In this lesson, Pastor Dave Capoccia overviews the Genesis 1 account of creation, compares the order of the Genesis 1 account with the order of the prevailing secular view of origins, and then considers what application Genesis 1 has for the Christian life.
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oops right let’s begin good morning so excited to see so many of you in Sunday school right here as we start new year new series that’s really encouraging to me let’s pray as we begin great Creator God Lord we want to meditate on the Majesty of you and your creation Lord help us this morning as we begin this new series and as we begin a special investigation of the first two chapters of your Divine word to understand to have a humble heart to listen to have the wisdom to consider and to have the boldness to hold fast to your truth I want to be able to explain this well in Jesus name amen all right well this is lesson one of our new series a new seven part series that we’re calling the creation Foundation you might be wondering why we’ve chosen to do a short series studying creation and studying Genesis 1 and 2 specifically and let me give you a two-fold answer first there is unfortunately a lot of Confusion And even compromise in the Christian church when it comes to the issue of creation and so we want to respond to that I want to your elders want to help you equip you for dealing with that situation and along those same lines a second reason is that understanding creation rightly from the Bible is crucial for our spiritual health and witness to the world now why is that well is it because that you need to believe a certain view of Creation in order to be saved well no thank the Lord this is not a Salvation issue though there are important implications for how you understand the gospel based on how you understand creation how you understand Genesis 1 to 2.
furthermore there are many important biblical doctrines that are affected by what you believe about these first two chapters say more about that later but more fundamentally the issue of creation is important because it is a clear test of what you and I believe is ultimately authoritative for understanding our world is the plain sense of scripture authoritative or is it man’s ideas and even scientific claims do you start with the scriptures and then assess man’s theories and ideas with the scriptures or do you start with man’s ideas theories and opinions and use those to assess the scriptures understand that to be a Christian a true Christian means to embrace a fundamentally biblical worldview a little bit of interaction here what does it mean to have a biblical worldview okay you do believe that the Bible is God’s inspired word but it’s more than that that’s right and that’s a good way to describe it Leela to have a Biblical worldview means that you see the world through what the Bible says the Bible is our ultimate foundation and Authority for truth we believe the Bible we Christians who have a Biblical worldview or ought to We Believe The Bible over what anybody says or feels including ourselves because we’re not reliable the things that in the world are not fully reliable but the word of God is god is perfect he has given us a perfect and reliable word so it is our starting point for understanding the world as we have experiences we read or view information or we encounter truth claims from various people we don’t just take those at face value we don’t just take the interpretations offered to us we interpret and respond to whatever we see and encounter through the lens of the Bible according to what it says to borrow a phrase from Ken Ham the president of Answers in Genesis we Christians look at life and the world through biblical glasses you say oh isn’t that going to make us biased no because according to the scriptures that’s the only way we can see reality clearly the scriptures are reliable people often look at life through different kinds of glasses through the glasses of man’s feelings that the glasses of autonomous human reasoning that is reasoning without God people will interpret information assuming that God is not real or that the Bible is not true or it’s unreliable and so when they look at data they interpret it in a way that’s going to distort the facts it’s going to misinterpret the information they therefore come out with a distorted view of the world distorted conclusions about the world about people about life they come to many wrong conclusions especially about the important things which is why the Bible says in the New Testament when it comes to the wisdom of the world it has become foolishness their thinking has become darkened and futile as Christians we are not to proceed that way as Paul says in Ephesians you did not learn Christ This Way we are to proceed in such a way that we start with and we stick with the scriptures we need a biblical worldview but if this scriptures are the ultimate foundation for truth even as the Psalms as a lamp to our feet a guide to our path our light to our path well how are we to understand the scriptures well the answer to that is we must let the Bible speak for itself we cannot assume meaning or Force meaning into the text of scripture According to some Source outside the Bible even our own ideas we have to let God speak from his scriptures we want to discover we want to bring out that meaning well how do you do that well to be very practical it means that you study the Bible inductively study the Bible inductively what does that mean well that’s kind of a big term for a simple idea before you form a conclusion about what a specific section of the Bible means or consequently how it should affect your life you need to actually pay close attention to what it says you need to First observe a text many in different details then interpret according to those details and then apply the conclusions you reach to your life you need to observe first then interpret then apply if you start with an interpretation you start with a conclusion and then you search the text for evidence well you put yourself in danger what’s the danger yeah you will very likely be biased you will oftentimes twist the text to make it fit the conclusion or hypothesis that you had you will inadvertently end up twisting the text but if you are willing to observe first and base your conclusions on what you actually observe in the Bible well then you have a much better chance of getting your interpretation and consequently your application correct but remember we’re not just here to learn what the Bible means but actually apply it to our lives be transformed by it so it’s with these Concepts in mind that I’d like to Embark with you on a study of Genesis one to two this is truly a foundational section of the Bible and it calls for careful understanding now we’re going to be conducting this study using some material from Answers in Genesis that’s why you see answers Bible curriculum there on this slide whose Answers in Genesis many of you remember Answers in Genesis is a Christian apologetics organization that specializes in defending the Bible’s account of creation this is true this is reliable we can proceed with this we’re going to use some of their material but ultimately we want to be captive to what the word of God says that’s what we’re going to investigate today is lesson one God creates