OT Session 1

Introduction to the Old Testament covering creation, canon, and God's revelation with Professor Gary Yerby at Living Water University.

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Key Takeaways

The Old Testament is essential for understanding the New Testament and Christian theology.
It is inspired, inerrant scripture that reveals God's covenant and plan for redemption.
The Hebrew Bible's tripartite structure (Law, Prophets, Writings) is foundational to its interpretation.
Jesus Christ is central to the Old Testament narrative, with many prophecies and themes pointing to Him.
The canon was divinely inspired and recognized by the early church, not arbitrarily created.

What the video covers

The course covers the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi in 10 sessions.
The Old Testament is defined as the original covenant between God and His people.
The Old Testament is foundational for understanding the entire Bible, including the New Testament.
Inspiration of scripture means the Old Testament is God-breathed and without error in its original writings.
The Hebrew Bible is structured into three parts: Torah (Law), Nevi'im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings).
Jesus affirmed the Old Testament canon as authoritative scripture pointing to Himself.
The Old Testament contains prophecies and themes that foreshadow Jesus Christ and His redemptive work.
The session covers key theological themes such as creation, sin, redemption, and the nature of God’s revelation.
The canon of the Old Testament consists of 39 books written in Hebrew, recognized by Israel and the early church.
The Old Testament is not just historical or fables but a unified, inspired narrative that reveals God's kingdom and plan.

Chapters

What is the Old Testament according to this course?

The Old Testament is the original covenant between God and His people, consisting of 39 books written in Hebrew, which form the foundation of Christian faith and theology.

How does the Old Testament relate to Jesus Christ?

The Old Testament contains prophecies and themes that point forward to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Himself affirmed the Old Testament as authoritative scripture that foretells and explains His life and mission.

What does 'inspiration of scripture' mean in this context?

Inspiration means that the Old Testament is 'God-breathed,' originating from God's Spirit working through human authors, making the scriptures without error in their original writings.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

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[music] What? Welcome to Introduction to the Old Testament. I'm Professor Gary Yerby, and I am here for Living Water University to take you through 10 sessions where we will cover all the way from Genesis to Malachi. It's going to be quite a feat

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to get that much in, but we're going to do our best to do it. We're talking about the Old Testament, and I want to start by talking about the word testament itself. Testament is another word for covenant. So this is the Old

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Testament or the original covenant between God and his people. And there are several covenants that we'll study as a part of this. Then we also have another course which some of you may have already taken, which I've taught, which is

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Introduction to the New Testament, where it's the New Testament dealing with the birth and life, death, resurrection of Jesus Christ and the beginning of the spread of the gospel through the church and into the prophecy of the future. But

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let's get back today with the Old Testament. We're going to start by looking at session one: creation, canon, and the revelation of God. We're going to talk about how the Old Testament came into being, what it does, and shaping

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our theology as we look at creation and beyond. And we're also going to see how that comes from God peeling back, revealing himself, revealing his plans, revealing the kingdom of God to us as his people. We're going to look also at

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the beginning of Genesis, where we're going to deal with the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis that bring us from creation up until the time right before Abraham. So, we got a lot to cover. Let's get right into it. The

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first thing that we want to see is that the Old Testament gives us a theological foundation for understanding all of the Bible. If we misunderstand the Old Testament, we misunderstand the New Testament. You cannot interpret the New Testament without the Old Testament to

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build on. And you can't fully understand the Old Testament without having the New Testament to help us reflect back to it.

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The Old Testament is an inspired, inerrant record of God's revelation. We believe in its original writing that the Old Testament is without error. It is not a bunch of separate stories. It's not a bunch of fables. It's not a bunch of

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made-up or even historical things that have nothing to do with each other. The Old Testament is a foundation for the Christian faith. It builds from the time of creation in Genesis 1 all the way through Christ, as well as looking

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forward to his return. So in today's study, we're going to be looking at a number of things. We're going to be looking at the inspiration of scripture. What do we mean by inspiration? Where does that come from? I'm going to start with

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that word right now. Inspiration has the word spirit in it. Spirit comes from the word in Greek that talks about pneuma or breath. Ruach is in Hebrew.

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Inspiration means this is breathed by God. The Old Testament comes from the very mouth, the very voice of God speaking through the writers. We're going to look at the structure of the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament. Why

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are what kinds of writings are there and why are they there? As we look at that, we'll also look at some core themes that govern how we see the entire course that we'll be going through. What are these

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themes that are running through the Old Testament? We're going to look at some significant events also in redemptive history. We can't understand Christ fully without even understanding what happens in the creation story, what happens in man, what happens in sin

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entering the world. We need to understand those things in the foundational narrative of Genesis 1 through 11 so that we can understand the rest of the Old Testament and we can understand Christ. Now, one of the things I want to point out to you as

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we're doing this study each week, you're going to hear me talking about how this points to Jesus Christ. And you're going to say, "Well, wait a minute. He doesn't—he doesn't appear until the New Testament." Well, actually, he does show

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up before that. He's even going to show up in today's lesson as Genesis refers to him. The first prophecy or the first thing telling about what Jesus is doing, the first example of the gospel is even in our first verses or first chapters

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we're going to look at today. We're going to see how each of these things, each of these writings, each of these stories and things in history not only sometimes are telling us about what's happening at that point in time, but

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they're also pointing forward to Jesus, to what he will do and why he is the only way. So, let's take a look at it.

