GENERATIONS IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS (1)
GENERATIONS IN THE BOOK OF GENESIS (1)
JT [p. 372] The generations spoken of in the book of Genesis have been in mind. The word is rendered “histories”, of things or persons in some cases, and it was thought that a consideration of them would be helpful as to current conditions publicly and in the assembly. The first is in chapter 2 — the histories of the heavens and the earth. The second is in chapter 5 — the book of Adam’s generations. The third is in chapter 6 — the history of Noah. The fourth is in chapter 10 — the generations of Noah’s sons. The fifth and sixth are in chapter 11 — the generations of Shem and the generations of Terah. The seventh and eighth are in chapter 25 — the generations of Ishmael and the generations of Isaac. The ninth is in chapter 36 — the generations of Esau, and the tenth in chapter 37 — the generations of Jacob. The thought in the word is not, as we say, so many generations, but rather of origin or birth, corresponding with the gospel of Matthew, where we have the “Book of the generation of Jesus Christ”.
It may be helpful to direct the minds of the brethren to Genesis 2 as the counterpart of chapter 1. It bears the character of fulness; God proceeding immediately to show the working out of what is touched on basically in chapter 1. The events recorded are largely already mentioned in chapter 1, but they are presented in chapter 2 as fulness, which is a thought that runs through Scripture. God works basically, whether in the physical creation or in men, and then there is development which may be termed fulness; the assembly coming in typically at the end of our chapter points to the great thought of the fulness of Christ. It is the [p. 373] idea of the development of what is already there basically. The creation of Eve is alluded to in chapter 1, but is seen in chapter 2 in the sense of fulness — taken out of Man.
HH Would you say a little more as to the thought of fulness?
JT We have in the passages alluded to a word that denotes birth or origin. The word “generation” is much more frequently used as denoting a generation in the sense of a circle, or a certain number or series of descendants, but what is stressed in the word we have under consideration is origin, so that we get the root of things. It is translated “history” in the New Translation in this chapter, in the sense of getting an account of the matter, an account of the heavens and the earth as created. It says, “in the day that Jehovah Elohim made earth and heavens”. It is not a scientific matter we are dealing with, but simply the divine thought, for God would have His people to understand the environment in which we are, from the outset of it till now, and how as before our eyes there is development. Though development may go on, the basic thought remains. The idea of fulness is seen as God continues to operate by the Spirit, or whatever agencies He may use, but it is all to bring out the fulness of what is there in principle.
HFN Is that why the thought of fulness comes in so prominently in Ephesians?
JT That is right. Ephesians contains the idea of fulness more than any other scripture. It is the full result of the work of God that is in mind. You notice here it says, “every shrub of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for Jehovah Elohim had not caused it to rain on the earth”. We begin here at the very root of things; we begin abstractly.
EuR How would you illustrate the basic thought from the New Testament?
[p. 374] JT Particularly in new birth. The thought is presented to us in what things are; what the flesh is, and what the work of the Spirit is, and what is born of the Spirit. It is really a question of the origin of the thing, not the fulness of it.
JRS Does the result of God’s acting in this way spring from what He is in Himself?
JT It must be so; all emanates from God. In chapter 1 we see that God created man, but in chapter 2 He breathes into him in view of fulness.
Ques How does the thought of image and likeness fit into this? Does that come in first, before you get fulness?
JT It fits in instructively. Image is God’s representation here, the complete representation of God, and that based on man being like Him, taking on His character. It is a part of the fulness. It is due to God that He should be represented in His creation, not only in an official way, but in actual likeness; Adam taking on, in so far as he could, what God is. The appellation “God” in this early part of the Scriptures is the nearest you get to expressed absoluteness. The title is relative, but less relative than any other title of God we have, because the idea is that God is doing something for Himself, and He is to be represented in what He is doing. The word is plural, denoting fulness of the thought of God.
FGW “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1: 23). Would that suggest the germ of a new moral being, the development of which we have in Colossians and Ephesians, where we are told to put off the old and put on the new?
