The final section of Genesis reveals us to the awesome providence of God at work in Joseph’s life. This is a window into the doctrine of providence that has and continues to hold true and cascade over all things for all time. As the bigger story of Genesis shows, divine providence ultimately culminates in Christ. For this reason even as Jacob expresses his longing for the salvation of the Lord at the end of the days, he unwittingly calls out for the name of Jesus (49:18).

God keeps HIs word. God who made a covenant with Abraham kept it over many generations. He is faithful. He also abounds with grace in that He chooses whom He will give this covenant blessing by His grace, not to be earned or merited by any human effort but purely based on His grace. These are the two attributes of God that are highlighted in this section of Genesis.

The central human figure of Genesis 12-23 is Abraham, but this is no mere biography of Abraham. It is a story of faith and sin on his part and the story of the astonishing promise of the LORD to bless all the families of the earth through him, even through the one seed which God will produce from him, the Lord Jesus Christ. The promise of the worldwide blessing in Abram is more specified to be the promise in his seed. All of God’s promises to him ultimately culminates in that final seed of Abraham. The seed of the woman is the seed of Abraham and it is in Him that the blessing of God comes upon all of God’s people from all the nations.

In Genesis 4-11, Moses intertwines two themes of corruption and hope to show us that the sin of Adam perpetuates through the generations after him, without exception, and that the hope of the fulfillment of the promised seed continued throughout those generations. These chapters cover 20 generations of human corruption and hope amid all of human depravity in the seed of the woman. We today face a great deal of corruption also, both without and within, and our response is much like that of those who held fast to the promise of the LORD, we fix our eyes on the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ and earnestly hope in Him.

The goodness of God is evident in creation as it was originally made. Both in the product/generations of each day of creation week as well as in the paradise of the Garden of Eden, God showered upon man His blessed goodness. The human heart pines for restoration to such a paradise as this. God knows our longing and this nostalgia for good is the beginning of the story of the world seen from His eyes. How paradise was lost and how it is to be regained is what we will see in Gen. 3 next week.

The goodness of God is evident in creation as it was originally made. Both in the product/generations of each day of creation week as well as in the paradise of the Garden of Eden, God showered upon man His blessed goodness. The human heart pines for restoration to such a paradise as this. God knows our longing and this nostalgia for good is the beginning of the story of the world seen from His eyes. How paradise was lost and how it is to be regained is what we will see in Gen. 3 next week.

This study introduces the book of Genesis in terms of its placement in the Pentateuch, its human author and immediate historical context, and its divine author (the Holy Spirit). We also give consideration to how Scripture should be interpreted, the topic of hermeneutics, its necessity and its proper method. The three principles of hermeneutics covered are: the centrality of Christ (sound interpretation must be christocentric), exegesis (it must be exegetical), and the analogy of Scripture and faith (it must be analogous).