CHRONOLOGICAL BIBLE STUDY 2025

Daniel 2:22  

He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.  

As we take a journey into the Scripture this year, know that God wants to reveal things to us.  He sheds light on the darkness.  This is stated in Genesis 1 when God created light - light of instruction and understanding, enlightenment, illumination.   For example, And God said, "Let there be instruction or understanding or knowledge of what is good. 

In order to learn what was going on before Genesis 1 we must dive into the book of Proverbs and discover an entity called wisdom.

Wisdom

Proverbs 8:22-30 

"The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth, before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, 

These verses give a synopsis of all of creation. The plan for creation was established by God before He created anything. 

So who or what is wisdom?  It seems as if wisdom is an entity, especially when we examine the verse, I was beside him, like a master workman.

We must dive into the gospels for the answer to the question of who or what is wisdom.

John 1:1-3, 14 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. And the Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us. And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and of truth.

No question from these verses in John that it was Jesus, God the Son who was with God the Father in the beginning.  God the Son was there before anything came into being because it was through God the Son that everything was created.  In the physical realm, wisdom manifests itself in the expertise of God the Son as He created all things. 

Wisdom is called by the pronoun she. It is not male/female gender, but a concept pertaining to the characteristics of Jesus. Many times in Scripture Jesus manifests Himself as a nurturing, nourishing, comforting figure. (Psalm 131:1-2, Isaiah 42:14, Isaiah 66:13) In Matthew 23:37 Jesus even compares Himself to a mother hen. 

By use of the female pronoun, God is revealing that He compares the reproduction facet of the female to the reproduction of a concept that is to be perpetuated. The nature of Jesus is to be perpetuated or reproduced in our lives and the lives of those we will influence.  This compares with the reproductive facet of the female, bearing fruit.  It’s not about gender but about a concept.

Likewise in Proverbs is an entity called Folly, also referred to as she, representing Satan and all things associated with him and his nature.  Mankind perpetuates or reproduces either the nature of Jesus or the nature of Satan. 

Once wisdom was in place as the master workman at His side, God created His heaven, not the sky or heavens with stars and clouds, but He created His abode, His dwelling, His throne, called later in Scripture as the third heaven.. (Genesis 1:1) 

After God brought forth wisdom and His heaven, He created the angels, all the heavenly host. He created them before the foundations of the earth were put in place.  

Before the earth came up out of the watery waste of the abyss, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit designed the plan of salvation.  

According to 2 Timothy 1:9 This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. 

This grace that saved us was planned before the beginning of time, before the beginning of creation, before the foundations of the earth were established, before the land came up out of the watery waste of the abyss. (Revelation 13:8) This plan was designed by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

In summary: Before the beginning, God was very busy. Wisdom, the multifaceted concept synonymous with Jesus, was there as the first of His works.  Heaven was created, the dwelling place for God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  God created the angels and established His heavenly kingdom in that dwelling place. One third of the angels, led by Lucifer rebelled and they, along with Lucifer were thrown from heaven into the abyss, a prison for them. God established the plan of grace and redemption and He also wrote in the book of life the names of those who would believe. All this was before the creation of the earth as we know it.

The plan is for us to highlight a few things that are little-known and/or seldom talked about.  But as we prepared for tonight’s reading, we found many seldom talked about concepts.  So, discussing the readings for a week might be difficult to cover everything.  We would suggest that you make notes of things you want to go into more detail for our studies next year, or when we come to a week of nothing but genealogies, the begats. . 

Genesis 1:1-2 is an overview of creation.  Next we get some details, and then in chapter 2 we get a few more details.  Not that there was more than one creation. 

Gen 1:7  And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 

firmament (of vault of heaven supporting waters above)  Some versions use the words dome or canopy.

The dome and the canopy are the same thing.  There is only water, no land yet. Until the land came up out of the water. 

On Day 3 the dry ground appeared and then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation..."

God prepared the land, (earth) the dry ground, and "seeded" it.  The land was ready to bring forth the vegetation from the dormant seeds when God created the sun on the fourth day. The seeds were not germinated until the fourth day.  More information on this can be found in Genesis 2.  Notice in Gen. 2:8, God planted a garden in Eden.  He planted the full vegetation in the garden.  In the rest of the world the seeds were there ready to come forth, no bushes, no trees…just seeds..

The Hebrew word for day is yom.  It can be the period of light – 12 hours, the period of twenty-four hours, a general vague "time," a year, or even multiple years, as in 1,000 years, the Millennial Day of the Lord.

For all of creation, God simply spoke it into being. Man, however, was a “hands-on” creation.  Man will leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and they become one flesh. This was God’s plan, no matter how culture may redefine it. 

P. 3 they were given every green plant for food.  They were to be vegetarians, animals included..

Vast array - what an understatement.

A couple things to warn about, in the summaries and commentaries, read with caution, check out statements with what Scripture says.  For example, the commentary says mankind was given a degree of dominion over creation.  It wasn’t merely a degree of dominion, God said they were to rule over, to dominate over all creatures.

P. 4 Man was created as a “hands-on” creation, hand crafted as unique.  As opposed to animal kinds (generic) who were like carbon copies, mass produced.  Not so with mankind. .

P. 5 Eve said the serpent deceived her.  This shows she now knows the difference between good and evil. Before there was no deception.  Now she knows how it looks.

There are two different Hebrew words translated in English as naked. One is simply stated as unashamedly naked in 2:25.  In 3:7 is a different word which alludes to naked with shame attached. 

The serpent says they will not surely die.  Satan just called God a liar.

In the cool of the day - ruach one definition of which means spirit, as in Holy Spirit.  They walked in fellowship with the Holy Spirit of God.  It was a very pleasant experience as if walking in a garden in the cool of the day with the Holy Spirit.  After the fall, they no longer had this pleasant experience of walking with the Holy Spirit.

Eve’s pain in childbirth would be increased because of the sin. This is before we are told that Cain has been born.

After their disobedience, the death process began.  Prior to that, they would live forever.

God drove them out of the garden physically, but more importantly, they would not be able to fellowship with the Holy Spirit in the cool of the day like they had been accustomed to doing. 

Many questions have come to mind that we may want to investigate further.  One thing that has puzzled us for years is this.  How long were Adam and Eve in the garden before Satan was allowed to deceive them?  We can get into a little more next week.  

Revelation 20:2-3  

And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while. 

If Satan is bound for a thousand years and then released after the Millennium, how long was he bound before he was released to deceive Adam and Eve?  A thousand years?