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The first thing that we want to see is the canon of the Old Testament. Now, what do we mean by canon? Canon is a collective, if you will, a grouping, if you will. We talk about how many books

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there are in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And some of those are longer, kind of like books; others are very short. But these different writings are put together in a canon or anthology, which is a cohesive whole.

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The canon of the Old Testament has a narration that goes through it into the different styles of writings. So what is the Old Testament? Let's take a look.

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First of all, the Old Testament is 39 books written in Hebrew. They are the scriptures that the nation of Israel not only pointed to but what they lived out. It's recognized by the covenant community of Israel as inspired

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scripture that talks about in the New Testament that all scripture is God-breathed. It's pointing back to the Old Testament, and even Jesus himself pointed back to it. Jesus and the apostles pointed to the Old Testament as scripture, as authoritative, as being

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from God. The church did not just create the canon and go, "Hey, this is what we want." God brought this together by inspiration. God made this happen. The church recognized what God did. The church recognized what God spoke and

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taught through the writers who physically wrote or dictated scripture to the scribes that wrote them down. The church didn't create the canon. God did.

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Jesus himself affirmed that canon. He said, "This is true. These writings are the words of God. They are the word of God." Luke 24:44, he told them, meaning Jesus told them, "These are my words that I've spoken to

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you while I was still with you, that everything written about me," Jesus is saying, "stuff written about me and the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." The things about Jesus are all throughout the writings of the Old

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Testament. We see those as we understand and we look back to the things that foretold directly and things that alluded to but all pointed to truthfully to Jesus and who he is and what he's going to do and is doing even today.

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Jesus recognized that. Therefore, we should. If he accepts it as scripture, who are we to question that? Jesus holds the Old Testament to be true. When Jesus refers to the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms, he is

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affirming a three-fold Hebraic structure. The Hebrews saw this as the core of their scriptures. First of all, the Torah, also we refer to them as the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, the Old Testament law, which are

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Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Those are the books of law. He also refers to the Nevi'im. That means the writings of the prophets, those that not only foretold the future, but those that told and explained what was

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happening in the here and now. As a matter of fact, the prophets spoke more about what was happening than they did foretelling the future. But even in their writings, when they were writing about things that were happening in

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their times, it was still pointing to Jesus, the coming Lord and Savior, our King. And then the Ketuvim. The Ketuvim are psalms, otherwise known as the writings. These are things that point us to God that help us understand

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God more fully. And in those writings, there are writings that are messianic writings. W

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Writings about Jesus that point out who he is and what he will do and what he's like.

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Jesus treats the scriptures received by his people as authoritative and settled. It is settled scripture. It is non-debatable. It is fully sufficient and it's Christ testifying meaning it points to him with great authority. It was not something that was up for debate

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and it was not something th those around him would debate its its originality or would debate its authority. They wouldn't might sometimes debate what it means just like today we're limited in our understanding. We will disagree about what things in the Old Testament

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or New Testament might say. And so I guess this would be a good point as any to have this dis disclaimer. This class is not scripture. It's a class about scripture. I'm your professor, but I may get something wrong. You need to test

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scripture yourself and read it for yourself and have the Holy Spirit speak to you and give you guidance in understanding this. I apologize in advance if I get something wrong as I'm trying to explain to you about scripture, but the reality is this.

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Scripture itself is not mistaken. Scripture itself is true. And Jesus declared that's true. And he declared that as it was speaking, it was speaking specifically about him. Old Testament is not merely just background information of the story. It actually has God

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breathed. Remember the inspiration, God breathed or inspired revelation about Jesus himself. It points to the Christ, the coming Christ. And it's no accident.

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It's not a coincidence when scripture talks about things in the Old Testament that come true in the New Testament.

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There are so many things that foretell about Jesus that were fulfilled. And I'm not going to get sidetracked and get in those now. We'll see some of those as we go through this course. So what this means is Jesus believed the Old

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Testament was authoritative. How can we treat it as any less? Jesus submitted himself to the authority of scripture.

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God himself come in the person and flesh of Jesus submitted himself to the authority of scripture. How can we do any less? We must do the same. Scripture is truth without any mixture of error for its matter. meaning we believe it is

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true. We believe that as God inspired and gave it, it is true. This includes Genesis and all that happened there in the creation and in the fall of man and in Moses and in Noah. Those stories, we believe they are true. We don't believe

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that they are fables. We believe that they happened and scripture recorded them. Uh it also means the things that happened in Exodus were true when Moses came and God used him to do the great miracles, the great plagues that finally

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forced Pharaoh's hand and led them out of Egypt. That those things actually happened. We also believe this includes things like Isaiah and Isaiah that not only what happened in his time, but the prophecies for the future about Jesus

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Christ. We believe those to be true. Now in the Old Testament we have multiple types of literature. We have law which we've talked about historical narratives. So things that told about what happened, things that told the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and

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Jacob's 12 sons and Joseph who was used to deliver the people uh from not starving during a during a famine and being delivered into Egypt and the time that they were in Egypt and were captive and then God sending Moses to deliver

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them and Moses not being able to take them into the promised land. God using Joshua then along with Caleb to lead them into that promised land and Israel taking possession of the land that God promised to Abraham many years before.

