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Friday, November 15, 2019

First Mention Principle

First Mention Principle

            The first occurrence of a subject in Scripture.  It usually holds the key to understanding the subject.  The first time it is mentioned usually defines it’s meaning throughout Scripture.  Here are some examples.
Spirit of God- Genesis 1:2: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”
            It was the Spirit of God from the beginning whom created the earth and everything in it.  Evolution envisioned by man had nothing to do with it.  The universe was supernaturally created by God.  The Spirit of God and the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ are all one as later told by the Apostle John in 1 John 1.
Holiness- Genesis- 2:3: “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.”  Sanctification is the act of making or becoming holy.  Holiness is from the beginning and it should also be in our lives.
Satan is a deceiver- Genesis 3:  This entire chapter deals with the deception of the devil.  The devil will slightly twist the Words of God to deceive.  That is the pattern that we have from the very beginning of creation.
Temptation- Genesis 3:1-6:  Satan’s temptation of Eve can be conceptualized in six steps, steps that can be seen in Satan’s temptation of believer’s today.
       1.  Minimizing the restriction.   Step one is found in the first verse.  Satan said to the woman: “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?”  Satan’s ploy is rather obvious: he was getting Eve to take her eyes off all the things God had given her to enjoy, and to focus on the one thing that God had forbidden.
            2.  Minimizing the consequences. Satan minimized the consequences of sin in two ways:  first, by telling Eve that the consequences of sin would not be as bad as they had been stated to be, and second, by eventually focusing her attention so completely on the tree that she forgot about the consequences entirely.
       3. Relabeling the action:  In verse five Satan deftly tried to remove his temptation from the category of sin by relabeling it.  In this particular instance, partaking of the fruit was relabeled as a way of expanding her consciousness.  She would become a more complete person if she tried it once.  Before this time Eve had thought of the forbidden action as disobedience:  now she sees it as a necessity if she is to become a complete and mature person.  Mixing good and evil:  C.S. Lewis has commented that evil is often a perversion of something good that God has created.  In verse six Satan added potency to his temptation by mixing good with evil:  Eve saw that the tree was good for food.
            5.  Mixing sin with beauty:  Temptation often comes wrapped in the form of something beautiful, something that appeals to our senses and desires.  It is often necessary to think twice before we recognize that a beautiful object or goal is really sin in disguise.
            6.  Misunderstanding the implications:  Although this may seem like a less significant point in the temptation process, it is perhaps the most crucial.  In effect, by accepting Satan’s statement, Eve was calling God a liar, even though she might not have recognized those implications of her action.  She accepted Satan as the truth-teller and God as the prevaricator:  by partaking of the fruit she was implicitly stating her belief that Satan was more interested in her welfare than God was.  Yielding to the temptation implied that she accepted Satan’s analysis of the situation instead of God’s.[1]
Babylon- Genesis 10:10: “And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel...”  The city of Babylon was born in sin from the very beginning.
Faith- Genesis 15:6: “And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”  Faith is probably the most important biblical topic, and here is the first mention of faith.
Jerusalem- Genesis 14:18: “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.  Bread and wine are well known symbols of life and prosperity.  It still is today.
Son of Man- Psalm 8:4: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?  And the son of man, that thou visitest him?”  Jesus Christ will in the future refer to Himself as the son of man.
Day of the Lord- Isaiah 2:11,12: “The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.  For the day of the Lord of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low.”  This is prophecy about the Last Days that we read about in the Book of Revelation.



[1] Henry A. Virkler.  Hermeneutics: Principles and Processes of Biblical Interpretation.  Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI.  1981, p. 218-9.

William J. Roop, M.A.B.S.


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