Have you ever walked into a conversation late? You catch the literal words being said, but without the context, you completely misunderstand what’s happening. You miss the beginning, so you miss the point.
Here’s what I’ve discovered: most of us are doing this with the Bible.
Quick test: Close your eyes and think of the first story about humans in the Bible. What comes to mind?
If you’re like most Christians, you immediately think of Genesis 3—sin, the fall, brokenness. We've made this the centerpiece of our theology:
- Evangelism: “For all have sinned….”
- Church culture: Sinners in the hands of an angry God
- Our identity: “I’m just a sinner saved by grace”
But what if we’ve been walking into the story two chapters too late?
What if the most important thing about you isn’t Genesis 3— it’s Genesis 1 and 2? What if before you were a sinner, you were an Image-bearer? And what if starting in this wrong place has cost us more than we can imagine?
The Cost of Starting at Genesis 3#
When we start reading the Bible at Genesis 3—whether literally or more often in our theology—we start with human failure, God’s justice, and His grace. The narrative becomes:
Step 1: You’re broken
Step 2: You need fixing
Step 3: Jesus forgives you
Step 4: Try really hard not to mess up again (and hope you don’t lose your ticket to heaven)
Your fundamental identity = defective
I’ve seen what this does to people firsthand.
Years ago, I was pastoring a brother in Christ who shared with me that his life no longer mattered. In fact, he believed others around him would actually be better off if he were to take his own life. Perhaps he would be better off escaping to heaven to be with Jesus—because what point was there for him in the present.
He had experienced God’s love and forgiveness. He knew the cross. But he saw no purpose here and now.
When Genesis 3 is your starting point, the goal becomes escaping humanity that caused the big “oops” in the first place. Forgiveness becomes the finish line. Heaven becomes the escape hatch from your broken self.
We may not all desire an early exit like this brother did. But when Genesis 3 is our starting point, we end up focusing on surviving life, maintaining our heavenly insurance by not sinning too badly, and maybe doing a few good deeds along the way.
What’s the problem? We’ve reduced our biblical anthropology—our understanding of how Scripture sees humans—to “God is good; humans are the problem.”
And when that’s your framework, even resurrection looks like an exit strategy rather than restoration.
But my brother’s despair revealed something crucial: forgiveness without purpose leaves us empty. Being “washed clean” but having nowhere to go, nothing to do, no reason to stay is not abundant life. That’s not what Jesus came to offer.
Two Chapters That Change Everything#
When we start reading—and framing our theology—at Genesis 1, everything shifts.
We don’t begin with human failure. We begin with God’s goodness and creativity. And we start with the value, purpose, and relationship God establishes with humanity.
Genesis 1:26-27 (Abbreviated)
Then God said, “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness… So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:28
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”
Genesis 1:31a
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.
Genesis 2:15
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
Do you see it? God doesn’t just make humans. He creates them in His image. He declares them to be very good. He commissions them. He walks with them
Before sin, corruption, and brokenness entered the picture, humanity had a calling:
- To reflect God’s creativity, justice, love, beauty in the world
- To cultivate and protect creation
- To be fruitful and multiply—not just procreating but increasing blessing
- To steward the earth under God’s direction and authority
- To be God’s representatives across the globe
The Image of God matters. It’s about your worth. It’s about your work. You were made to be something and to do something in the world.
Your identity and your calling were established before you did anything right or wrong.
Now, let me be clear: I’m not saying sin isn’t real. I’m not saying humans have not made mistakes. We have. We’ve made a lot of them. I’ve made a lot of them. Genesis 3 (and 4 and 6 and on and on) definitely happened. And we are desperately in need of the redemption that Jesus brings through the cross.
But here’s the difference:
Starting from Genesis 3: You failed > you need forgiveness > try not to fail again
Starting from Genesis 1: You were commissioned > sin disrupted your mission > restoration leads to recommissioning
When we start at Genesis 3, sin is our identity and undoing that sin is the end goal.