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We believe those things are true historical narratives. We also see wisdom literature. We see that in the writing of Proverbs where we are taught biblical principles. We are taught God orained principles that have meaning for life. We see poetry and and poetry we

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especially see in the Psalms that talks about uh the great beauty that there is in God and his creation that teach about worship of him but also reveal heart man's anguish as we cry out to God in honest honest song if you will as David

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and others did and lamenting before the Lord through their poetry. We see prophetic literature and again prophecy the majority of prophecy was speaking to the time but some was telling the future of what would happen. We think prophecy

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and we always think future. It's not always that. Sometimes it's truthtelling not foretelling. [snorts] Uh it's always truthtelling. Sometimes it's present telling and sometimes it's it's foretelling. But prophetic literature was how God would you what God would do

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through his prophets to correct Israel when they failed to redeem them again, renew the covenant and lead them forward. And they kept repeating the pattern of that and then going back and failing again. And God because of his

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faithfulness in his covenant continued to bring them back to himself over and over and over again. And then we also see apocalyptic literature, literature that tells about the end of days, the coming again of Jesus Christ when judgment will come to the earth. We see

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glimpses of that even in the Old Testament. We don't have to just wait for Revelation or what Jesus said himself about the coming times. We see some of it even in the Old Testament.

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And it continues to build as the story goes on to the New Testament and and beyond into what's happening even today as we see it scripture going being foretold and being revealed to us in the Old and New Testament. But the

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fulfillment of that continues on in writing of the Old Testament. We see that there were between 30 and 35 authors writing over a thousand years.

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This is not some great novel that one author just sat down and started writing and made the whole thing up. Uh you can pick your favorite uh fiction uh novels and go you can you could name the author

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who who this came from their mind. That's not what happened here. God is the author who spoke through kings, priests, prophets, shepherds. God spoke through these people and had them write things that were inspired that he intended to be preserved for our sake

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for us to be able to know more about him and ultimately to know him. When we look at the whole Bible, we see that there are about 40 authors who wrote the whole Bible. They did this over a period of 15

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to600 years. There's no way they could have conspired together to make this all up. Instead, they're telling the story of what actually happened and they're building on that as things move forward throughout their history. There's this is written in three languages on three

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continents and as I said, dozens of authors coming together. It is all unpacked in in this great unfolding story. But it is one story. It is one unified redemptive story that reveals the very nature of God.

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If we were to look at scripture as a whole, one of the best things that we can say about it is that the Bible is first and foremost a book about relationships. That's a quote from Henry Blackabe. And Henry Blackabe in saying

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that said it's the Bible is God wanting to be in relationship with us and giving us the book that helps us understand him so that we we will never fully understand him till we're with him face to face but to understand him better so

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that we have the hope of a relationship with God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and by the presence of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It is one unified redemptive story. It is the word of God.

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So if it is this word of God, how how does this all happen? It's inspired and in we talked about its theology therefore is binding not optional. If this is really from God, it is not up to us to go, well, you know, that's your

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truth. I'm going to pick something else. I mean you can choose to do that but with catastrophic consequences. If theology is binding then it shapes our understanding of sin, salvation, covenant, grace and even Jesus himself.

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The theology of scripture is binding because scripture is true and directly from the heart and mind of God. It is and I'll say it again. It is the word of God and it must be treated as such.

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So let's talk a little bit more about what it means saying it's the word of God that it's got it's inspired, it has authority and there's inherency. So let's unpack that a little bit more. The Old Testament repeatedly declares thus

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says the Lord. Um, if you've ever been in an argument with somebody and when they say something, that's it. Uh, you know, maybe you had a parent who was authoritative about stuff and they would say there'd be an argument going on and

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they're like, "I've decided it. That's it. End of discussion." They're telling you, "This is over. You you you can have opinions, but it's been decided." Well, imagine how much more that is true when the one saying this is it is God

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himself. The one who created you, one who created me, God is saying this is inspired and God used this inspiration from him through human authors so they would write down exactly what he intended. It's not like he he forced

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them and made their mouths move or their hands move, but he inspired them so to make sure that what came through wasn't their opinion, wasn't their insight, it was what he guided them to record for us. It's not just ideas, it's not just

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their opinions. It's not just themes. I I I've had a discussion with somebody, I won't get into who in case they ever see this. There was somebody at one point when I would say the Bible is true without any error and they go the Bible

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contains truth. I said that's not what I said. The Bible is true. Well, the Bible contains truth. You see the difference there? There are people that say, well, you know, the Bible contains truth and so does this writing and that writing.

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You know, they've all got some truth and we can piece it together. That's not what this is. The Bible is truth. It's not just themes. It's not just words.

