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Creation, Fall, Restoration

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The Use of Genesis in the New Testament

by Lita Cosner

Published: 24 August 2010 (GMT+10)

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I am often asked why someone specializing in the New Testament would care about the “Old Testament” issue of creation. After all, one’s view on the first chapters of Genesis seems peripheral at best when it comes to interpreting the New Testament. But I believe that one’s interpretation of Genesis has implications for many doctrines which are taught most clearly in the New Testament.

First, a New Testament scholar’s view of creation matters because Genesis was important to the New Testament authors. Every New Testament author quotes or alludes to Genesis. The New Testament has a total of 60 allusions to Genesis 1–11 specifically, and when we widen the search to include all of Genesis, the number grows to 103. For such a tiny body of literature, the New Testament has a staggering amount of references back to Genesis (see the list below).

But simply giving a list of references to Genesis proves nothing—we must look at how the New Testament authors used Genesis in order to discern their view. Overwhelmingly, it is presumed to be a historical document; the only place where it could even be argued that it is not necessarily used historically is in the borrowing of Edenic symbols in Revelation to describe the New Jerusalem (depending on one’s eschatological view¹). But this is the exception, and in any case, even a symbolic use has an underlying literal reality—the figurative “strong as an ox” would mean nothing unless an ox were literally strong, and the allusion to an Edenic paradise underscores the reality of this pre-Fall world without a curse.

Jesus and the Gospels

Jesus’ use of Genesis sets the tone for how it will be used in the rest of the New Testament. He uses it both to explain doctrine and to draw historical analogies. An example of the former use is in Matthew 22:15–22 (parallels in Mark 12:13–17 and Luke 20:20–36) where the Pharisees and Herodians questioned Him about taxes. For Jesus, because the coin bears Caesar’s image, it is Caesar’s property and should be rendered to him—but He adds the command to give to God what is God’s. In the context, the image on the coin determines who owns it, so specifically what is in view here is that which is in God’s image. Jesus is referring back to Genesis 1:26–27:

“In the present, proper humility before God requires the payment of Roman taxes, but if it is true that some of one’s money should go to the Caesar, it is so much more true that all that one is needs to be handed over to the God in whose image one is made.”²

Of course, if humanity had not actually been made in the image of God like Genesis teaches, the whole precedent would fall apart.

In Jesus’ day, there was a debate about whether divorce was allowed for any reason, or only for adultery. When asked to weigh in, Jesus essentially goes beyond the Law back to creation and quotes Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 to establish that God made man male and female and intended marriage to be between a man and a woman for life. This bond of loyalty transcends all other loyalties, even to one’s parents, except loyalty to God. The Pharisees ask why Moses commanded that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce to send her away. Jesus retorts that Moses allowed (never commanded) divorce because of rebellion (hardness of heart). But divorce violates the will of God which is expressed in the created order itself, and that overrides even the Law.

This quote of Genesis reveals Jesus’ thoughts on the timeline of creation, as well, because He said that it was this way “from the beginning of creation.” If Jesus is speaking on a timescale of 4,000 years from creation to His day, it makes sense to refer to something which was instituted on Day 6 as “from the beginning of creation.” But it makes no sense to refer to it as “the beginning of creation” if there were millions of years before the creation of mankind. See also Jesus and the age of the world.

Often Jesus compares the people in His own day to people from Genesis. Capernaum is worse than Sodom, because Jesus said that the Sodomites would have repented if they’d seen the miracles performed in Capernaum (Matthew 11:23–24). Jesus’ contrasted Abraham’s eager expectation of His day with the rejection of the Pharisees who claimed to be his descendents (John 8:33–41)—as well as contrasting Abraham’s coming into existence with His own eternal pre-existence (v. 58). And He predicted that the end days would be like the days of Noah and of Lot—destruction would come swiftly and without warning (Luke 17:26–29). In every case, there is no hint that Jesus is taking these events in less than a historical manner.

Luke was a consummate historian, and his gospel gives us more precise chronological details than any other one. Luke sees Jesus’ life and ministry as rooted in history. While Matthew’s genealogy emphasizes Jesus’ Jewishness and His claim to the throne of David, Luke’s genealogy (Luke 3) goes further back, to Adam, who is called a son of God (not the son of ape-like creatures or pond scum). There is absolutely no evidence that Luke takes the earliest ancestors to be less historical than the more recent ones; his inclusion of Adam to Abraham in the genealogy affirms the historicity of those characters, and identifies Christ as related to all of humanity.³ Interestingly, the “most historical” gospel⁴ has the most references to Genesis.