JT Yes. Peter goes further than John 3, to which we have already alluded as the basic thought. When you have the “word of God” as in Peter, you get His mind, but John 3: 6, “that which is born of the Spirit”, does not involve the mind of God. It is the bare thought of what the effect is; it is “spirit”. You can [p. 375] tell what it is by that condition, but we can understand it by the development of what “spirit” is and what spirituality is. Peter goes further and speaks of the “word of God;” conveying what God is.
WSS Would Colossians 1 help us? The heavens and the earth are referred to, and then the “fulness of the Godhead” as pleased to dwell in Christ.
JT Quite so; it is just the “fulness”. The fulness was there, but in Colossians 2:9 it is brought within our range. It is said that “in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”, so that it becomes intelligible to us. Chapter 1 of Genesis is generally the root thought, and without chapter 2 you could hardly be intelligent as to the working out of what is there, but the Spirit of God takes up this history, or generation, and works it out, so that we understand what is before our eyes today. Chapter 1 is God presented very nearly in absoluteness, but not fully so, for He is in relation to His creation. It is God and we are impressed with that. God would impress us with how He began as of Himself, and what He perfected Himself, He brings others into. He began the history by alluding to things abstractly, that is before they existed, as it says, “in the day that Jehovah Elohim made earth and heavens, and every shrub of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew”. Thus He is pleased to give us His mind, and then how the thing is worked out; and the first thing He would occupy us with is man, not simply as created, but formed.
AMH Do you mean that those things were made before they grew?
JT It is the way God can speak of things: “the God ... who ... calls the things which be not as being” (Romans 4: 17). He would teach us to begin with what He had in mind. The fact that it is a history or a generation, in the sense of what is seen from the origin, should instruct us as to how God is drawing us [p. 376] to His own side of things in the beginning, so that we might travel along with Him and see what He does. Afterwards it is a question of things opening up and what pleasure He has in them.
AMH So that there is a full thought in His mind, and He is working out the detail.
JT That is the idea, and you are working along with God thus.
EuR What are we to learn from the fact that in chapter 1 man is created, but in chapter 2 he is referred to as formed?
JT There is more interest on the part of God in the formation; He is in it more personally as it were. Immediately you come to this section in chapter 2, you have a personal thought, not simply God, that is Elohim, but Jehovah Elohim. It is very touching and ought to affect us. We have the appellation “Jehovah Elohim” perhaps more in Genesis 2 and 3 than elsewhere throughout the Scriptures. It is a personal thought. If God takes us into what is in His mind, He does so in a personal way. He enters into compact with us, for Jehovah is a covenant name, but it is more personal here, and what can be more touching than that He takes us into His thoughts in this personal way? Eve was the first person to use the title Jehovah (Genesis 4: 1). Elohim is the great general thought of God, the Creator, of whom, and through whom, and for whom are all things, but then there is the personal thought, and that finds its full amplification or fulness in Jesus.
HMS Is what you have spoken of regarding the basic work of God connected with the Lord’s word about the corn of wheat falling into the ground and dying?
JT I think that helps. John gives us these great thoughts. We have in chapter 3 the new birth which in its very name — born anew or born throughout — means God is beginning over again. Then in chapter 12, which you cite, it is the work of Christ, but it is [p. 377] basic in that the corn of wheat dies. The allusion is to what happens in the earth, and as the apostle says, “God gives to it a body as he has pleased” (1 Corinthians 15: 38). Of course, in John it is the Lord Jesus falling into the ground and dying.
ROS In the beginning of verse 4 it says, “These are the histories of the heavens and the earth”, but in the end of the verse it says, “in the day that Jehovah Elohim made earth and heavens”. Where God as the spring of all is in view the heavens would be mentioned first, but thinking of the Lord Jesus coming to fulfil His mind and purpose, the earth has the first place, in view of the revelation of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
JT In the mind of God heaven has the first place, but earth has the first place actually, so much so, that here the actual moisture is in the earth itself. It says, “Jehovah Elohim had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground”. The earth is seen to be self-contained at the outset, and it is a question of the opening up of what is there, and we know that the Lord Jesus, although in Matthew He made much of the heavens, yet had the earth immediately in mind. God begins there, so that the beginning of the opening up of His thought of fulness is seen in the ground being made suitable by moisture. He formed Adam, beginning with what was in the earth. It did not receive sustenance from heaven, and what is presented is rather what the earth is, and what it is capable of, how it furnishes the means with which God makes man.
