The Generations of Genesis

Genesis consists of 12 documents each describing consecutive generations in the beginning of the world.

Each document is divided by the phrase “these are the generations of…” Use a concordance and create your own outline.

We have studied 11 of the 12 in our verse by verse study. The last is the longest and so we will take a break before finishing it.

Consistent throughout the book is God’s pattern for working out his purpose through the generations of the fathers.

The pattern is that God gives and man fails. When man fails, God intervenes to fulfil his promise through a new generation.

Adam sinned, but soon after Adam died Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

At the end of his life Noah failed, and yet before he dies God raises up one man, Abraham and gives him a promise.

Abraham would grow old and die, but not before God caused his wife to bear a son in her old age who would be the child of promise.

God blessed Isaac, and by his death in old age, God had already passed the torch to his son Jacob.

Jacob had many flaws, but to him God gave more than to his fathers in fulfillment of the promise.

As Jacob is about to die, his son, Joseph, is used in the salvation of Israel.

This pattern continues throughout Israel’s history until there comes a Son of Man that does not fail because he is also the Son of God.

By the end of Genesis, God’s purpose for the earth is well under way, and we learn that man’s failure does not prevent God’s purpose from being done from generation to generation.

For His glory,

Justin Curtis Johnson