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The Bible is verbal plenary inspiration. What that means is God directly inspired those who gave us the words. If the Bible is not completely true and if the Old Testament is not completely true, then the theology that has been left to

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us, that has been taught to us by the writers even in the New Testament, it falls apart. It is there is not a foundation for what we believe. It gets back to being man's opinions. For example, if Genesis 1 is wrong, that God

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didn't really create the heavens and the earth, that God didn't create out of nothing, much of Paul's theology just falls apart. And we'll talk about that more. If Adam, for example, someone will go, well, Adam is really Adam means man.

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You know, his name literally means man. Well, of course it does. He was the first man. But but they take that to say uh you know it's just representative of man. He wasn't a real man. He didn't really do things that happened. It's

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just telling a story. Well, if that's the case, Romans 5 falls apart. And we'll talk more about that in a moment.

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And if the fall is just symbolic, like the fall didn't really happen. And what we mean by the fall is Adam and Eve's original sin where man was in God's perfect garden in God's perfect relationship. And because of sin, they

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fell into sin. That because of their own choice and they were separated from God.

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They were separated from the beauty and perfection of his creation. They were told they had to leave the garden of Eden, which was the garden of Eden. the thing that when we describe something that was the best ever, that's what we

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talk about. If that was just symbolic, then redemption isn't really necessary. If sin didn't really come into the world through a man, why does a man in Jesus Christ need to come and pay for that sin? Why why don't we just need to be

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our best selves and live on and do the best we can? uh because that's not what God said happened without Genesis really being true. The Adam Christ parallel fails uh in in the New Testament. It talks about the fact that Jesus was the

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new Adam. Jesus was the one who came to undo what Adam, the original Adam did.

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Christ came in a literal way to help the fail be redeemed. The great fall happened where sin came into the world and we needed Jesus to come, the new Adam, the perfect one, the holy one, the sinless one to give his life on the

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cross to pay for our sins and to raise from the dead so that we could too can have victory over death. If there was no real fall, there was no real sin in Genesis, then why do we need redemption?

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Why do we even need that? It's just relative moralism. There is no great consequence to sin. If if we don't have the original story and and earth was perfect, why why did death even enter?

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Why did we even have death? Why was there decay? Why were our years numbered? Why did this world fall into disrepair? And we continue to mess it up. Why? Because we are sinful, selfish people. I mean, I'm not trying to be

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harsh. That's just the reality of scripture. Sin came in and death followed. That's part of that story in Genesis. Without the true Genesis, there's not an original goodness that has disappeared.

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There was an original goodness to this world. God created and he said he said and it was good and when he created man he said it was very good. There was an original goodness to God's creation that in Genesis, the sin of man that came in

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as Adam and Eve sinned in the early chapters of Genesis where that great creation of Genesis 1, where that failed, where it disappeared, where it was dissolved because of what happened in the Genesis story. And so those things that I just mentioned, they they

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lead to much of the writing of the New Testament and where and Paul has things that he talks about where he's talking about um gender and marriage and things that happen in worship. He's pointing back to doctrines of original sin and

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what happened as he refers to those things. If if he's not pointing back to those things, uh if they didn't really happen, they're just his opinions. I mean, what difference does it make? But again, our theology is built on what

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happens from the very beginning and the story of Genesis, the story of creation, the story of man and the story of his fall. Jesus knew that and Jesus therefore treated scripture as binding authority. We need to hold to that as

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true so that we can understand all that is happening and all that is to come.

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Jesus would often say, "It is written. It is written Jesus would refer to what's in scripture when Jesus was tempted and he was tempted by Satan after fasting for so many days in the wilderness as he was there and Satan

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came to tempt him by turning stones into bread by by having the world worship him as t Satan was tempting those things.

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Jesus referred to the authority of scripture. It is written man shall not live by bread alone. He went back to that authority in order to refute Satan.

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Which by the way, if that's a good plan for Jesus, that's a good plan for us.

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Your word I've hid in my heart that I may not sin against you. Psalm 119:11.

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We we need to know God's word so that when temptation come, when trials come, we can go back to the things of scripture, the things of the Old Testament and the New Testament to be able to stand off against the evil one

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who seeks to devour, to destroy all those who who are here. He wants He cannot take away your salvation, but he wants to make you inept and ineffective.

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refute him with scripture because as Jesus says, "It is written." Jesus didn't debate it. He submitted to it.

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Jesus didn't look at it and forget it. He quoted it. Jesus saw the importance of the Old Testament and built on that foundation. He didn't come to do away with it, but to fulfill it, he tells us.

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So, if we weaken our view of Genesis, we weaken our view of Christ. we weaken our view of the Old Testament and just try to dismiss it as the Old Testament.

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There are things in the Old Testament that don't apply even then because the New Testament talks about how Christ came to fulfill that law and things that we we had to hold to in the Old Testament. Some of them we don't and

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some of the purification laws and some of the sacrifice laws because Jesus himself came to take care of that and to make all things clean that he's given us. Uh if we don't have a strong view of that, we also weaken our view of who

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Jesus is as the second Adam, as the one who came to give us hope and to redeem.

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If we look at Adam purely fictional, our theology becomes weak. But once authority is established, then we can we can build on that. We understand that scripture is true. So what is it it's trying to give us? What is it trying to

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share with us? We need to look next at the structure because the structure is there for a reason. How is this revelation organized? Because structure reveals theology as well as the teachings itself.

