesis chapter 30, verses 37 to 43.

Genesis 30:37–43

It says, Then Jacob took some fresh branches from poplar, almond,

and plain trees and peeled off strips of bark, making white streaks on them.

Then he placed these peeled branches in the watering troughs where the flocks

came to drink, for that was where they mated.

And when they mated in front of white streaked branches, they gave birth to

young that were streaked, streaked, speckled, and spotted.

Jacob separated those lambs from Laban's flock, and at mating time he turned

the flock to face Laban's animals that were streaked or black.

This is how he built his own flock instead of increasing Laban's.

Whenever the stronger females were ready to mate, Jacob would place the peeled

branches in the watering troughs in front of them.

Then they would mate in front of the branches, but he didn't do this with the weaker ones.

So the weaker lambs belonged to Laban and the stronger ones were Jacob's.

As a result, Jacob became very wealthy with large flocks of sheep and goats,

female and male servants, and many camels and donkeys.

So Laban cheats him and Jacob is like, I'm due this money.

And so he does what he does. He tries to get the flocks to bear these striped,

these spotted, these speckled lambs and goats, and he tries.

He initiates this weird thing where he puts these pieces of wood in their water.

He makes them look at speckled, spotted when they're mating, that sort of thing.

And I think all of us are wise enough to know that that's not really what makes

a lamb or a goat speckled or spotted.

We know today about genetics. They may not have known it back then,

but we know today about genetics and those things are not really what's doing that.

God is using, and the way I framed this earlier is like, I see this being a

prayer of Jacob's like, please help me. I've been cheated. I'm doing everything I can.

God, please help me with this. And what God comes through as he makes him very

wealthy because all of the lambs and goats are becoming that way.

The ESV study Bible says it like this.

So to recover the loss of speckled and spotted sheep and goats,

Jacob attempts to manipulate the breeding process of the flocks by placing fresh

sticks of poplar and almond and plane trees in the troughs where the flocks were watered.

These sticks, which have peeled white streaks in them, correspond to the genetic

makeup of the flocks, producing animals that are striped, speckled, and spotted.

The text, however, should not be understood to imply any causal relationship

between the sticks and the newborn animals.

The implication thereof is that God is the one who is doing that.

God is recouping Jacob's losses. God is taking care. God is using his sovereign

control in this area to bring about the the.

Animals with their streaked and spotted and speckled natures.

So what we see here is that God is in charge of the genetics of these animals. He controls the DNA.

He has that kind of authority in his life.

And then we come to Pharaoh's dream.

And in Pharaoh's dream, which is found in Genesis chapter 41,

Genesis 41:17–28

verses 17 to 28, we read, So Pharaoh told Joseph his dream.

In my dream, Pharaoh said, I was standing on the bank of the Nile River,

and I saw seven fat, healthy cows come up out of the water and begin grazing in the marsh grass.

But then I saw seven sick-looking cows, scrawny and thin, come up after them.

I've never seen such sorry-looking animals in all the land of Egypt.

These thin, scrawny cows ate the seven fat cows.

But afterward, you wouldn't have known it, for they were still as thin and scrawny

as before. Then I woke up.

In my dream, I also saw seven heads of grain, full and beautiful,

growing on a single stock.

Then seven more heads of grain appeared, but these were blighted,

shriveled, and withered by the east wind.

And the shriveled heads swallowed the seven healthy heads.

I told these dreams to the magicians, but no one could tell me what they mean.

Joseph responded, both of Pharaoh's dreams mean the same thing.

God is telling Pharaoh in advance what he is about to do.

The seven healthy cows and the seven healthy heads of grain both represent seven years of prosperity.

The seven thin scrawny cows that came up later, and the seven thin heads of

grain withered by the east wind represent seven years of famine.

This will happen just as I have described it, for God has revealed to Pharaoh

in advance what he is about to do.

And what we see in this passage is we've already talked about dreams,

but we see that God is able to know what's going to happen in the future.

And he sends this message to Pharaoh.

He gives Joseph the wisdom to be able to interpret this dream.

And what God is declaring here through this passage is that I know what's going

to happen. I know the future.

I know what it holds. And the only way you can truly know what it holds is if A,

you are informed by someone who is sovereign about what's going to happen,

or B, you are sovereign yourself.

And God here is showing in all of these different examples that he is the one

that is completely and fully in control.

He is sovereign.

But Genesis also shows some fascinating parallels that I think help to form

my view of God's sovereignty.