When we start at Genesis 1, Image-bearing is our identity and representing God to the world is our calling. Sin doesn’t just make us feel guilty—it derails us from our purpose.
The fall doesn’t erase the Image of God in you, it mars it. And it doesn’t just make you broken, it makes you forget why you’re here.
Reconciliation AND Recommissioning#
The starting point matters because it changes what we think salvation restores.
If you start at Genesis 3:
- Primary problem: you’re guilty before God
- What’s broken: your legal standing
- What salvation restores: forgiveness and right relationship
- Your relationship with God: vertical only (you and God)
- Jesus came to: reconcile you to the Father so you can escape to heaven
If you start at Genesis 1:
- Primary problem: you’re separated from God AND derailed from your calling
- What’s broken: your relationship with God AND your partnership with Him
- What salvation restores: reconciliation to God AND recommissioning into His plans
- Your relationship with God: vertical AND horizontal (loving God, loving neighbor / serving His mission)
- Jesus came to: reconcile you to the Father AND restore you to your Image-bearing purpose
Both approaches center on our relationship with God, but the nature of that relationship differs.
The Genesis 3 lens makes our relationship purely about forgiveness. You’re forgiven, you’re grateful (hopefully), and you’re biding your time until heaven. The relationship is one-dimensional: God loves you. Your love in return is preferable but largely viewed as optional.
The Genesis 1 lens makes our relationship about partnership. You’re forgiven, you’re grateful, you’re re-enlisted in God’s mission. The relationship goes both ways. It is about God’s love for us and our response to that love through joining in His mission and purposes.
I've come to call this a design-first approach to faith—the idea that you were designed before you were damaged, created with purpose before anything went wrong. It's not about ignoring sin. It's about remembering what came before it.
This isn’t a humanist or human self-actualization view. You cannot fulfill your calling apart from God. You’re not finding your own purpose. You’re rediscovering His purpose for you and doing it with Him.
Recall that Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (in John 20:21). He’s not just offering forgiveness and peace to His disciples. He’s recommissioning them. Reconciliation leads to mission.
This doesn’t take anything away from the work of Jesus. Rather, it embraces the fullness of what He came to accomplish. The cross is absolutely the turning point in history. Grace restores us to God. But that restored relationship isn’t the end, nor is it on pause until after death. It is the beginning of walking with God again, of partnering with Him in His purposes for creation.
I've come to call this a design-first approach to faith—the idea that you were designed before you were damaged, created with purpose before anything went wrong. It's not about ignoring sin. It's about remembering what came before it.
Start at the Beginning#
Here’s my challenge: Next time you read Genesis, start at Chapter 1 and sit in it for a while before you rush on to Chapter 3.
Let it sink in: Before anything went wrong, God looked at humanity and said they were “very good.” Before they sinned, they were made to reflect His Image and goodness to creation. The Lord invited them to walk with Him, to partner with Him to bring about His purposes for the world.
That’s your starting point. Not broken. Not defective. Not a problem to be managed.
Good. Beloved. Image-bearer. Called. Representative.
That's design-first theology. You were designed before you were damaged — and that changes everything."
Yes, Genesis 3 happens. The Image of God is marred. The relationship is ruptured. And things get worse from there. Humans desperately need the cross.
But we don’t stop at undoing sin. We move back into the relationship and embrace the commission. We don’t escape our humanity—we reclaim it. We don’t just receive God’s love, we partner with Him in His mission.
Remember the brother I mentioned earlier? When he began to see himself not as a forgiven failure waiting to escape this world, but as a restored Image-bearer with purpose here and now everything changed. He had a reason to stay. He was walking and working with God.
Next time, we’ll explore what this might look like in your daily life—your job, your relationships, your gifts. How do you live this out on Monday morning?
But for today: Where have you been starting your story? What changes if you start at the very beginning?
I’d love to hear from you.