HH God uses material at hand, forming things out of what was in the earth.
JT He is operating now in the sense of fulness in an ordered state of things, and we see how the earth has the elements in itself that qualify it so to be used. So the initial work of God in us by the Spirit corresponds.
HH [p. 378] Adam is formed out of the dust in this chapter; it is not something made out of nothing as at the outset.
JT God is dealing in this history with an ordered state of things, and we see how everything develops out of it.
Ques Would the heavens and the earth be suggestive of the lines of ministry respectively of Paul and John?
JT Yes, I would go with that. John operates in relation to what is here and brings God in here; he has heaven in mind, but it is what is here. Paul deals with the heavenly side. We do not get exactly the expression, the fulness of the heavens, but we do get the fulness of the earth (Psalm 24: 1). We also get the fulness of God, and Christ, and Israel, and the nations, but it is the earth that is in mind here, and what God is working in this sphere.
MWB What is the idea in God giving us these generations? Is it that we might get a more intimate idea of Him and, in that way, a greater sense of fulness?
JT The narrative beginning with Genesis 1 includes verses 1 to 3 of chapter 2. Then we have the history formally, a history or generation; the word denoting the origin of the thing, what things are from the origin. Genesis 1 speaks of the Creator coming in and acting Himself without us, and for Himself, but now He would enlist our sympathy that we might go along with Him. So we have immediately in Genesis 2: 4 this personal thought introduced by the addition of the name Jehovah. Of course, Jehovah is a name in itself, but here it is placed before Elohim, as if God would touch us personally. We have to understand this title in all this section from the standpoint of Moses. It is he that gives us the meaning of Jehovah, but what he gives does not imply it was not there before. It was there before, and how important it is to have this history and to find Jehovah Elohim brought into it, so [p. 379] that we travel along with Him. What can be greater than to have part in what God is doing? It is said that Enoch walked with God.
PL Would 1 Chronicles particularly illustrate this? Would that link on with the introduction of the main point of going along with God? It is seen in the haste with which the Spirit of God moves to reach David in the second chapter?
JT That is good. 1 Chronicles is a continuation of the history; in fact, it is generally the whole history as we are speaking of it. The word “generation” to which we are referring occurs several times in it. It begins the history over again in relation to Israel, and therefore we get David very quickly, because he is the man God has taken up to do things.
PL It says early in that book, in connection with planting, “there they dwelt with the king for his work” (1 Chronicles 4: 23). Would that link with what we have here?
JT Yes. We want to travel along with God and see how He waits over everything and delights in the working out of things. We come on here to the great thought of Adam, and it says, “Jehovah Elohim formed Man” — that is, that order of being, “dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”. Well, what can be more personal than that? How touching it is, the personal thought at once! “He spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast” (Psalm 33: 9). That refers to creation, but here it is the personal touch.
MWB Then, noting the development, is there education for us to move sympathetically and intelligently with God?
JT That is the idea, so that the next thing is, “Jehovah Elohim planted a garden in Eden eastward, and there put Man whom he had formed”. Then it says, “And out of the ground Jehovah Elohim made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight”. He is [p. 380] thinking of man; thinking of the opening up and the fulness of things; a scene of blessedness and pleasure. Then follows, “and good for food; and the tree of life, in the midst of the garden”. We can see that God is acting in a personal way; it is not the general thought of creation, but planting in relation to Adam. He has Adam with Him, and He sets him over the creation, as it says, “Jehovah Elohim took Man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to till it and to guard it”, and so forth. You can see the link established by God in a personal way with Adam.
Ques Is that link seen in the beginning of John’s gospel? The basic thought connected with John the baptist’s ministry, then the two disciples hearing Jesus speaking and following Him, the personal touch?
JT That is beautiful. We can see how this opens up when we come to the New Testament, for in truth Jesus is Jehovah.
FCH This thought of Jehovah Elohim is left out when the serpent speaks to the woman.