Now, there are two main views when you look at the sovereignty of God.

One view is that God is completely sovereign and is controlling all things.

And the other one is that God is completely sovereign and he allows human free will.

I fall into this second category, and Genesis, I think, points me in that direction.

So the first example we're going to take a look at this is the story of Cain

and Abel found in Genesis 4, verses 6 through 8.

Genesis 4:6–8

This is God talking to Cain, and then what Cain does in what I say is his free will.

So in Genesis 4, 6 through 8, we read, Why are you so angry? The Lord asked Cain.

Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right,

but if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out.

Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you, but you must subdue it and be its master.

One day Cain suggested to his brother, let's go out in the fields.

And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

And the reason that I believe that this is showing the sovereignty of God,

but also the free will of human beings is just the distinction between God's

declaration here saying, Cain, stop it.

You're in control of your actions. Don't go out and kill your brother.

Sin wants to master you. It wants to control you, but you have the authority to subdue it.

You have that ability. And he didn't.

And so to me, it would be very, very strange for God to interact with Cain in

this way and then force him to murder his brother,

to be in complete and absolute control in his sovereignty and to not give that free will to Cain,

and then to make Cain go and do that.

To me, it's just so bizarre that I don't think it's plausible that that's what God would do.

Could he have done that? I have to admit, yes, he could have done that because

he is completely sovereign as we have already talked about.

But I think God limits his sovereignty in the cases of free will for human beings.

And so that's the first example. I have two more.

So I ended by saying, if God did not allow free will, would God have warned

Cain and then made him kill his brother?

It's a question that I think the answer is no to. I just don't think that would happen.

In Genesis 22, we have, again, another example of what I think is human free

will corresponding to a story that we've already talked about.

And this is where Abraham tells Abimelech that Sarah is his wife.

So, again, look at it through the picture of God's sovereignty and then whether

or not he is introducing or giving Abraham free will in this moment.

So Abraham introduced his wife, Sarah, by saying, she is my sister.

So King Abimelech of Gerar sent for Sarah and had her brought to him at his palace.

So if God was completely sovereign and forced and took away human free will.

What's going on here is that he is forcing Abraham to give his wife to Abimelech

And then God's going to appear to Abimelech in a dream and say,

take, give his wife back to him.

And again, when I try to put pieces together in this puzzle,

like it just doesn't make sense.

Would God allow, and he allowed, but would God make Abraham give Sarah to be,

Abimelech's harem and then interject in the dreams of Abimelech to stop him

from actually touching her.

And to me, it just doesn't make sense in that way.

And this is why I believe that God does limit his sovereignty.

The last example is found at the end of Genesis 2.

And this is, so Joseph and his brothers are in Egypt. Joseph is the second most

powerful person in Egypt at this time.

And Joseph's dad has just died. The brothers, the other 11 brothers are fearful

that Joseph is not going to forgive them, that he is not going to,

bring, continue to show them kindness after their father died because of them

selling him into slavery.

And so what we read in Genesis chapter 50 verses 19 to 21 are these words.

Genesis 50:19–21

But Joseph replied, Don't be afraid of me. Am I God that I can punish you?

You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good.

He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.

No, don't be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children.

So he, Joseph, reassured them by speaking kindly to him.

So the brothers were the ones responsible for sending Joseph into slavery,

but God's sovereign hand was with Joseph.

God allowed him, Joseph, to go through slavery and then imprisonment,

but God wasn't the sovereign cause of it, in my view.

He sovereignly worked through it. He did not cause his enslavement and then his incarceration.

So Charles Ryrie then says, this is what he says in that opening description

of sovereignty, but I just want to bring it back and end with this.

He says, ultimately God is in complete control of all things,

though he may choose to let certain events happen according to natural law that he has ordained.

And so for me, the book of Genesis as a foundation piece for our faith,

as a foundation for what we believe, truly shows that aspect.

That God is in charge. That he creates all things out of nothing.

That he is in control of the weather. That he is in control of dreams.

That he is in control of the future.

He is in control of all of these things. but he does seem to limit his sovereignty in certain cases.

And that's, to me, what Genesis teaches.

Thank you again for joining us in the discussion about the sovereignty of God

as revealed to us in the book of Genesis.

God is the chief being and supreme power in the universe.

He has all authority and can do anything he wills to do.

If you would like more information about Faith Chapel and its ministries,

please visit the website gofaithchapel.org.

Next week, we will continue in this series as we study how Genesis reveals God's

view of humanity. Have a great week.