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So what is the structure of the Hebrew Bible? Let's look at that. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible contains mult multiple genres, but one covenantal storyline. The first one we talked about, the Torah or the Pentatuk, it

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gives us covenant foundation. It it it establishes the baseline for why we needed a covenant and what how God brought that covenant to being. It was God's initiation. It wasn't because of anything Adam did, but excuse me, that

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Abraham did. But God chose Abraham to have a covenant with him. And he built on that covenant uh throughout the books of the law and even on past that time has in the Old Testament books of history. Now, the books of history uh

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show us how we were doing with that covenant. Now, covenants aren't one-sided. Covenants have they're like a contract.

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God saying this is what I'm going to do and this is what you're going to do. God gets to set the terms. We're not negotiating. God says here's what I'm do going to do and as long as you do this I

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will bless you in this way. If you fail I will chastise you in this way. In order to have the blessings there needs to be the accountability of and correction. In order to have mercy there must be justice. History shows us in the

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Old Testament how Israel was doing with that, what they got right and what they got wrong. And we have to remember again when we're reading this happened over hundreds and hundreds of years.

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Sometimes I I read the Old Testament and I read about times they're faithful and then a few minutes later I'm reading about how unfaithful they were and I'm like, "What's the matter with you guys?" Well, it's it's we would have been there

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too. we would have had the same problems because there's generations that are being told in this history of the Old Testament. Uh in poetry and wisdom writings, we learn about covenant living. It teaches us the way to live,

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the way that we are to worship, the way that we are to honor, the way that we are to treat one another, treat God's world. Covenant living is the way to live out the covenant that God gave us

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in his foundation and that we've seen rise and fall through the history of Israel. And then the prophets give us covenant enforcement and future hope. So it's kind of like the uh would we would we like to have the carrot or the stick?

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Do we want the future hope, the things that we get to look forward to, the blessings if you will, that carrot that we want to grasp for, or do we want the stick or the rod of correction?

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And God keeps telling us over and over, if you don't walk in faithfulness and obedience to what I tell you, there will be the stick. There will be the enforcement. Why? Because I love you and I want what's best for you. And when you

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go in a direction of unabashed sin, you are in trouble. And so I want to bring you back into this hope. So let's look at each of these quickly. The penetuk again establishes creation, the fall, the covenant between

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God and Abraham and other covenants throughout the books of the of the penetuk. It establishes the law in which Israel is to live by and it establishes how sacrifice is to be done. God is a holy God and he wants things done right.

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He wants them done well and he wants them done pure. And there were great restrictions and guidelines even about how sacrifices were to be handled in order for them to be pleasing to God.

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The history books show us obedience and rebellion. We see that over and over again and sometimes by the same people.

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People that [snorts] were after God's own heart, people that were used by God like David, a man after God's own heart, yet he falls into sin. Uh there was Solomon who was the wisest and richest man to ever live. There are many things

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if you were to go out and study right now who's the w the the wealthiest person to ever live. They estimated what Solomon had. And even in all the wealth you hear about today, Solomon was the richest person that ever lived. Yet

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again, he failed to follow God's teachings and God's ways. Uh he married way too many women, had way too many concubines, brought in all the trouble that came with that with their gods, and he fell as well. We see obedience and

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rebellion. Obedience and rebellion. God continuing to redeem Israel and help Israel to move forward. Poetry wrestles with suffering and with worship. There are psalms, for example, of great anguish where David just pours out his heart before God. He cries out to God

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for deliverance. He cries out to God for help against his enemies. But there's also times that talk about great longing and beautiful worship. As the deer pants for the water, so my heart longs after you, oh God, just crying out to God. The

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Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. The beauty of these psalms and songs are unparalleled because they come from the very heart of God and are spoken through those that he blessed with the revelation.

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The prophets again call for repentance and proclamation hope. And God even warns them, you're going to do this.

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you're going to fall and you're going to fall away and then you're going to come back and you're going to fall away and you're going to come back and uh and so the prophets call us to repentance and

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give us a hope that if we do uh our God is faithful. He is loving. He wants to redeem us. He's promised he's not ever going to snuff out that thread uh of the covenant. uh it may get small at times

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which it we'll see that it does in some times in the Old Testament but he continues to redeem and build. He continues to lead on through the nation of Israel. So there's different genres, there's different authors, but there's one divine author. It comes

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from God himself. Structure alone does not save, but the structure uses the story to reveal God's salvation and the hope that we have in him.

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[snorts] So, we've looked at the canon, how it came together, the different kinds of writing. Now, what are some of the main teachings? And I'm I'm going to give these to you, just give you a few uh bullet points of these, if you will. And

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then we're going to unpack some of them later today and some as we move forward.