John’s gospel is the most overtly “theological” in that he liberally inserts his own commentary about the meaning of the events he records. Instead of a birth narrative like Luke’s and Matthew, he goes back to creation to begin his gospel. “In 1:1–5, John traces his account of Jesus farther back than the beginning of the ministry, farther back than the virgin birth, farther back even than the creation. The account must reach back to the eternal, divine Word, God’s agent in creation and the fount of life and light.”⁵ John’s opening “in the beginning” is an unmistakable reference to the opening verse of Genesis,⁶ but the creation of heaven and earth comes in only in v. 3 in John. To understand Jesus’ mission, we have to understand His identity, and to John, He is nothing less than the divine Word who was pre-existent with the Father in the beginning.

The Earliest Church’s Preaching

When the apostles and earliest Christians preached to a Jewish audience, they preached from the foundation of the Jewish Scriptures; Jewish history and the Abrahamic and Davidic promises are prominent (Acts 2:14–41; 7:2–14). But when they preached to Gentiles who did not have this background in the Jewish Scriptures, they went back to creation as a foundation for their preaching (Acts 14:15–17; 17:24–31). They take creation and the ancestry of all men from Adam to be historical (v. 26), and it is their basis for leading in to a proclamation of the Gospel.

Romans

Creation and the Fall are woven into the entire theology of Romans. God’s power is revealed through creation, and men are condemned because they do not recognize this (Romans 1:19–20). The Gentile is condemned because of idolatry and immorality, and the Jew is condemned because of failure to perfectly keep the Law, which was always intended only to multiply transgressions, never to save. Having painted an overwhelmingly bleak picture, Paul is able to contrast it with the good news of Christ: “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe” (Romans 3:21–22). Paul explains that Jesus was an atoning sacrifice for sin. But when Paul is explaining how the sacrifice of one man can make many righteous, he goes back to Genesis, and reasons that since death came through a man, Adam, it follows that the gift of righteousness should also come through one man, Christ (5:12–21).

This comparison is very significant for discerning Paul’s use of Genesis, because “Paul is not simply comparing Adam to Christ, but rather the effects of Adam’s actions on the human race with the effects of Christ’s action.”⁷ But Paul is not comparing as much as contrasting the two actions; “this is not intended to be a comparison of exact equals but is a way of highlighting both misdeeds and good deeds and their effects.”⁸ Paul is arguing that these two individuals acted in ways that affected all who came after them—Adam’s sin affects all who are descended from him, and Christ’s obedience affects all who believe in Him. But only historical people and historical actions can have real world consequences. A mythical Adam whose disobedience is only an allegory for human sinfulness cannot be a type of Christ. See also Romans 5:12–21: Paul’s view of literal Adam.

In Romans 8, Paul teaches that not only humanity, but all of creation has been subjected to futility because of man’s sin, and awaits liberation from its bondage to decay (19–22). Commentators on Romans, regardless of their view of Genesis, agree that Paul believed that it was God who subjected creation to futility at the Fall. See Cosmic and universal death from Adam’s fall: an exegesis of Romans 8:19–23a.

1 and 2 Corinthians

The letters to the Corinthian church are good examples of how Paul used Scripture when he was writing to Gentile churches. It is no surprise that Paul refers back to the created order many times. The Corinthian believers are to refrain from sexual immorality because it is improper to join part of the body of Christ to a prostitute (1 Corinthians 6:12–20). His sole reference to Scripture in support of his argument is a quote of Genesis 2:24. Regarding the issue of head coverings in worship, apparently unconnected to creation, Paul cites the created order—man was created first, and then woman—in defense of his ruling that men should pray and prophesy with their heads uncovered and women⁹ should pray and prophesy with their heads covered.

But without a doubt, Paul’s most important use of Genesis is in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul defends the physical resurrection of the dead.¹⁰ His argument, much like his argument in Romans 5:12–21, is that Adam and Christ constitute two heads of humanity. Death came because of Adam’s sin, but the resurrection came through Christ. Because believers are under Christ, believers will also rise. And because Christ rose as a man, we can be sure that our resurrection will be like His; it wasn’t a different sort of resurrection because of His deity. Again, the state of humanity is said to stem from the historical actions of actual people which actually affect those who come after them. And Paul is using this sort of argument to defend one of the cardinal dogmas of the Christian faith, the resurrection, without which Paul says we are without hope!

Other Pauline Letters

Paul’s other letters are sprinkled with references to Genesis; and the vast majority are to the reality of Creation and God as the Creator. This is reiterated in all sorts of contexts, with practical bearing on how the Church conducts itself.

Hebrews

The book of the Hebrews is written to Jewish Christians who are facing social pressure to renounce their faith and return to Judaism. The author’s view is that trading Christ for social acceptance has disastrous eternal consequences. It is not surprising that the author refers to the Old Testament scriptures that the Jewish Christians would know well; only Luke’s gospel has more references to Genesis, and no New Testament book has more references to Genesis 1–11.

