Sermon Tone Analysis

Worldbuilding

In 1933, C.S. Lewis wrote to his friend Arthur and told him about a new story that J.R.R. Tolkien had been sharing as a part of the regular Inklings meetings the two were taking part in.

The story that Tolkien was sharing had its start in January of 1930, when the story started with the sentence, “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.”

But this new book about Hobbits was not the beginning of what would become one of the most popular fantasy series of all time in the Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien loved languages and studying how those languages came to be.

In 1917, Tolkien started writing stories laying out a history of Middle Earth.

He developed languages for this world, including the elvish language.

By the time Bilbo Baggin’s story was told, a whole fleshed out history existed that would only be hinted at and glimpsed in the novels to come.

This process is called worldbuilding, and the very best authors follow a very similar process to flesh out fantastical worlds that feel lived-in.

Without this backstory, themes explored in Lord of the Rings would have been flat.

Of course, as C.S. Lewis would observe, all stories told are themselves but an echo of one true Story.

Christmas Worldbuilding

In the same way that Lord of the Rings did not exist in a vacuum, neither does the story of Christmas.

John 1:14 tells us that

Some have said that the Incarnation is the greatest miracle found in the Bible.

God became flesh.

This great miracle did not happen in isolation, but instead was the fulfilment of God’s promises.

For this week, and the next two weeks, let’s explore the development of the great theme of God dwelling with us in God’s Word.

Eden

As we consider the foundations of the Christmas story, let us begin at the very beginning of history itself, in the story of Creation and the Garden of Eden

Creation Under Attack

Why do we start here?

Isn’t the creation story just a made up myth?

There have been attacks on the creation account told in the Bible from both outside and inside the church over the past century.

The enemy, working from the outside, knows that to destroy the doctrine of creation is to call into question the entirety of God’s revelation.

Almost all of us in this room have likely had to at some point battle with the athiest doctrine of Evolution in our education.

Enemies Without

If you have not, your children or grandchildren certainly will.

Hypothesis will be presented as facts, and gaping holes in the macro-evolutionary theory will be conveniently ignored.

Students are presented with seemingly only a few choices.

Some will be persuaded and begin what will likely be a path towards abandoning their faith.

Some will argue back in class, inviting ridicule and persecution upon themselves, while standing fast for the faith.

Most will probably take the path I did, privately disagree, but regurgitate the teaching on the tests to get a passing grade.

Enemies Within

While the attacks upon the doctrine of creation from without are the more obvious battle.

Perhaps the more insidious attacks upon creation have been from within.

For several generations now, attempts have been made to somehow harmonize the teaching of the Bible with scientific hypotheses.

All of these attempts have in common the attempt to suggest that somehow the historical teaching of the Bible can be discarded while somehow preserving the spiritual truths of the Bible.

These attacks on creation continue even to this day.

A popular apologist, and the author of the book we used as a seminary textbook for Apologetics, William Lane Craig, just this year published a book undermining the reliability of a real, historical, Adam.

He spends almost 300 pages trying to insist that his naturalistic understanding of the creation story doesn’t undermine his Christian beliefs, but largely his arguments are under-baked, and fall flat.

He argues that,

“while the doctrine of original sin depends crucially on the fact of a historical Adam, Christianity need not embrace the traditional doctrine of original sin, but may content itself with affirming the universal wrongdoing of human beings and their inability to save themselves.”

Despite the fact that Craig argues himself in circles, he completely forgets that it is not only the doctrine of original sin that gets lost when you chuck the doctrine of creation, but indeed the entire foundation of God’s revelation culminating in the birth, death, resurrection, ascension and coming return of Christ is destroyed.

Creation Defended

For those that don’t know, Grace has a series of position statements that have been adopted by the elders.

One of those statements deals with the doctrine of creation.

Let me read it for you the first part of this statement.

We believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

We hold a high view of creation, while recognizing that throughout history, believers have adopted a variety of interpretations regarding the details within the opening chapters of Genesis.

Without insisting on a particular scientific view, we believe the sovereign and eternal God created by His Word all that exists within this universe, that at the end of six morning-and-evening days, this creation was perfect and complete, and that the rebellion and disobedience of the first man resulted in the corruption and ruin of that perfect creation.

Further, we believe that after the Fall, God launched His plan of redemption by which He is reversing the curse of disobedience and bringing believing people back to a restoration of the initial goodness of creation.

Some folks get a little hung up on the sentence in there, “without insisting on a particular scientific view.”

What we’re talking about there are several different ways that folks have held to the Biblical doctrine while attempting to explain the astronomical, geological and archeological discoveries being made.

For example, one view holds that the flood not only was a worldwide catastrophe, but that God’s judgement actually altered some of the fundamental scientific laws like the half-life of carbon.

There was a great documentary that used to be on Netflix called, “Is Genesis History?” that explores this theory.

I think you can rent it on AppleTV

Personally, I hold to a little bit of the that theory, with a whole lot of what is called the “Ideal Time” theory.

Essentially, if you were to meet Adam on, say, day eight, you would clinically conclude that he was likely in his middle ages, giving his physical and mental development, when he was actually only a couple of days old.

In the same way, rather than create the universe from a big bang beginning, and then working out the process over billions of years, He just started in the middle, with the universe, the solar system, and earth appearing to have undergone the processes suggested by the scientific laws He established in the universe, but in reality, the universe is actually just a few thousand years old.

But I majorly digress before I’ve even really started.

However you put together the story of Creation, what is important is that you understand that this isn’t just a story or a myth, but it is foundational to understanding the world we live in and to see God’s plan of redemption worked out through His Son Jesus Christ.

Relationship Created

With that presupposition of the creation account in Genesis being a true story laid, let us begin in Genesis 1 and 2.

Genesis 1:26–31 (CSB)

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.

They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

God also said, “Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed.

This will be food for you, for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth—everything having the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.”

And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed.

Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.

There is a lot here to unpack, and if you look back in the sermon archives, Pastor Bill worked through these creation passages several years ago in his series on the book of Genesis.

What I want to focus on this morning is on the relationship between God and the man that he had created.

In verse 27 of chapter 1, the text tells us why God’s relationship with man is different than that of the animals and plants and indeed all other living things including the angels.

It says that God created man in his own image.

This final creation bears the very image of God!

In chapter 5 of Genesis, it reminds us,

Genesis 5:1–2 (CSB)

On the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God; he created them male and female.

When they were created, he blessed them and called them mankind.

This image bearing has implications of why the life of each and every person is precious.

When establishing His covenant with Noah in Genesis 9, which itself is a sort of re-creating event, God reminds them,

How we treat our fellow image bearers is also important.

James reminds us that we commit a grave sin when we curse our fellow image-bearers.

A person could spend a whole sermon series or a class exploring the implications of the imago dei doctrine.

It is not an understatement to say that much of Ethics fundamentally is dealing with Imago Dei implications.

God didn’t just create another creature when he created Adam and Eve, He poured out his image on them.

Lest you doubt how precious this is to God, spoiler alert, but those made in His image were precious enough to Him to send His Son to die a cruel death on a cross that they might be reconciled restore the relationship He created in the garden.

What was this garden like?

Genesis 2:4–9 (CSB)

These are the records of the heavens and the earth, concerning their creation.

At the time that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, no shrub of the field had yet grown on the land, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not made it rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground.

But mist would come up from the earth and water all the ground.

Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.

The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he placed the man he had formed.

The Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, as well as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.