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So, I'm going to need to go through these kind of quickly. But what are some of the core theological themes that we see in the Old Testament? First of all, christoologgical fulfillment, meaning that every part of the Old Testament

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anticipates Christ. Adam anticipates the second Adam, the Passover that we'll hear about where God spares the nation of Israel. Anticipates the lamb of God as a lamb was sacrificed for the Passover. The lamb of God, David anticipates the son of David, who is

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Jesus Christ. The new covenant anticipates the cross. The new covenant is the fulfillment, the completion of the other covenants, the the making of the new covenant in Jesus. In Genesis 3:15, for example, we see the first prophecy, if you will, the first, it's

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what's called the proto evangelism, meaning the first or beginning or penultimate evangelism. The the ultimate evangelism. It's the first time it talks about sin and Satan and Jesus. Let's read it. It says, "I will put hostility between you and the woman." It's talking

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about Satan, the serpent who tempted the woman. God is saying, "I will put hostility between you, the serpent, and the w woman, the and between your offspring, and her offspring. He will strike your head and you will strike his

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heel." Well, who's it talking about here? It's he will strike your head is Jesus will strike the serpent's head.

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God is telling him Jesus is gonna smash you. You are done but you will strike his heel which prophesies of the crucifixion of Jesus. Clear back in the third chapter of the Bible. It is already pointing to the death that Jesus

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will have because Satan will have victory for a short time. At least he thinks he does. But what he doesn't realize is he's playing perfectly into God's plan.

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And that Jesus when his the heel is struck, that means Jesus being sacrificed on the cross. That's when it's all one. That's when Satan is defeated. It is completely victorious in Jesus by his death on the cross.

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The promise of the seed begins here. The serpent will strike. The seed meaning Jesus will crush. and the cross is foreshadowed clear back in the original story in the garden of Eden. The second thing that we see of theological

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principles going through this are covenant fidelity. God is a covenant God. He is a God who is building a longstanding relationship and promise with his people. The first covenant we have is a covenant with Noah of preservation. uh after the flood and the

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earth is destroyed, God puts the rainbow in the sky as a symbol that he will never destroy the earth like this again.

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He's covenanting that you will persevere with Abraham. There's a Abrahamic promise which we'll hear about which is talking about Abram will be Abraham will be made a great nation and that he will have more children than you can count

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and that from his seed uh there will be the great one to come that many nations every nation will be blessed and that's again a prophecy about Jesus because out of Abraham through the lineage down through the generations comes Jesus and the whole

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world is blessed through him. Moses has the covenant of the law. We get the ten commandments. Uh we see that and and in those that covenant of the law um it's covenant about the way we are to live. That God is a jealous shot god and

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we're we're not to have any other gods before him. But I'm getting ahead. Then there's David. David has a covenant with God where God says, "Your kingdom will know no end because your seed is going to rule forever." David's seed, David's

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generations after him is Jesus. Again, a covenant uh that will be carried on for all time. And then Jeremiah, there's a new covenant. And Jeremiah, the prophecy with Jeremiah, uh it points to how God's law is written on our hearts. With

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Moses, it was written on stone, but he's saying, "You have this new covenant, and this new covenant is going to be built on what I'm placing on your very hearts." Over and over, we see covenants, but we also see that Israel

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re breaks these covenants again and again, but God never does. Israel fails, but God never does. Covenant is the backbone of redemptive history and God continues to be faithful even when we fail, even when we fall.

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The other theme that we see is is the fall and total depravity. We've talked about it before. We're going to talk about it again before this session is over. Um but in Genesis 3 1-7, let's just read this together. Now the serpent

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was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden?" See, God said you can eat from

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any tree here, but don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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And that's what Satan's talking about. He's saying, "Did he really say you can't eat from any tree?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden, but about the fruit of the tree in the

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middle of the garden, God said, you must not eat it or touch it, or you will die." No, you will certainly not die, the serpent said to the woman. In fact, God knows that when you eat it, your

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eyes will be open, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. The woman saw that the treat was tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom.

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So, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband Adam, who was with her, and he ate it.

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Then the eyes of both of them were open, and they knew they were naked. So they s sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

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The serpent challenged God's word by sewing seeds of doubt, by distorting truth. Oh, you're not going to die.

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Well, he was right that they weren't going to die immediately, but because of their sin, they did have death come into the world. He distorted it. They were going to die. And he was just so encouraging them to be disobedient

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to go against what said God said. Did God really say? He was kind of casting some doubt there. If you ever some hear somebody read scripture and they go, did God really say this? It's probably a good time to run. They're employing what

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Satan's doing here and trying to cast some doubt on God's own words. So as he did that, uh, Adam voluntarily rebelled. Eve did too. But we see we're known as Adam being responsible and sin coming into the world. That Adam sinned and through that

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act, humanity fell into a state wholly opposed to God. This is total depravity. Not that we are as evil as possible, but that every part of our being is affected by sin. When we are born, we are born

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into a world of sin. Sin impacts us from the very beginning. Sin is going to be in our nature. If any of us says we don't sin, we lie and the truth isn't in us. We're told in the New Testament, sin

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is a part of our very nature. We are not morally neutral. We are not like, well, you know, I I'm I'm not really going after I'm okay. We are sinful. There is no neutrality in this. you you're either

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holy and pure or you're sinful. Because sin of the world, the only one who is holy and pure is Jesus Christ himself who walked on the earth. We are spiritually dead apart from grace because of sin being in us and in our

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lives. Romans 8 says, "The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it is unable to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. God is perfect

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and holy and without sin and we are so far from him. We cannot please him. We we cannot by our own merit be in his presence because God cannot stand sin.

