SS - Creation

What are the essentials of the doctrine of creation?

What are some of the theological ramifications of creation?

What does creation show us of God?

Doctrine of Creation - “God created the universe out of nothing, it was originally very good, and he created it to glorify himself” - Grudem

God created everything

Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

God created the universe out of nothing - Ex Nihilo

God did not use material to create the word. He spoke

Psalm 33:6–9 “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; he puts the deeps in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.”

John 1:3 “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

“heavens & Earth” & All Things = The Universe

Acts 17:24 “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,”

Hebrews 11:3 “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

Time

Trinity is involved in creation

Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…”

God spoke the earth into being Genesis 1:9–19 “And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater…”

The Son carried those words

John 1:1–3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

Colossians 1:16 “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”

The Spirit is sustaining & manifesting Gods presence in creation

Genesis 1:2 “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”

Humans in creation

All of creation God speaks EXCEPT for humans

Man & Woman were created by his very hands and his very breath

Genesis 2:7 “then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”

Genesis 2:22 “And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.”

Man & Woman were only creation created in the Image of God

Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Humans have a distinct, special, role & place in creation

Science & Bible

Sometimes science is proven wrong, sometimes we have misinterpreted or read into the bible what is not there

Galileo taught earth was not center of universe but sun was

Condemned by Rome

Thought sun revolved around earth

Ecclesiastes 1:5 “The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.”

1927 – Georges Lemaître: A Belgian priest and physicist proposed that the universe is expanding and originated from a "primeval atom"—what we now call the Big Bang. This was one of the first modern formulations of the idea.

1929 – Edwin Hubble: Provided observational evidence that galaxies are moving away from us, confirming that the universe is expanding. This supported Lemaître's idea.

1948, Fred Hoyle, Thomas Gold, and Hermann Bondi proposed the “Steady State Theory” which claimed

Universe had no beginning or end

The universe is expanding but it’s continuously creating new matter

In 1965 Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson accidentally discovered Cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) Big Bang

Radio signals from milky way

Static that they couldn’t figure out where from

Turned out to be this CMBR

Sarcastic label coined as joke

Fred Hoyle - “These theories were based on the hypothesis that all the matter in the universe was created in one Big Bang at a particular time in the remote past.”

Essentially ended steady state theory & won nobel prize in physics in 1978

Resistance and pushback on this inside the scientific community

Theological implications

It implied the universe had a beginning - sounded too much like genesis

Hoyle & others feared it opened the door to non-scientific explanations

BBC Interview - Hoyle - "The reason why scientists like the 'Big Bang' is because they are overshadowed by the Book of Genesis. It is deep within the psyche of most scientists to believe in the first page of Genesis."

The Bible was right and modern cosmology even seems to support that.

Evolution (Natural Selection)

Scientific problems

Philosophical problems

No meaning, goal, purpose. Why do anything

Human exceptionalism

Human agency

Can’t trust the reasoning you used to come to conclusion on natural selection

Theological problems

Death before the fall

Age of the Earth

The Bible’s primary goal is not to tell us how old the earth is

They weren’t asking that question

Genesis as a Polemic against pagan myths at the time

Pagan Myths

Many Gods

Chaos vs order

Enuma Elish - Creation results from violent conflict

Deification of nature

Sun, moon, stars, sea

Egyptian sun God Ra

Human Worth

Humans did dirty work

Francis Schaeffer “No final conflict” lists several areas where there is room for disagreement among Christians who hold firmly to the scriptures

Possibility of Grown up universe

2. Possibility of break between Gen 1:1 & 1:2 or between 1:2 & 1:3

3. Possibility of long day in Gen 1

4. Possibility that flood affected geological data

5. The use of the word “kinds in gen 1 may be quite broad

6. Possibility of death of animals before the fall

7. Where the Hebrew word bara is not used, there is the possibility of sequence from previously existing things

As an apologetic:

Why is there something rather than nothing?

How does anything, let alone everything we see, come from nothing

Distinct but dependent creation

God is distinct from his creation.

He is separate, holy, altogether transcendent from it

Actively involved

Job 12:10 “In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”

Acts 17:25 “nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

He did not create the world and then sit back

Dependent

Creation is entirely dependent on him

He did not need creation

Creation for God’s Glory

Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”

Isaiah 43:7 “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.””

Revelation 4:11 ““Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.””

Creation is Good

Genesis 1:31 “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

1 Timothy 4:4 “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,”

It is still good even though it is filled with sin

Asceticism - Use and enjoyment of creation is bad