Today we continue our series entitled, The ABC’s of faith. The larger idea is based on the idea that we learn over time through an exploration process of success and failure. Everything we come to know and understand is built over time on the foundation of trial and error.
We learned last week, the wooden blocks we have all played with were an idea in 1594, a practical concept 100 years after that, and only then it would take another 175 years to be mass produced as the blocks we know and love from Brooklyn, New York.
Last week,Peter and I talked about belonging and this week we continue with the beginning “C” alliteration by building on the ideas of Christian awareness, belief, behavior, belonging to Creation as part of our Christian witness. These are the building blocks (or the major aspects) of Christian identity that help us to withstand the storms of life.
In the beginning, God made a perfect Creation?
Was it really six days?
I’d like to start with a story. It was a number of years ago now, there was a very intelligent young person who came to his pastor to talk about the theory of evolution. He was concerned because in his science class the teacher and the texts said evolution is how the world came into being but this differed from his Sunday and youth group teaching, so which is right and how could he defend it. The pastor gave the young man two very detailed chapters from the book, Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey. The young man studied the pages and created a debate chart for every point the public textbook was promoting. Throughout the next few classes, the young man armed with the facts would raise his hand and politely reject the teacher’s assertion of truth. Eventually, the teacher sent the boy to the principal's office for being disruptive. The parents were contacted. The boy told his side. The parents (a lawyer and a teacher) were impressed and reached a quiet solution with the school for the boy’s grade for the science unit that promotes evolution over intelligent design.
There are a couple of facts many don’t understand. Evolution is a theory of creation. It is not a fact. It can’t be proven conclusively. Do you remember the original beaks of birds we drawn by Jonthan Wells in Icons of Evolution in our public school science books? They were used to show the evolution of finches over time. The truth is the beaks drawn were actually just a seasonal fluctuation due in part to the rain fall in the region. It was an adaptation. Or remember the fruit flies, the two wing versus the fourwing version. PBS did a special promoting this as proof. However, the theory of evolution states mutations occur to better species. The fruit flies' new mutations didn’t have any muscles to move the extra set. It wasn’t evolution. It was a mutation. It didn't create a new species. Just a less efficient fruit fly. Or remember the drawing of the embryos by German scientist Ernst Haeckel. It started with a small embryo and 24 embryos later it showed the development of the fish all the way to a human. The problem is, even in Haeckel's day (over 150 years ago) they accused him of fraud and since then, even the journal of science has called Haekels drawing as “one of the most famous fakes in biology.” It was a manipulation. And yet, the information is still used as fact often used to justify the naturalism inspired worldview so prevalent today. If you want more info on this, I have copies of the chapter on the back table.
My point is as a Christian, we must understand the scriptures to combat the heresies the culture and evil one will throw at us to undermine our faith. So today, I’d like to jump into Genesis one to give a little of the basis for a Christian Worldview. So if you have a bible, please open it to the beginning: Genesis 1:1.
While you’re pulling it up again, let me remind you: The word Genesis means "beginnings." Genesis tells the story of the beginning of the universe, solar system, earth, life, man, sin, Israel, nations, and salvation. An understanding of Genesis is crucial to our understanding of the rest of Scripture. For example, Genesis chapters 1-11 are quoted or referred to more than 100 times in the New Testament alone. And it is over these chapters that the primary battle for the historicity of Genesis rages. All of the first eleven chapters are referred to in the New Testament. Every New Testament author refers somewhere to Genesis 1-11.
Jesus Himself, on six different occasions, refers to Genesis, thus affirming His belief in their historical nature.
Mark 13:19—Jesus references God creating the world.
Matt 19:3-6 (Marriage), Mark 10:6-8 (Divorce),
Matt 23:29-36 and Luke 11:50-51 (Cain/Abel history),
Matt 24:37-39 and Luke 17:26-27 (Noah/Flood),
John 14:9-11(Godhead),
John 1:3 (Creation from formless)
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
This gives us three great truths foundational to biblical creationism and the Christian faith.
First, God is one. This stands in contrast to the polytheism ( the belief in or worship of more than one god) of the pagans and the dualism ( division of something conceptually into two opposed or contrasted aspects) of modern humanist philosophy (thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters).
Second, God is personal and exists outside of creation. This is in contrast to (pantheism) the universe as a manifestation of God, which sees God as (immanent) working with the confines of the world BUT not transcendent.