JT You can understand that. When any departure from the truth happens amongst us the personal thought is left out; we lose sight of God in Christ and think of ourselves, but the personal link is essential to christianity.
EuR Would this thought of planting link on with Matthew 15: 13? “Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up”.
JT Just so, and how personally it is seen in Jesus, growing up as a root out of the dry ground!
AMP The psalmist says, “I will praise thee, for I am fearfully, wonderfully made. Marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well” (Psalm 139: 14). Would that show the creature coming into the thoughts of God as Creator?
JT You ought to quote a little more. The psalmist takes account of himself as “curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth”, showing that he understood [p. 381] how God operated abstractly, so to speak, and what He had in mind before it came into view.
AMP “My bones were not hidden from thee when I was made in secret, curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my unformed substance, and in thy book all my members were written; during many days were they fashioned, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139: 15, 16).
JT That is very instructive as regards each of us, and as regards the assembly; how God would have us travel along with Him from the outset, even in an abstract sense. It corresponds with what we have here; before the shrubs had any concrete existence, they had an abstract existence.
ETS Might we have the next verse of the psalm?
JT “But how precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God!” How very beautiful the personal touch is there! I suppose the book of Psalms may be taken as the counterpart of the Pentateuch. It is a question of God and response to Him as known personally.
PL So that in Revelation 4: 11, “Thou art worthy, O our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honour and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy will they were, and they have been created”. Is that the personal thought — “our God”?
JT Quite so. Then, so as to show how God is entering into the scene He has created, having man as a companion, you get the river, and the wealth connected with it. You get nothing of this in Genesis 1. We see the wealth of the scene, and the fructifying power of the river; the river of God, parting from this scene of blessedness into four heads. We have nothing of gold, or bdellium, or onyx stones in chapter 1. But in the personal relations of God with His creatures we have wealth, and all brought to light, not in the general creatorial thought, but in relation to a river, which suggests a powerful and extended influence for good; and then the man set in the garden. God,
[p. 382] as it were, would say, I love to see the working out of My supreme handiwork, and so He brought the other creatures, the field animals, etc., to him, “to see what he would call them”. That is, God is to have pleasure, and He would bring us into it. “And out of the ground Jehovah Elohim had formed every animal of the field and all fowl of the heavens, and brought them to Man, to see what he would call them”. How much enters into that!
Rem The psalm referred to is very interesting. Have not the translators of the Authorised Version rather coined a word, “yet being unperfect” (verse 16)? The word would normally be ‘imperfect’, but the whole thing is perfect in the eye of God, but really “unformed”, as J.N.D. translates it.
JT It is a great thing that has not yet fully taken place. The great thought is the fulness, but here we see what pleasure God had in seeing His creature intelligently with Him. He had a personal link with Adam, who is set in a scene of blessedness — “to see what he would call them”. That is to say, it is the opening up of what was in Adam. How will he name what is presented to him objectively? It is a very important matter how we name things.
Rem The Lord named things in John’s gospel particularly. He named Judas, and speaks of him as the son of perdition.
JT “Cephas” is an example of this. As applied to Simon it was as yet potential, and in time was characteristic of him; also in John you get the word “devil” applied to Judas. John would deal with things in their root character, so it is important to name things as they are presented to us.
PL We are to try the spirits, and we name them.
JT As soon as you name a thing that is presented, others get help by it.
CCE Would Adam see some evidence of the Creator in the animals as he named [p. 383] them?
JT I suppose every one would represent some divine trait, and so we have the idea of the living creatures as representing the attributes of God. How important it is to be able to name what emanates from God, and over against that, to name what emanates from the devil. You do not get him until the next chapter, where he is called the serpent, and in the final analysis in Revelation the “ancient serpent” is there. So God would find peculiar pleasure in hearing Adam, and in the names he gave. If we let God into our consideration of these things we shall get a better grasp of what He has, and how He finds pleasure in the opening up of what He has created.
AMH Would the “all-various wisdom of God” have relation to naming things?
JT I think that is right. It is developed in the assembly and so the assembly is marked by that superior intelligence. The apostle calls attention to himself in Ephesians 3: 4 and says, “Ye can understand my intelligence in the mystery of the Christ”.
