THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION
Notes
Transcript
LESSON 5
THE BIBLICAL ACCOUNT OF CREATION
Text Genesis 1:1
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. 29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. 30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. 31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Introduction
Introduction
Of all the doctrines the Bible teaches, one of the most attacked, ridiculed, and criticized is that of a literal, six-day creation by God’s miraculous power.
Over the years, many unbelievers have worked to undermine the Christian belief of creation and replace it with secular humanism’s belief in evolution. These efforts have had an impact.
Secular Humanism=A belief system that rejects religious dogma and bases its morality, ethics, and decision-making on human reason.
This attack on God’s existence and His power is not a new attack.
The idea of denying God as the creator has been around since the days of the early church. Peter described scoffers who rejected the idea of a literal creation and a worldwide flood.
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
They are “willingly ignorant” because they do not want to acknowledge the truth.
A Creator has the right to make demands of His creation. And He has the right to judge those who refuse to obey His laws.
To avoid facing this truth, people will believe the most ridiculous things and will vehemently reject anyone who challenges their belief.
Courts have even ruled that teaching the theory of intelligent design—the idea that the complexity of life around us could not possibly have come about by random chance—as a contrast to evolutionism cannot be allowed because it is too close to creationism.
In reality the theory of evolution requires faith and belief, just as the truth of creation does.
Evolution is not based on scientific experiments that verify the origin of the world. Those would be impossible to conduct. Instead evolution is based on a series of suppositions and theories that all have one thing in common (even though many of them contradict each other): a rejection of God.
For the Christian, creation is an important truth. If we cannot believe Genesis 1–2 which describe God’s creation of the world, how can we believe anything else the Bible teaches?
If the Bible is not reliable in its opening chapters, can it be trusted at all?
If we cannot trust all of the Bible, we cannot trust any of the Bible.
Today, we will study three reasons so we can confidently believe in the biblical account of creation.
1. The Testimony of the Creator
1. The Testimony of the Creator
The debate between evolutionists and creationists, who both attempt to use scientific evidence to back up their claims, has one thing in common: neither side was present at the beginning of the universe.
But God was present. And He has told us how He made the world.
4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare, if thou hast understanding. 5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who hath stretched the line upon it?
5 Who laid the foundations of the earth, That it should not be removed for ever.
We can trust God’s account of creation to be accurate because of the supernatural nature of His revelation and because of His reliability.
A. His Revelation
A. His Revelation
Although nothing in science which is properly understood and interpreted contradicts the biblical account of creation, science is not our primary source for a belief in creation.
Rather, we base our belief on the fact that God’s description of creation is accurate and aligns with what we see to be true around us.
Although many people have tried to discredit the creation account of Genesis 1–2, there is no science that can prove or disprove the origins of the universe.
Since no one was there to witness the beginning of the universe, both conclusions are accepted by faith.
Believing requires faith in a Creator, while believing evolution requires faith in chance.
Neither side is able to conduct any experiments that would validate either view of the beginning of life.
Each must decide what he will believe based on what he chooses to regard as authoritative and reliable.
It is faith, not science, that underlies every belief—whether creationism or evolution—about the beginning of the world, and faith in God’s Word is much better than faith in the changing ideas of scientific theories.
3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
Henry Theissen defined divine revelation as, “The act of God whereby He discloses Himself or communicates truth to the mind, whereby He makes manifest to His creatures that which could not be known in any other way.”
The created world shows us God’s power. The biblical testimony of creation is that God merely spoke, and the world came into existence.
9 For he spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.
Creation also reveals God’s self-existence. He is the uncaused cause of all things. This is sometimes described by the Latin phrase creatio ex nihilo, which means “creation out of nothing.”
That God is eternal and has always existed, predating His creation, is referred to throughout Scripture..
10 And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: 11 They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; 12 And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.
Not only is God self-existent, but He is pre-existent and separate from His creation.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
An evolutionist worldview, on the other hand, sees matter—not God—as preeminent.