Last, God is omnipotent (all powerful) and eternal (forever). This is in contrast to the idols that people worship. God was before, is now, and always will be—He created all out of nothing by just His spoken word.
We must look to biblical creationism as the basis for our value system. The creation narrative must be factual and not just a myth, for, if it is fictional, then the values it imports are man-reasoned, subject to change as man “evolves,” and therefore invalid. The basis of the modern-day conflict between science and religion (especially Christianity) is the assumption that (atheistic) science is fact and religion is merely superstition and myth. If this were true, then our Christian values have no relevance in the secular world.
Now, it's at this point people ask about the idea of intelligent design. Intelligent Design is compatible with biblical creationism, but it is not an inherently religious position. Because Intelligent Design does not specify who the Designer or designers actually are, it can be God or Alienism or? Again, we must look to the scriptures to find the basis for our understanding of the world. Which leads us to my second question from the scriptures read today: Did God create the world in six days? Why? Couldn’t He have just spoken into being because afterall he is all powerful? Let’s jump down to Genesis 1:31
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
The truth is God operates beyond our understanding of time. However, the word used in Genesis for day is the Hebrew word, “Yom” which represents a day as we understand it by the rising and setting of the sun. The word can mean an indefinite period of time when the context calls for it. However, in this case “Yom” means sun rising and setting. The carbon dating folks tend to raise the objection then about our understanding of time.
Did you know it is estimated today, by naturalistic scientists, that the universe is around 13.8 billion years old? This means that if you try to argue for theistic evolution or an old earth creation position, then man was created billions of years after the world. As such, the evolutionary timeline makes no sense considering what Jesus says about creating man at the beginning of creation or with what the Bible teaches about God forming the earth to be inhabited.
In fact, carbon dating has recently been called into question. In a summary of a scientific article published in the Science Daily by Cornell University in 2018, the conclusion stated:
"There has been much debate for several decades among scholars arguing for different chronologies, sometimes only decades to a century apart -- each with major historical implications. And yet these studies ... may all be inaccurate since they are using the wrong radiocarbon information," Stuart Manning the lead scientist said. "Our work, should prompt a round of revisions and rethinking for the timeline of the archaeology and early history of the southern Levant through the early Biblical period.”
So why did God use six days when he could have done it in one? There are many theories. One of the scriptures I like to lean into on this question is Exodus 20:11 “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
I believe God limited himself to what he could have done in one day. He chose six days to highlight the importance of trusting in Him through our need for rest, redemption, contemplation and worship of Him on the seventh.
I say this knowing we don’t have to know why or all the “ins” and “outs” of God’s self-limitations to believe that he does limit himself and that his self-limitation has tentacles into the rest of our faith in the world. Specifically, the reason for evil in the world. That is, it is the indirect reason but not, of course, the cause. God allows evil without foreordaining it or rendering it certain.
Why He intervenes to prevent or stop it sometimes, and not other times, we have no way of knowing that anymore than we can know why Jesus could sometimes do miracles and other times could not. The reasons are hidden in God; he has not seen fit to tell us what they are. We know faith sometimes plays a role. Sometimes obedience does. But we can’t know all the reasons. I, for one, would rather believe God limits his power than believe that God’s power is the ulterior reason for all the evil present.
As we return to the foundation of Creation, I agree with Professor Dr. Chris Bruno from Wheaton college who said, “(the biblical) story can be summarized by creation, fall, redemption, and new creation. At the beginning and end of the message—the story of the Bible—we have creation. God created, and God will create all things new one day. Even as we trace the story throughout redemptive history, we have this repeated emphasis on God's creation power.”
The biblical account of creation is a pillar of our faith and Christian worldview because it states unequivocally our reliance on God and our purpose on earth knowing mankind will continue to challenge God’s supremacy from the moment of man’s corruption which we will explore next week.
Creative: Blocks on Stage, Reading of Scripture prior to preaching, MJ reading, Handouts, video for lent
References: Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey, Chapters 5-6, Wiersbe Commentary (Genesis)
https://www.crossway.org/articles/why-is-creation-so-important-for-understanding-the-bible/
https://bible.org/article/why-we-believe-creation
https://www.gotquestions.org/biblical-creationism.html
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180605112057.htm
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2010/08/gods-self-limitations/