HMS Later on Adam is allowed the great privilege of naming his wife, calling her Woman, and then Eve.
JT Yes. It is said “he found no helpmate, his like”, and we have the account of his being put to sleep. In every instance here the personal thought is brought in.
HFN Judas is named four times in John’s gospel. He is spoken of as a devil, and named as a thief, and then as the betrayer, and finally as the son of perdition. Would these names have a bearing on the condition of things in christendom today?
JT I think so. Genesis 3 begins the history of evil, and it is important at the present time that we should be grounded in these matters, knowing good and evil. Evil does not come into Genesis 2, but it does in the next chapter, and the naming of Satan there is carried down to the last book of the Bible, where he is called the ancient serpent; that is, he is there developed in the character of serpent: “the ancient serpent, he who is called Devil and Satan” (Revelation 12: 9). So that we must name things rightly. One has noticed the three pairs of evil men in 2 Timothy — Phygellus and Hermogenes in 2 Timothy 1; Hymenaeus and Philetus in 2 Timothy 2; and Jannes and Jambres in 2 Timothy 3. The first two are just personal, they turn away from Paul; the second two are teaching the worst kind of doctrine, “saying that the resurrection has taken place already;” and the third are connected with the principle of imitation. We are not told the names of these last elsewhere in the Bible, and why should Paul have their names, unless to remind us in these last days of the importance of naming things? Not only referring to them as the magicians of Egypt, but persons who have names, and who are to be known by their names and avoided accordingly.
Ques Would the overthrow of all that evil be in naming the name of the Lord?
JT Yes. “Let every one who names the name of the Lord” — that is in keeping with what we have been saying — “withdraw from iniquity” is the corresponding responsibility.
AJB It is significant that the naming is commented on. It says, “and whatever Man called each living soul, that was its name”. The naming was acceptable and pleasurable to God.
JT They represent the positive side. When we come to chapter 3 we have evil, but here we have what is good, and of course today it would be a question of our naming what is of God, whatever feature we see; and it is salvation to know what is positively of God. It is negatively salvation too from what is not of Him. It is very important in regard of moral things; when a judgment according to God is reached as to anything, it stands as divinely supported. Normally brethren know what is right, and it is a most important thing to know what is right. If we do not know how to name things we shall have [p. 385] unnecessary trouble, but if a thing is rightly named the saints generally are greatly helped in recognising it.
Ques Does it involve spiritual discernment?
JT It does. “The spiritual discerns all things” (1 Corinthians 2: 15).
HH Distinctiveness is necessary in connection with naming things in relation to the assembly. “The priest’s lips should keep knowledge” (Malachi 2: 7); priestly discernment is necessary for that.
JT I was thinking of things standing; it is said of Samuel that “Jehovah ... let none of his words fall to the ground” (1 Samuel 3: 19). I am sure God would help us in ministry to be definite. We ought not to be dogmatic, but certainly judgment is necessary, and for brethren to name things as right that are right, and as wrong things that are wrong.
Ques Is it important for us to discern the Lord’s movements, that we discern whether He is in a matter? In the last chapter of John’s gospel, John discerning the Lord’s movements, says, “It is the Lord”, and that becomes the rallying point for those who had gone astray.
AMH In the end of Proverbs we get groups of four things mentioned, and lastly the features of the woman of worth in detail. Would that make room for the development of what is spiritual amongst the saints?
JT Quite so. As we learn how to name things we are able to name her.
Ques Would not our ability to name things depend on the measure of our personal link with God?
JT The Lord says again in John 6: 45, “They shall be all taught of God”, and so the disciples serving along with the Lord would see how He spoke of things and looked at things and named them, and thus learn how to do as He did.
HFN After the disciples had travelled some way along with the Lord, He tested them as to whether they could name Him. “But ye, who do ye say that I am?” (Matthew 16: 15).
HES God names things on the first day, and it is the first formal naming of things recorded.
HFN How would you distinguish between the way the Lord names Peter in Matthew 16 and the way that the names are given to the apostles in regard to their levitical service?
