©-2000-
Armin Wolff
The Gospel in Genesis
by Armin A. Wolff
We frequently use the familiar term, gospel, or good news. Where is the first place it appears in the
Bible? Can anybody guess?
• Hidden Messages in the Bible
How many of you have heard of the discovery of hidden messages in the Bible discovered by means of
modern computer technology? These hidden Bible codes, one type of which are also known as equal
distance letter sequences in the original Hebrew text are quite controversial and a number of books
have recently been written on that subject.
• A divinely engineered book
What I would like to share with you this morning is not about any computer related Bible discoveries.
No computer is needed to discover this hidden message. All that is necessary is a Bible dictionary
that lists the meaning of names. Most translations of the Bible just simply give a transliteration of
names people and places. The Bible is a divinely engineered book that shows in many details that its
origin is from beyond our time dimension.
• Every detail is important
The Jewish rabbis express this idea thus: they say that they will not understand the Scriptures until
the Messiah comes. But when He comes, He will not only interpret each of the passages for us, He will
interpret the very words; He will even interpret the very letters themselves; in fact, He will even
interpret the spaces between the letters!
• Crossing of t's and dotting of i's
If a lawyer were to express this idea he might say that all the i's must be dotted and all the t's must be
crossed. This may seem a bit exaggerated but Jesus supports the idea that every detail in Scripture is
important and will be fulfilled.
Matthew 5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to
abolish them but to fulfill them.
Matthew 5:18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least
stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
• A remarkable example
This can be glimpsed in Genesis Chapter 5, where we have the genealogy of Adam through Noah. This
is one of those chapters which we often tend to skim over quickly as we pass through Genesis. After
all, it's simply a genealogy from Adam to Noah. To us, this genealogy in Chapter 5 of Genesis is
simply a list of names that has been transliterated from the Hebrew. As we shall see, the meaning of
these names gives us, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story. In some cases the meaning of
the name is given, but in most we will have to do a bit of digging. This digging involves not only the
names themselves but also the roots of the Hebrew language the names were derived from. In the
ancient world, especially in the Hebrew culture, people were given names that were not just simply
picked out of a book like is often done today, but those names all had meaning in terms of some
perceived or desired characteristic of the person. In some cases the names were prophetic of the person
themselves or some event surrounding their birth or otherwise connected with their lives or their
family.
• Adam
Adam's name means man. As the first man, that seems straight forward enough.