The rest that the persevering believer enters into is compared to God’s rest on Day 7 as well as the rest that was promised to the Hebrews coming out of Egypt.

The author refers to Jesus as a high priest, interceding before the Father for us. But Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, not the priestly tribe of Levi, and certainly not from the line of Aaron, through whom all the high priests of the Levitical order had to come. The author insists that Jesus is the high priest of a new order, which was brought about by the new law. This is the order of Melchizedek—the author refers back to an obscure figure in Genesis (14:18–20), who is referred to once in Psalm 110:4), to justify Jesus’ office as high priest.

Hebrews 11 lists Abel, Enoch, and Noah, from Genesis 1–11, as heroes of the faith without distinguishing them as less historical than the other members of the list. Just like Luke 3, the author moves seamlessly from Genesis 1–11 to the rest of the Bible, without the slightest hint, “now we are moving from allegory or myth to history.”

Peter

Peter’s epistles also show a firm belief in a historical Genesis. In 1 Peter he affirms that eight people were saved in the ark, and in 2 Peter he says that sinning angels were sent to Tartarus in close connection with the Flood as a judgment for ungodliness on the earth and saving Noah and his family in the ark. He also affirms that the earth was formed out of water, and was destroyed by water.

Jude

Jude is widely regarded as being very close to 2 Peter, and this one-chapter book has four references to Genesis. Like 2 Peter, he refers to the sinning angels, but this time it’s closely connected to the strange-flesh perversions of Sodom and Gomorrah. He also accepts Genesis 5 as a strict chronogenealogy without gaps, since Enoch is “seventh from Adam”.

Revelation

The interpretation of Revelation is notoriously difficult, and end-times scenarios are a point of debate among even otherwise like-minded Christians. But while Revelation may pose unique difficulties of interpretation, it also gives us some important references to Genesis. First, there is a theme of “uncreation” as the earth is being destroyed—judgment in the Bible is commonly pictured as a reversal of creation, e.g. the Flood took the world back to its condition on Day 2, before the land and water had separated, so the land was totally submerged again; Jeremiah 4:23 alludes to an uncreation back to the state in Genesis 1:2—the judgment would be so severe that it would leave the final state as empty as the earth before God created anything.

But more importantly, the New Jerusalem is filled with Edenic imagery—the Tree of Life, river, and the continual presence of God in the New Jerusalem mark, if not a return to Eden, a restoration of redeemed humanity to unfettered access to and fellowship with God. There is no more curse and no more sin in the New Jerusalem—humanity and creation is returned to an unfallen state.

Conclusion

It would require a book-length study to examine all the New Testament references in the depth that they deserve, but this brief overview should show how important a historical view of Genesis is for New Testament interpretation. It should also be noted that simply giving references to Genesis does not give the full picture—there are many doctrines which make no sense apart from their foundation in Genesis, and much of the New Testament teaching makes no sense unless one assumes that foundation.

New Testament references to Genesis

This list shows New Testament references by allusion or quotation to Genesis. Entries shown with parenthetical numbering show references to Genesis 1–11.

Related articles

• Christianity Today?
• Genesis: Bible authors believed it to be history
• Jesus Christ on the infallibility of Scripture
• The authority of Scripture
• New Testament Creation
• Genesis—the seedbed of all Christian doctrine
• Christmas and Genesis
• The Resurrection and Genesis
• Romans 5:12–21: Paul’s view of literal Adam
• Cosmic and universal death from Adam’s fall: an exegesis of Romans 8:19-23a
• Jesus and the age of the world

Further reading

• Genesis Questions and Answers
• Bible Questions and Answers
• Creation Compromises
• Compromising chaplain castigates creation
• Compromising chaplain castigates creation, round 2

References

1. As a non-denominational ministry, CMI takes no stand on eschatology except to affirm the future return of Christ, the physical resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment. Return to text.
2. John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids; Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster, 2005), p. 899. Return to text.
3. Darrell Bock, Luke Volume 1: 1:1–9:50, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1994), p. 360. Return to text.
4. “Historical” as in “conforming to the ancient conventions of historical writing.” Of course, all the gospels are equally historical in the sense of communicating events which actually happened. Return to text.
5. D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 113. Return to text.
6. Andreas Köstenberger, John, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), p. 25. Genesis 1:1 (in the Greek Septuagint) and John 1:1 begin with Ἐν ἀρχῇ En archē. Return to text.
7. Ben Witherington, Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), p. 141. Return to text.
8. Witherington, p. 142. Return to text.
9. In the context, Paul is most probably talking about married women. See Bruce Winter, After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 127–130. Return to text.
10. See Lita Cosner, Christ as the last Adam: Paul’s use of the Creation narrative in 1 Corinthians 15, Journal of Creation 23(3):70–75. Return to text.

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