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God is holy and perfect and can't have and does not want sin in his presence.

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We can't please him apart from grace. That brings us to our next theology throughout this. Grace is through faith.

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Salvation has always been by grace through faith. This isn't something that just came into the being in the New Testament when Jesus came. It's always been by grace. It's always been by God's favor that we don't deserve. And it

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happens through faith. Even in Genesis 15 talking about Abraham long before Jesus walked on the face of the earth.

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Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. What is this saying? Abraham had faith. Abraham had faith and God credited to him as righteousness. So Abraham believed but God was the one who provided the grace

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and credited to him. Abraham was not justified by law. The law had not even been given yet. He didn't have the law of Moses to go by. Moses came after him.

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He was justified by faith. Again, this didn't start with the New Testament. It's an Old Testament theology.

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The fifth thing that we see is the moral law. When we arrive at Mount Si in week three, this is when we're going to when the nation of Israel is going to Mount Si after they've left Egypt, God gives

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them the Ten Commandments, which reveal God's moral character. God didn't just come up with this stuff. This character of God had always been present. Even before the creation of earth, God was a holy and just God. Ceremonial and civil

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laws were written, but they were ultimately fulfilled in Christ. They were made whole in Christ. A lot of things that we saw in the Old Testament were protection for the sake of Israel to keep them away from sin because they

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didn't have the ability to avoid it. But the law was also given that helped them realize they can't fully fulfill this on their own. That's why they and we need a Messiah. The moral law remains binding because it reflects God's unchanging

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holiness and it helps us to see how we need help to be in the presence of a perfect and holy God.

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Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 both give us these commandments uh these laws that help us understand God's holiness.

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Exodus 20:es 1 through3 then God spoke all these words. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the place of slavery. Do not have other gods besides me. Other translations say before me. What it's

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saying is don't have any other gods even in my presence. He's not saying don't make them over me. He's saying don't even have them because I am a holy God.

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I am the one who provided for you. Our theology is not only taught in the laws, but it is rooted in the narrative. And we're going to get into that narrative now. We're going to go we're going to

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see some things we already did because it's going to come up in order. We're going to start going through the Old Testament at this point. Our narrative begins in Genesis 1.

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The part of scripture we're looking at today is Genesis 1, chapters 1-1. And I'm going to start with the first five verses of the Bible. It says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless

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and empty. Darkness covered the surface of the watery depths and the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. God saw the light was good and God separated the

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light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night. There was an evening and there was a morning. One day before creation happened, before sin, before Israel, before the covenant, there was and therefore there still is

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God. God has always been there. God has always been. He was not created. He's not as some religions believe that he was one of many gods and some other god created him. He was and the god of all

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time in the beginning and the person of the father, the son and the holy spirit.

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The gospel of John begins by building on Genesis 1 stating that Jesus was God and was there in the beginning as well. And John in chapters 1 verse one through three in the beginning was the word. Now when you hear that word word in this

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passage, word means Jesus. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him Jesus. And apart from him not one thing was created

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that has been created. God has always been there. Jesus has always been there. The Holy Spirit has always been there.

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The father, son, and holy spirit. God is omnipresent and he's beyond time. God has always existed.

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Creation therefore establishes who has authority, ownership, and accountability. God is the sovereign creator and it all belongs to him.

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Without this creation, there is no moral law, there's no sin, then there's no redemption. If this were not true, we're just kind of floating around a bunch of happy accidents that have no meaning or purpose. But God created us to be in

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relationship with him. And our sin broke that relationship, causing us to need redemption. We need these things. And that happens because of the love of God.

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The image of God we see in Genesis 1:26-28 talking about man. We were created in the image of God. That's what makes us unique from all of creation. Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will

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rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, and the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth." So God created man in his own image. He created him in the image of God. He created them male and female.

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God blessed them and God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on earth." Humanity, you and I, bear God's image.

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This image gives us a dignity and a worth that is sacred and beyond the rest of creation. It also gives us an accountability. It gives us a responsibility.

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We are imagebearers of God and we should act like it. Now some of you may think this concept originated with Uncle Ben from Spider-Man. With great power comes great responsibility. But the reality is that comes from God placing a special

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place for us. We were in a special relationship beyond and above the rest of creation.

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So what happened? the fall. And we talked about this some, so I'm not going to go back and read that whole passage again. But we already read Genesis 3 1-7. And again, that pattern is clear.

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The one we talked about doubt, distortion, and disobedience that came from the serpent who was trying to guide Eve and Adam away from the will of God.