One author said it this way: “The Humanist worldview holds to evolution, rejecting the biblical teaching of creation of all things by God. It is a materialist worldview, which argues that matter and energy are all that exists … The atheist scientist Dr. Carl Sagan stated the materialist view in his television series, ‘Cosmos,’ claiming, ‘The Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.’”
Although the evolutionist sees the universe as comprised solely of matter and energy, the biblical Christian sees instead that “God, and infinite Spirit, precedes, is distinct from, and creates matter. God is eternal, matter is not.”
Notice these verses that describe the eternal grandeur of God.
8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, And my servant whom I have chosen: That ye may know and believe me, And understand that I am he: Before me there was no God formed, Neither shall there be after me.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Frankly, it takes more faith to believe the “uncaused cause” that brought everything into existence is matter and energy that one day exploded bringing the universe and all that is in it into existence, than it takes to believe that an omniscient, omnipotent, eternal being—God—created it all.
Quote: “I think people who believe that life emerged naturalistically need to have a great deal more faith than people who reasonably infer that there’s an Intelligent Designer.”-Walter Bradley, specialist in materials science and mechanical engineering
“Darwinism is merely materialistic philosophy masquerading as science, and people are recognizing it for what it is.”—Jonathan Wells, scientist in molecular and cellular biology
B. His Reliability
B. His Reliability
The testimony of the Creator is not only a revelation of Himself through creation. It is also His reliability as seen through creation.
The very fact that our world is still held together and continues is testimony to the reliability of God.
17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
This verse not only contradicts evolution, but it also contradicts the idea that God created the world and then set it in motion to run its course.
The word consist in Colossians 1:17 means “to place together, to band together; to be composed of.”
God is actively involved in His creation today. He literally holds everything together, and it is only through His power that the world continues to exist.
The testimony of the Creator is true and trustworthy. But that’s not the only reason we believe in creation. There is also the testimony of creation itself.
2. The Testimony of the Creation
2. The Testimony of the Creation
The work that God did in making the world bears witness to His power and glory. It is unmistakable to those who are willing to look and see.
Though creation does not give the details of God’s plan for the salvation of the world, it does reveal that He exists and that we will one day face Him and give an account of ourselves to Him.
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament sheweth his handywork. 2 Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night sheweth knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor language, Where their voice is not heard.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
The Bible opens with the statement, “In the beginning God created.”
A form of create is used fifty-three times in Scripture, and most of those times are used to note God’s act of creating the universe.
How then does this universe testify of its Creator?
A. Its Product
A. Its Product
God is a God of order, and the world that He made reflects that. God assigned an appointed and designated place for everything that He made, and it functions just as He intended.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
Notice the word set. It means “to put, appoint, assign designate.”
God specifically set the sun, moon, and stars in their places with divine order. If these varied even in minor details, life as we know it would be impossible.
Simply put, the universe is too orderly, intricate, and precise, to have happened because of an explosion, and it is too perfect to be the result of chance.
Notice just a few of the features of God’s design:
Notice just a few of the features of God’s design:
• An ideal solar system—Less than a 5 percent variation in the distance between the Earth and the sun would kill all life, either through excessive heat or excessive cold.
• An ideal galaxy—The Earth is part of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is a spiral galaxy—the only kind suitable for life.
Slide Universe
• An ideal gravitational field—Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system acts as a “vacuum cleaner.” Without Jupiter’s gravitation field, Earth could potentially be hit with large fragments from outer space which would have a devastating effect on all life.
• An ideal sun—90 percent of the stars within our galaxy are red dwarf stars. Our sun is a rare perfect star to give off the precise amount of heat without producing a lethal amount of radiation.
• An ideal moon—If the moon were larger or smaller, it would cause our rotation around the sun to slow down or speed up, and produce tides that caused flooding, or were too small to maintain the health of the oceans.
These features are surely not the result of chance. They are the product of creation.
B. Its Purpose
B. Its Purpose
God did not make the world because He needed something He did not have. God is eternally self-sufficient, and we do not add anything to His power. We cannot increase His resources by anything we possess or do.
