This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see
what’s happening in a Biblical text

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his Gospel.

Let’s jump in.

The opening chapters of Genesis
talk about the creation of the world.

But what they show us is how God is
different from all the other gods of the ancient world.

Because the Jewish people weren’t the only
ones with a story about how the world was made.

And one of the things that Genesis 1-2 is
trying to do is set the one true God of the Bible

apart from all the other
false gods of pagan religions.

In other cultures’ creation accounts,
the gods do terrible, immoral things

that cause the universe
to be created almost by accident.

The one true God of the Bible, however,
creates the world on purpose, out of his purity,

and simply by speaking his word.

In pagan religions, different gods
were over the sky and the sea and the land.

The one true God of the Bible,
however, is the maker of all of these.

In pagan religions, humans are
the result of the gods’ accidental actions,

but the one true God of the Bible creates humans
intentionally and makes them in His own image.

Other creation myths from this time
often portray women as less than men

or even as curses to men.

But the God in Genesis creates
both man and woman in his image.

In fact, the only time God says something
is not good in these first two chapters is

when he says that it is not good
for man to be without woman.

Also, unlike the pagan gods who
want nothing to do with humans,

the one true God
tells the first humans why they exist.

You see, their purpose is
to multiply and fill the earth.

By doing so, they would take God’s image that was
in them and cover the whole world with his presence.

All the while, they would be enjoying
God’s provision and presence in the garden.

Finally, unlike the pagan gods of this age
who were always causing more trouble

with their never-ending evil work,

the one true God of the Bible rests after
he has finished creating because all his work is done.

The opening of the Bible gives us a picture
of the world and of a God unlike anything else

that man-made religions
could come up with.

Remarkably, the New Testament
takes it one step further.

It tells us that everything we read about
in Genesis was actually created by what it calls

the Word of God who
became flesh in the person of Jesus.

The God who made humans in his own image, is
the God who came in the image of humans.

God coming to us in flesh and blood

is ultimately what separates Christianity
from every other religion in the world.

In every other religion, we are separated
from God, or the gods or the spiritual realm,

and we must perform a certain set of
rituals or good deeds in order to get to them.

But in Genesis 1,
we see that our God is different.

He who made everything, not only makes us
in his image, but he makes himself into ours.

He comes to us and fulfills
the purpose that he gave to Adam and Eve,

so that we can return to the
garden and be in God’s presence.

By doing so, God offers us the rest he
experienced on the seventh day of creation

because all our work is complete in Jesus.

I pray that the Holy Spirit would show you a God
who is different from anything else in the universe

and that you would see Jesus as the
Word who spoke all things into existence,

who also became like us, so he
might bring us into God’s presence

and fill the earth with his image.