Creation, the Fall and Abraham's Covenant

Christian Religious Studies · WAEC and JAMB · SS2 and SS3

Everything else in the Old Testament stands on these three events: God makes a good world, man breaks fellowship with God, and God begins the work of restoration by calling one man. WAEC sets this area almost every year, usually as a narration question followed by 'state the lessons' or 'state the consequences'.

What you need to know

Genesis gives two accounts of creation that complement each other. Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 is the ordered six-day account ending with God resting on the seventh day; Genesis 2:4 to 25 zooms in on the making of man and the garden.
In the six-day account God creates by His word, and after each stage the text says it was good. Light, firmament, land and vegetation, lights in the sky, fish and birds, then land animals and man on the sixth day.
Man alone is made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27), male and female, and is given dominion over the fish, birds and every living thing. This image is the basis of human dignity and of the Christian objection to treating any person as worthless.
In the second account the LORD God forms man from the dust of the ground and breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, puts him in the garden of Eden to till and keep it, and makes the woman from his rib because it is not good for man to be alone.
God's one prohibition was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with death as the penalty. The tree of life stood in the garden as well, and only after the fall were the two kept apart.
The serpent, described as more subtle than any beast of the field, began by questioning God's word, then flatly denied the penalty and promised that the woman would become like God knowing good and evil. She ate, gave to her husband, and he ate.
The results followed at once: their eyes were opened, they knew they were naked, they sewed fig leaves, and they hid from God among the trees. The man blamed the woman and the woman blamed the serpent, so sin brought shame, fear and broken relationships before it brought any curse.
The curses in Genesis 3:14-19 are specific. The serpent crawls on its belly and eats dust; the woman bears children in pain and her relation to her husband is disordered; the ground is cursed so the man eats bread by sweat among thorns and thistles; and man returns to the dust. God clothed them with skins and drove them out, placing cherubim and a flaming sword at the east of Eden.
Genesis 3:15, where the seed of the woman bruises the serpent's head, is called the protoevangelium, the first gospel. Christians read it as the earliest promise that the damage of the fall will one day be reversed.
The call of Abram in Genesis 12:1-3 is God's response to the spread of sin. Abram is told to leave his country, his kindred and his father's house for a land God will show him, with the sevenfold promise of a great nation, a great name, blessing, protection and blessing for all families of the earth through him.
Abram obeyed at the age of seventy-five, moving from Haran with Sarai, Lot and his possessions, and built altars at Shechem and between Bethel and Ai. His obedience was costly because he left a settled life for a destination he had not been told.
The covenant was formalised in Genesis 15, where God showed him the stars as a picture of his descendants and he believed the LORD, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. God then passed between the divided animals as a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, binding Himself alone, and foretold four hundred years of affliction in a land not theirs.
Genesis 17 renewed the covenant with circumcision as its sign for every male on the eighth day, changed Abram to Abraham and Sarai to Sarah, and promised a son by Sarah despite their old age. Ishmael had already been born to Hagar because of the couple's attempt to help God along.
Genesis 22 is the climax of Abraham's obedience. Told to offer Isaac on a mountain in Moriah, he set out early, built the altar, and was stopped by the angel of the LORD; a ram caught by its horns in a thicket was offered instead, and he named the place Jehovah-Jireh, the LORD will provide.

Key terms

Covenant: A binding agreement initiated by God with human beings, carrying promises, obligations and a visible sign.
Image of God: The God-given capacity of human beings for reason, moral choice, relationship and rule, which sets them apart from the rest of creation.
The Fall: The disobedience of Adam and Eve in eating the forbidden fruit, which broke fellowship between God and man and brought sin and death into the world.
Protoevangelium: Genesis 3:15, the first announcement of victory over the serpent through the woman's offspring.
Circumcision: The cutting of the foreskin of every male on the eighth day, given to Abraham as the physical sign of the covenant.
Faith: Trust in the word and character of God that leads to obedience, as when Abraham believed God's promise before seeing any evidence.
Theophany: A visible appearance or manifestation of God to human beings, such as the smoking fire pot and flaming torch in Genesis 15.

Worked examples

Narrate the story of the fall of man and state four consequences of that disobedience.

Set the scene first: the garden, the two trees, and God's single command with its penalty. Two or three sentences only.
Narrate in order: the serpent's question, its denial of death, its promise of being like God, the woman eating, the man eating.
Narrate what followed immediately: opened eyes, fig leaves, hiding, God's question, the blame shifting.
Then list the consequences as separate numbered points, because the examiner marks the narration and the consequences separately.

Answer: God placed Adam in Eden and permitted him every tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, warning that he would die the day he ate of it. The serpent, more subtle than any beast of the field, asked the woman whether God had truly forbidden the trees, then told her she would not die but would become like God, knowing good and evil. Seeing that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes and able to make one wise, she took the fruit and ate, and gave to her husband, who also ate. Their eyes were opened, they realised they were naked, sewed fig leaves together and hid among the trees when they heard God in the garden. Questioned by God, the man blamed the woman and the woman blamed the serpent. The consequences were: (i) the serpent was cursed to crawl on its belly and eat dust, with enmity set between its offspring and the woman's; (ii) the woman was to bear children in pain and be ruled by her husband; (iii) the ground was cursed so that the man would earn his bread by sweat among thorns and thistles; (iv) man became subject to death and returned to dust; and (v) the pair were driven out of Eden and cherubim with a flaming sword barred the way to the tree of life.

Describe God's call of Abraham and the covenant He made with him, and state three lessons Christians can learn from Abraham's response.

Give the call itself with its three demands and its promises, naming Haran and Canaan.
Move through the covenant in its stages: Genesis 12 promise, Genesis 15 ratification, Genesis 17 sign of circumcision.
Mention Genesis 22 briefly to show how his faith was tested.
End with clearly separated lessons, each a short sentence of application.

Answer: While Abram was living in Haran, God told him to leave his country, his kindred and his father's house for a land that God would show him, promising to make of him a great nation, to bless him, to make his name great, to bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him, and to bless all families of the earth through him. Abram left at seventy-five with Sarai, Lot and his possessions and journeyed into Canaan, building altars at Shechem and near Bethel. In Genesis 15 God brought him out to count the stars as a picture of his descendants, and Abram believed the LORD, who counted it to him as righteousness; God then ratified the covenant by passing between the divided animals and foretelling four hundred years of affliction before his descendants would possess the land. In Genesis 17 God renamed him Abraham, promised a son by Sarah, and gave circumcision of every male on the eighth day as the sign of the covenant. His faith was finally tested when he was told to offer Isaac in the land of Moriah, and only the angel's call stopped the knife; a ram caught in a thicket was offered instead. Lessons: (i) genuine faith obeys God even when the outcome is unclear; (ii) God keeps His promises in His own time, so believers should not force matters as Abraham did with Hagar; (iii) God must have first place, above even one's dearest possession or child.

The mistake to avoid

Candidates narrate the story and then stop, losing all the marks for the second half of the question, which asks for consequences or lessons. The other habitual error is adding details that are not in the text, such as calling the fruit an apple, saying Genesis names the serpent as Satan, or saying Abraham was told to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Sinai instead of in the land of Moriah.

In the exam

This topic is almost always set as a two-part question: narrate or describe, then state lessons, consequences or significance. Allocate your time by the marks, usually about two-thirds for the narration and one-third for the application, and write the second part as numbered points, not as a paragraph. Give at least one reference such as Genesis 12:1-3 or Genesis 3:15 where you are sure of it, and keep the narration in the order the Bible gives it, because examiners mark sequence.