God does not need us, but He desires to have a relationship with us.
So it was His desire to make the world and everything in it, and that is why He did it.
Our lives are part of His plan, and everything around us is a reminder of His power and perfection.
16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.
The fact that God had a purpose in His creation applies to us as individuals as well. We are not the products of chance or accident.
We are intentionally-created beings who have been designed for God’s pleasure.
When we offer praise to Him, we are fulfilling one of the primary purposes of our existence.
13 For thou hast possessed my reins: Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. 14 I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Marvellous are thy works; And that my soul knoweth right well. 15 My substance was not hid from thee, When I was made in secret, And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16 Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; And in thy book all my members were written, Which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
C. Its Perfection
C. Its Perfection
Though the world we live in today is broken and marred by the effects of sin, when it was originally made there was nothing in it that was not perfect.
Though the world we live in today is broken and marred by the effects of sin, when it was originally made there was nothing in it that was not perfect.
The beauty and wonder that we see in the world is only a shadow of what once was. Everything that God spoke into existence filled its place in His plan, and it all worked together.
Nothing that God made failed to fulfill His purpose, and when the creation was complete, God gave it His seal of approval.
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
One day God will restore the perfection that the world enjoyed before the Fall of man. All of the pain and suffering and heartache and labor that came into the world as the result of sin will be wiped away.
The Bible tells us that even the creation itself suffers the impact of sin and groans under the effects of the Fall. We who know Christ look forward to the day when pain will be replaced by joy and God reverses the effects of the Fall during Christ’s millennial reign.
22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
Meanwhile, the order and beauty that still exists despite the Fall is a testimony to the goodness and graciousness of God.
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
3. The Testimony of the Conflict
3. The Testimony of the Conflict
One of the indicators that the truth of creation is so important is the amount of work the devil puts into undermining it.
One of the indicators that the truth of creation is so important is the amount of work the devil puts into undermining it.
If it were a minor issue, Satan would not devote so much effort to convincing people of the lie of evolution, nor would he be doing so much to spread it. His purpose is to undermine faith in God and His Word. That is what he did to Eve in the Garden of Eden, and he is still doing it today.
A. The Realm of Rebellion
A. The Realm of Rebellion
There was a time when Satan, known as Lucifer, held an exalted position in Heaven. He was bright and glorious, a leader among the angels in the worship of God. Yet that was not enough for him. Rather than fulfilling the purpose of his creation, Satan determined that he would become the exalted one himself.
In Paradise Lost, John Milton described Lucifer’s rebellion as a decision that it would be “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
The purpose of everything that the devil does is to undermine the plan of God. He is constantly working, not for the betterment of others, but for their destruction and doom. We should expect nothing less from the one Jesus described as “a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8:44)
We cannot trust anything that Satan says.
10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
Satan was not just content to draw away some of the angels who once served God. He set his sights on the human race that God had created.
From the very beginning he focused his attack on the reliability of what God had said.
1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
If Adam and Eve had believed God rather than Satan, they would not have disobeyed God in the only thing He had commanded them not to do.
The teaching of evolution is a direct assault on God’s trustworthiness and reliability.
Either God is correct in what His Word declares—and creation happened just as He said it did—or He is a liar who cannot be trusted.
One of the purposes of the theory of evolution is to corrode faith in God.
Evolution provides an alternative explanation not just for the world around us, but for a future where there is no one to whom we must give an account for our lives.
Biologist Francisco Ayala said Charles Darwin’s “greatest accomplishment” was to show how the development of life is “the result of a natural process, natural selection, without any need to resort to a Creator.”7
Michael Denton, an Australian molecular biologist and physician, agreed that Darwinism “broke man’s link with God” and consequently “set him adrift in the cosmos without purpose.” He also wrote, “As far as Christianity is concerned, the advent of the theory of evolution … was catastrophic … The decline in religious belief can probably be attributed more to the propagation and advocacy by the intellectual and scientific community of the Darwinian version of evolution that to any other single factor.”8
Satan works to cloud the judgment and vision of people so that they will not see and understand the truth. He does not deal in truth but in deception.
