The two Creation texts in Genesis 1 and 2 contain lessons about God and humanity. As we study this week, we will understand better the profound meaning of the seventh-day Sabbath. We will ponder God’s act of creating humans in His image, and out of the dust too. We will be intrigued by the purpose of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and by its connection with the tree of life.
The most important lesson of the biblical stories of the beginnings is a lesson on grace. Our existence is purely an act of grace. God created the heavens and the earth while humans were not yet present. Just as our creation was, our redemption is, too, a gift from God. And how profound it is that both concepts, Creation and Redemption, exist in the seventh-day Sabbath commandment.
Thought question: Why would the quality of our faith be affected if we believed that these stories of the beginnings were legends, “myths” essentially designed to instruct us in spiritual lessons but without historical reality?