JT In Matthew 16 it is a question of material for the assembly. That is the outlook, and I suppose it is always well to know what is in mind. The setting of the word “Peter” is the assembly viewed constructively, for the Lord says, “I will build”, but in naming the apostles their responsibility enters into it.
Ques Is it significant that at the end of the chapter in 2 Timothy, where the third set of those who had turned aside is given, the man of God is spoken of as complete?
JT Quite so: “that the man of God may be complete, fully fitted to every good work”.
WSS Is the thought of pleasure emphasised in the chapter? We are considering what is pleasing to God in these personal relationships; and would the apprehension of that help us in naming things according to God?
JT You want to be with Him. “Enoch walked with God”, we get later. There would be nothing in him to intrude; he would not put anything before God that would be contrary to Him. Of Abraham, great as he was, God says, “Walk before my face, and be perfect” (Genesis 17: 1); but he said to God, “Oh that Ishmael might live before thee!” (verse 18). Well, that would not be pleasing to God, and so, in walking with God, we have to learn what is in His mind, and that fits in with what was said as to being born of incorruptible seed, “the living and abiding word of God”. We get [p. 387] the mind of God, and so Adam here evidently gathered up what each creature really was as created, and named it, and God accepted it. There was nothing incongruous in the names; if there had been, God would have noted it, but He does not.
JJ Why does the break come in at the end of verse 18?
JT The main thought in the passage is the helpmate for Adam. The lower creatures come in and God would have them named, but He is leading up to Adam naming the woman. That is in this sense the greatest thing in the chapter, for he had not previously seen her. The animals he may have seen, but here he has been asleep, and so it is a question now of coming up out of death.
JJ Has it any connection with Matthew 17, the principles of the kingdom being in support of the assembly? I thought the principles of the kingdom were brought out before Eve was actually brought on the scene.
JT The mount of transfiguration, you mean? So the order of the development of the truth in Acts is the kingdom first, the Lord speaking of the things connected with the kingdom of God, which mainly came out in the twelve — in Paul, too, but the assembly was not fully brought forth in its beauty until Paul’s ministry developed it.
GM In connection with the naming of Jesus in Matthew it says, “Thou shalt call his name Jesus”, but in a later verse it says, “They shall call his name Emmanuel, which is, being interpreted, ‘God with us’”.
JT The meaning of the first is given: “for he shall save his people from their sins”, and it identifies Him with the generation — “of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ”. But when they call Him Emmanuel, that would be the outcome of experience, a matter of realisation, God proved to be “with us”.
GM Is it the thought of fulness?
JT Quite so. The final paragraph of Genesis 2 is most glorious, that is, the working out of the mind of God in what He had formed. Eve comes in in this way, and is named. It is not now a question of divine attributes or the kingdom, but what was in the mind of God from all eternity, Christ and the assembly. Ephesians shows the full working out of this. It is a question of Man here; what is worked out from him as already created.
EuR In 1 Corinthians 2: 16, “we have the mind of Christ” in a general way, and then, “I speak as to intelligent persons: do ye judge what I say” (1 Corinthians 10: 15). Would that be the bringing forward of this great principle of intelligence?
JT Yes, and Paul later refers to himself as an example: “by which ... ye can understand my intelligence in the mystery of the Christ” (Ephesians 3: 4); that is to show what an insight our apostle had into these things. It is what comes out of man here — Ish and Ishshah, a question of the mind of God as to man, that is, Christ and the assembly — the full thought.
HFN Would you say more in regard to the thought of fulness that we started with?
JT We have the fulness of God, but next to this the assembly is the greatest thought of fulness, the woman emanating from Man.
MWB And in that connection the assembly is spoken of as “the fulness of him who fills all in all” (Ephesians 1: 23). Then, in Ephesians 3: 19, “that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”. Would you explain a little the difference?
JT The assembly, of course, is what comes out of Christ, but the “fulness of God”, I suppose, is not simply what He is in the covenant, but what He is as God, if one can convey the idea of God as seen in [p. 389] Genesis 1 and as running through Scripture, the fullest thought of God that we as creatures can grasp, and we are to be filled into that. It is not the covenant in Ephesians, but what God is in His counsels, and we are to be filled into the fulness of God in that way, indicating the fixed condition in which we are to be eternally.