Historic Context of the Verse:
One of the easiest ways to misinterpret a verse or passage is to ignore the Biblical history behind the verse. In other words the “Who, To Whom, What, When, Where, and Why” of a verse or passage. Moses (who) wrote the Pentateuch (what), the first five books of the Bible in which Genesis 1:1 is the first verse of, for the people of Israel (to whom) after God, through Moses, lead them out of Egypt but before Moses’ death around 1450-1410 B.C (when). At this time, the Israelites were wandering the desert somewhere between Egypt and the Jordan River (where).http://www.christianforums.com/#_edn1 God inspired Moses to keep a written record of His Divine Instruction which consisted of (1) the Law, (2) the covenants between God and His people, (3) and finally the argument of how FAITH, NOT LAW was the key to an everlasting relationship with Him (why). [ii]
Focusing back on Genesis 1:1 while still keeping the Biblical History in context, we can see that the main goal of God was not to begin a step-by-step manual of how He created the heaven and earth, but simply state the fact that HE CREATED IT. God intentionally leaves out the “how” in verse 1. Beginning with verse 2 through Genesis 2:3, God does go into some detail on how he fills the heaven and earth, but He never goes back and explains how He created the world (heaven and earth) to begin with. To me, this indicates that the “how”, here, is unimportant because as John Nelson Darby states:
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[FONT="][ii][/FONT] © Copyright 2000-2011 BasicTheology.com. All rights reserved.
[FONT="][iii][/FONT] Synopsis of the Old and New Testaments by John Nelson Darby (1800 - 1882)
One of the easiest ways to misinterpret a verse or passage is to ignore the Biblical history behind the verse. In other words the “Who, To Whom, What, When, Where, and Why” of a verse or passage. Moses (who) wrote the Pentateuch (what), the first five books of the Bible in which Genesis 1:1 is the first verse of, for the people of Israel (to whom) after God, through Moses, lead them out of Egypt but before Moses’ death around 1450-1410 B.C (when). At this time, the Israelites were wandering the desert somewhere between Egypt and the Jordan River (where).http://www.christianforums.com/#_edn1 God inspired Moses to keep a written record of His Divine Instruction which consisted of (1) the Law, (2) the covenants between God and His people, (3) and finally the argument of how FAITH, NOT LAW was the key to an everlasting relationship with Him (why). [ii]
Focusing back on Genesis 1:1 while still keeping the Biblical History in context, we can see that the main goal of God was not to begin a step-by-step manual of how He created the heaven and earth, but simply state the fact that HE CREATED IT. God intentionally leaves out the “how” in verse 1. Beginning with verse 2 through Genesis 2:3, God does go into some detail on how he fills the heaven and earth, but He never goes back and explains how He created the world (heaven and earth) to begin with. To me, this indicates that the “how”, here, is unimportant because as John Nelson Darby states:
“This revelation from God (the Bible as a whole, and Genesis in particular) is not a history by Him of all that He has done, but what has been given to man for his profit, the truth as to what he has to say to us. Its object is to communicate to man all that regards his own relationship with God.”[iii]
Our relationship with God is all that matters and the Bible gives us all the information we need in order to have that correct, everlasting relationship with God. Questions such as “What was God doing before Creation?” and “When did Satan fall in relation to Creation?” should be irrelevant to us because they are irrelevant to our relationship with God.
[FONT="][/FONT]
[FONT="][ii][/FONT] © Copyright 2000-2011 BasicTheology.com. All rights reserved.
[FONT="][iii][/FONT] Synopsis of the Old and New Testaments by John Nelson Darby (1800 - 1882)
