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 number of references back to Genesis.

But simply giving a list of references to Genesis proves nothing—we must look at how the New Testament authors used Genesis to discern their view. Overwhelmingly, it is presumed to be a historical document; even the allusion to an Edenic paradise in Revelation underscores the reality of this pre-Fall world without a curse. Previously we have noted Jesus clear understanding of Genesis as being historical, with no demarcation between Genesis 1-11 and the rest of the book.

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

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 – from one man), and it is their basis for leading into a proclamation of the Gospel.

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). TBC