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Adam's rebellion, Adam as the original man, his rebellion introduces physical death into God's creation. It it it brings in spiritual death, which spiritual death, it's hell is a real place and a horrible place, but the real death of spiritual death is being

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separated from God. And our sin has caused that. And so without the redemption, uh it's a horrible place to be. It made a relational alienation from God. It's separated from us that only the act of Jesus and his gift on the

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cross can restore that. So it made a cosmic corruption. It split everything. It's the the turning point in all of human history. And it happened right at the beginning where we were separated from God until Jesus came and gave us

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hope. Genesis 3 is the proto evangelium, the original gospel, which tells us about Jesus. And again, we're going to look at that one more time because it's so important. So the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,

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you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. And the part we heard before, I will put hostility between you

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and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He, meaning Jesus, will strike your head and you will strike his heel. So just as that separation was the greatest moment in history to that point where we were separated from

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God because sin came into the world, at the same time before they even left the garden, God gave them hope. God gave them the first example of the gospel.

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The judgment and promise in the same breath. You're going to be banished forever, but there's still hope. You are separated from me, but there's still hope. hope appears before exile from Edom, Eden, is even complete.

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Well, you would think that would be enough, but again, generations go on and sin continues. Sin continues to happen.

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Uh, as a matter of fact, it talks about in scripture that man was so evil, he would do any kind of sin he could think of. He would be as bad as he possibly could. And finally, God had had enough.

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And that brings us to Genesis 6. And in Genesis 6:es 6-8 says, 'The Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth. And he was deeply grieved. Then the Lord said, "I will wipe mankind who I'm who I created off the face of the

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earth together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky, for I regret that I made them." But in verse eight, it says, "Noah, however, found favor with the Lord." Thank God for Noah there. Noah was the one that kept the remnant that

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kept our hopes alive. Judgment falls on the wicked wicked and on wickedness, but grace preserves a remnant. We see this over and over throughout redemptive history. Judgment falls on the wicked and on the wickedness, but grace keeps a

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remnant alive. God warned Noah for decades in advance that he was going to destroy the earth by flood. And he told him to build an ark. An ark being a massive boat.

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Building the ark likely took Noah decades. Building it by hand. No power tools like we have today. But building this massive boat that was going to save mankind and save God's creation. It was 450t long. we believe 75 ft wide and 45

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ft high. This was a cruise ship before there were cruise ships, but it was no luxury cruise ship. It was made for animals and made for Noah's family. So, what happened was God told him, "Take seven pairs of clean animals." Why clean

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animals? Animals, ones that you can eat and sacrifice, and two of unclean animals. Like, make sure we get a pair of every kind so that all the animals can be saved. 7 days before the rain started, Noah, his family, and the

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animals all went into the ark, and God himself closed the door of the ark. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. It flooded the earth, and waters prevailed on the earth for 150 days, wiping out everything that was not inside that ark.

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And then a year, over a year later, the land finally had receded enough. the the water had receded enough and the land was dry enough that they could leave the ark. The ark became a picture of God's salvation, the remnant. God said m many

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much of the world, most of the world is set for destruction, but there is hope.

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And then after the flood, God placed the rainbow in the sky as a reminder of his promise that he was never going to destroy the earth by flood again. There was judgment, there was grace, but then there was a covenant. There was

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judgment, grace, and a covenant. We see that again and again. Another judgment came later on in Genesis when we get to chapter 11. Man had become so powerful and prideful and arrogant and foolish that they built a tower to the sky. They

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were like, "We we can build this great monument." It's like they were trying to reach the heavens themselves and God said, "Look, if they can do this kind of thing when they can all talk to each other, that's it. I'm scattering them."

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And he scattered them and confused their languages to where there were so many languages that uh they couldn't do anything like this again. That scattering led again to another covenant. That brings us to Genesis 12 and another great moment in the history

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of Israel and the history of the world. Chapter 12 is when Abram, who later becomes Abraham, comes into the picture.

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So what are some final things we need to get from this? Creation establishes sovereignty. You create it, it's yours.

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God created, it's his. He is in charge. The fall establishes total depravity. Because of the fall, meaning sin entering the world, this world is not what it should be. But the promise establishes hope. God's covenant and promise with us gives us hope and lets

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us know that in the end, he wins. And if we're his children, we win with him. The flood demonstrates that justice still comes even on God's creation. justice still can happen in your life and my life, but it also demonstrates that

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there's grace in God. And then Babel demonstrates the danger of pride when we try to go against God's ways and that he will ultimately win because again, God is sovereign.

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These are the things that we covered in the first 11 chapters and we've got a long way to go. So, for next week, we're going to move from universal history, kind of the whole world thing into covenant history when we go from Adam to

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now moving into Abraham. From humanity in general terms to God's covenant people in his specific assignment and place for them in his heart. So, before we get to next week, you got some reading to do in Genesis. read chapters

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12- 22, 26, 28, and 50 of Genesis. It helps you understand the story. Uh, if you really want to do well, just read the whole thing. You can do it. It's not too much.

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Read from Genesis 12 all the way to the end of the book of Genesis. When you're doing this, look for language that talks about God's covenant with his people.

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Look for statements of faith. Look for promises that come. Look for things that point to the seed, meaning those that will come in future generations that ultimately points to Jesus. And look for statements about how all the nations of

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the earth will be blessed because of God's covenant with Israel. Thanks for this week. See you next time.

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[music]

Topics:Old TestamentLiving Water UniversityGary YerbyBible studycreationcanoninspiration of scriptureHebrew BibleJesus Christcovenant

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