Did you ever resolve to read the Bible from cover to cover—all sixty-six books?

You did? And how far did you get? Probably not as far as Revelation. Chances are you got lost in Leviticus, or chickened out in Chronicles, or became jaded in Job.

But I bet you managed Genesis OK. And that’s not just because it’s the first book and the wave of beginner’s enthusiasm carried you through. It’s also because we’re all kids at heart, and kids like picture books, and Genesis is a picture book.

Not literally, of course. Its pictures are word-pictures, but no less colourful for that. The book’s two parts are equally graphic. The first part—chapters 1 to 11—portrays four major events, and an artist would have a field-day with any of them: God’s creation, the grim events in Eden, the Flood of Noah’s day, and the Tower of Babel. Part two—chapters 12 to 50—portrays four equally colourful characters: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.

The Genesis pictures have hidden depths. They are a bit like holograms: you look at them and think you’ve seen what’s there, but then tilt the page only to see something different that was there all the time but not apparent at first glance. I’ve called this chapter Pictures of Salvation because when you ‘tilt the pages’ of Genesis you’ll enjoy glimpses of the New Testament, where God’s salvation is plain for all to see.

We’ll take a look at four such pictures, two from each section of the book.

Let’s begin at the beginning, with the creation as recorded in the first chapter. God created the universe in six days. If you were to examine what bits he made on each day you’d come up with a chart something like this:

Now look carefully at this chart. Can you spot any pattern in what God created and when? Any ‘shape’ to his creative programme?

Here’s a clue: look at the two items in each row. Do you see a connection between Day 1 and Day 4, between Day 2 and Day 5, and between Day 3 and Day 6?

Yes, once you see it, it’s obvious. On the first three days God created a basic environment, then on Days 4 to 6 he filled in the details. So on Day 2, for example, he made the sea and the atmosphere, then on Day 5 he made the sea creatures to populate the sea and the birds to fly in the air. Check out the other pairs and you’ll see that the pattern is the same.

It’s a long job—a lifelong job, in fact. Do you sometimes think, ‘If I was truly saved I wouldn’t still be battling with this temptation’? Or, ‘I wonder if I really am a Christian, because I don’t seem to be any more godly now than I was a year ago’? Most of us think that way sometimes, and it can be discouraging. But don’t despair! Just remember that there are two stages to the new creation, just as there were to the original one, and that the second stage is a process, not an act.

Our second ‘picture of salvation’ comes from Eden. It concerns Adam and Eve, who disobeyed God’s command and so fell into sin.

Nothing wrong with any of that, of course. Fig leaves are fine in themselves; it’s just that they make useless garments. Good deeds are fine, too, but they are useless for covering our moral nakedness. It will take more than this to make us acceptable to God.

Here’s where God himself steps in, as he did for our first parents. In their case he provided garments of skin, which tells us three things. There was an innocent victim—the hapless animal that provided the skin. There was a substitute—Adam and Eve were the ones who deserved to die because of their sins, but this animal died instead. And there was shedding of blood—the skin garments could only be theirs at the cost of the animal’s death.

As Christians we are well clothed, but at what an enormous cost! ‘Garments of skin’ don’t come cheap.

God tests us all. He does it to keep us on track and to shape our character. Some of the tests may be stiff, but none so stiff as the one God put Abraham through.

Genesis chapter 22 tells the story. Abraham and his wife Sarah had been childless, but in their old age God had at last given them a son, Isaac. What doting parents they must have been! Here at last was their very own boy, through whom God’s promise of many descendants would be fulfilled.

So that was it! Abraham did intend to go through with killing Isaac, trusting God to restore him to life so that the two of them could go home with the servants! And go home together they did! God intervened as the old man was about to plunge the knife into his son. The deed had been all but done, with Isaac as good as dead, but he escaped the knife by a whisker and lived to tell the tale.

Here we note that every Old Testament picture falls short of the salvation-truth it portrays. This one is no exception, for there was no last-minute reprieve for God’s one and only Son as there was for Abraham’s. Jesus really died. A Roman soldier’s spear pierced his crucified body to make sure of it. But death couldn’t pin Jesus down, and on the third day he rose victorious from the tomb! God the Father ‘received him back from death’.

We need to look hard at the hologram here because some of the actors in the drama swap roles. Up to now, Abraham has played the part of God the Father and Isaac that of our Lord Jesus. Now a third character, the ram, comes onstage, but who does it represent? Clearly the ram is Jesus, who dies on the altar of sacrifice ‘instead of’ us. So if it’s now the ram, and no longer Isaac, who represents Jesus, who does Isaac now represent?

Isaac now becomes you and me! Like him we escape death because Jesus, God’s Lamb—or Ram—has died as our substitute! What a marvellous picture of salvation!

Some of the best pictures in Genesis appear in the story of Joseph. You might think it’s a bit over the top to call him ‘saviour of the world’, but that very phrase is, I’m sure, already tilting the page and highlighting someone who fits that description more completely.

If you’re a bit rusty on the story of Joseph read Genesis chapters 37 to 50. Thirteen chapters might seem a lot to read, but it’s gripping stuff, and we can summarise it as follows.

Joseph was the eleventh of Jacob’s twelve sons, and his favourite. Jacob, seeing in him qualities that made him the best candidate to be his heir, gave him the ‘coat of many colours’ as a sign that this was his destiny. His older brothers were jealous and, to get him out of their lives, sold him into slavery in far-away Egypt. In that foreign land Joseph worked hard to improve his lot, ending up in charge of the household of Potiphar, a high-ranking officer in the Egyptian army.

Potiphar’s military duties took him away from home a lot, and in his absence his wife tried to seduce Joseph. When he refused she turned spiteful and told Potiphar he’d tried to rape her. So Joseph ended up as an innocent in prison. There, God enabled him to interpret the dreams of two fellow-prisoners, both employees of Pharaoh. One of these got his job at the palace back and, when Pharaoh himself had a puzzling dream, mentioned to him the young Israelite whose interpretation of his own dream had proved so accurate.

Thus it was that Joseph came straight from the prison into the presence of Pharaoh. He described his dream perfectly and went on to explain what it meant: that part of the world would enjoy seven years of bumper harvests followed by seven years of famine. Not stopping there, Joseph went on to suggest that Pharaoh appoint someone to oversee grain-storage during the seven good years so that supplies would be plentiful when the famine came.

Impressed with the young man, Pharaoh appointed Joseph himself to that position, making him Number Two in the land. Joseph made a good job of the grain-storage programme and went on to oversee food distribution during the famine. Because Egypt was the only source of food as supplies dwindled elsewhere, the whole Middle Eastern world came to buy from Joseph. Among those who came were Joseph’s brothers, and in time he made himself known to them. Eventually his aged father Jacob and the whole family moved down to Egypt for the duration of the famine, and the family was thus reunited.

Quite a tale, and I imagine you’ve already spotted some parallels between Joseph and Jesus.

Many more pictures of salvation fill this wonderful book of Genesis. We could pore over Abel’s acceptable sacrifice, over Noah’s ark and many more. But I hope the ones we have looked at will whet your appetite for more. One thing is already becoming clear: the Bible is all about Jesus. In picture-form he’s right there is Genesis, which sets the tone for the rest of Scripture.

Bet you can’t wait to get into Exodus!