He can present convincing arguments, but his purpose is not to illuminate what is real—it is to conceal it.
Evolution is a prime example of the way Satan’s deceptions leave people blind to the truth.
4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
Evolution requires that people disregard what God has said, and many people find that preferable to having to deal with the fact that there is a Creator and a Judge we all must face.
There is a false comfort in evolution that allows people to indulge their desire not to think about the God who made everything around us.
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
Interestingly, scientific evidence has increasingly contradicted Darwinian theory with facts that support a Creator or at least intelligent design.9
Yet, by and large, non-Christians still refuse to acknowledge this evidence.
Biochemist Michael Behe of Lehigh University said,
“The conclusions of intelligent design flow naturally from the data itself—not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs …. The reluctance of science to embrace the conclusion of intelligent design … has no justifiable foundation …. Many people, including many important and well-respected scientists, just don’t want there to be anything beyond nature.”
This willful ignorance is not unlike what the apostle Peter described.
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
Interestingly, this passage refers to the worldwide flood, described in Genesis 6. Evolutionists, of course, deny this biblical account, in part, because it emphasizes man’s accountability to God and God’s right to judge man. But, in reality, the flood answers many questions raised by non-believing scientists and archeologists. Simply put, the fossils that evolutionary scientists suggest support the evolutionary process exactly fit the evidence of what we would expect if there had been the worldwide flood that Scripture records.
B. The Road to Restoration
B. The Road to Restoration
The Lord is merciful, even to those who initially reject Him. And He offers a pathway for sinful man to know Him—through the death of His Son on the cross.
We saw earlier that men reject the message of creation because they reject the Creator. The key to knowing God is not simply faith in creationism or intelligent design. It is faith in the revelation of the Creator. It is to take God at His word—to believe we are sinners and that He has paid for our sin. It is to turn to God in repentance and faith.
21 Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
If you don’t know Christ as your personal Savior, He invites you to turn to Him and call on Him for salvation.
If you do know Christ already, understand that the primary message you have to share with this world is not creationism—although that is an important truth. The primary message, however, is a message of how to know the Creator Himself. Faith in God is not irrational.
In fact, it is the only rational response to His revealed truth. Even some of the most ardent evolutionists and atheists have been won to faith by the power of the gospel.
Rick Oliver has his Ph. D. in Biology from the University of California, Irvine. He is a member of the American Federation of Herpetoculturalists, the California Science Teachers Association, and the New York Academy of Science. In an article describing how the intricate design of creation pointed him to Christ, he wrote the following:
“I remember how frustrated I became when, as a young atheist, I examined specimens under the microscope. I would often walk away and try to convince myself that I was not seeing examples of extraordinary design, but merely the product of some random, unexplained mutations…. Even as an atheist, I could not get away from the evidence…. Eventually, by God’s grace, I accepted the simple, yet compelling, truth of the Bible.”
Conclusion
Conclusion
We see throughout the Bible and in the world around us a three-fold witness to the reality of creation:
The testimony of the Creator: God told us plainly that He made the world.
The testimony of creation: The intricacies and complexities of the natural world agrees with the biblical account of divine creation followed by the Fall of man.
The testimony of the conflict: The very vehemence of the attack on a logical conclusion of creation evidences a deeper motive of rejecting God.
If we surrender on the topic of evolution in order to be accepted by the world around us, we are giving up a key distinctive of our faith.
When you study the history of the teaching of evolution, you will find a constantly-changing set of beliefs. The theory is continually being adjusted, often in contradiction of what was widely believed just a few years before.
But the Word of God has given the same explanation for the existence of the universe for thousands of years. Instead of being pulled into the confusion of evolutionary teaching, turn to God and to His reliable Word.
Your Creator can be trusted!
Chappell, Paul; Chappell, Larry. Avoiding Confusion Leader Guide: Interpret Cultural Issues through a Biblical Worldview (pp. 122-144). Striving Together Publications. Kindle Edition.