the universe here’s our outline for today’s lesson we’re going to first overview the creation account by watching a video that goes through each verse of chapter one basically reading it for us and then we’ll discuss after that we’re going to do an activity that compares the world’s beginning sequence according to the Bible with the world’s beginning sequence according to prevailing secular Theory and then finally we’ll finish by talking through some important application questions so let’s start with an overview and discussion of the creation account so please open your Bibles to Genesis 1 that should be right at the beginning of your Bibles page one in the Pew Bible and let’s now dim the lights if we can and get a short video running this video is about five minutes and it’s basically going to read with a little bit of visual accompaniment take us through the whole chapter Genesis 1 1-31 when you’re ready in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth and the Earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said let there be light and there was light and God saw the light that it was good and God divided the light from the darkness and God called the light day and the Darkness he called night and the evening in the morning for the first day and God said let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters and it was so and God called the firmament heaven and the evening in the morning for the second day and God said let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place and let the dry land appear and it was so and God called the dry land Earth and the Gathering Together of the waters he called Seas and God saw that it was good and God said let the Earth bring forth grass the herb yielding seed and the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind whose seed is in itself upon the Earth and it was so and the evening and the morning with a third day and God said let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the Earth and God made two great lights the greater light to Rule the Day and the Lesser light to rule the night and God saw that it was good in the evening and the morning with a fourth day and God said let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that has life and birds that may fly above the Earth across the face of the firmament of Heaven [Music] and God bless them saying be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas and let Birds multiply in the Earth the evening and the morning with the fifth day and God said let the Earth bring forth a living creature after its kind livestock and creeping thing and beasts of the earth after its kind [Music] let us make man in our image after our likeness so God created man in his own image in the image of God he created him male and female he created them and 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 and God saw everything that he had made behold it was very good [Music] the evening and the morning your sixth day all right thanks for dimming the lights we can turn those back on not sure if it made too much of a difference but thank you for doing that anyways so that gives us an overview of the creation account there are a few verses that I think it it bypassed but that is the main parts of Genesis one we’re going to examine that in more detail over the next few weeks but even just from that video presentation and with the text in front of us let’s see if we can’t make some observations some preliminary observations interpretations and conclusions about this Monumental chapter one important question that we need to answer about Genesis 1 is what type of literature is it what is its genre is it a narrative a story of events told in an orderly sequence is it a poem a more figurative and emotional kind of writing that doesn’t necessarily have sequence or is it some other type of writing well rather than assuming one of those answers let’s see if we can’t determine the answer based on what appears in the text if Genesis 1 is narrative we should see a clear and orderly sequence of events in the text do we see that some of you are saying yes what evidence do you have of that what’s something you can point to you say there’s a chronology what do you mean right we do have specific time information given for us in the text in the beginning it says evening and morning there’s day one day two actually if you look just beyond our chapter a little bit at the beginning of chapter two you see a summary statement that also has time information look at Genesis 2 verse verses one and two Genesis 2 1-2 thus the heavens and the Earth were completed and all their hosts by the seventh day God completed his work which he had done and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done so we definitely have these clear time markers is there anything else we can point to to show sequence okay yeah there is a certain amount of um uh what’s what I’m looking for I can’t think of another word besides order but you look at what happens on each day and it does seem to like tie off itself kind of nicely and it says you know at the end of the day there’s evening morning it is pretty organized I think we can also perhaps this is obvious but we can point to the fact that we have these action verbs that talk about one thing happening and then another thing happening it says God created then God said God saw God separated then God said those words indicate events happening in sequence in fact it’s even more explicit in the Hebrew what you see in this passage the types of verbs that are quite frequent here are called y-ictal verbs you don’t really have to worry about that term itself except to know that that type of verb is usually used to indicate sequence if you want to over translate it then you would translate it and then this happened and then this happened it indicates sequence it’s very explicit about sequence this verb type appears frequently in narratives in the Old Testament but very infrequently in poetry now these details are significant but what about literary devices what about literary devices and stylistic elements if Genesis 1 is poetry we should see pervasive literary techniques and tended to make the text more stylized more emotional more beautiful do we see any of those kinds of techniques in the passage that’s a interesting observation if we just compare it to other sections that are obviously poetry this does seem to read differently but are there any literary elements like oh you know put a little bit of style there there is repetition in fact it is quite evident in the passage lots of things repeated actually let me ask you what are some words and phrases that are repeated In this passage and it was good and God saw that it was good what else and there’s evening and morning and then blank day okay then God said God called God made let there be and it was so we noted that repeated structure that kind of ties off each day nicely that is a stylistic choice when it says then God said there’s a description of what God created and then it finished with there’s evening and morning day x that is nice and there’s something pleasing about that is that the only literary element that sticks out here yeah Dwayne right so there’s a there’s another interesting observation if we’re talking about what genre is this passage it is significant that the vast majority of the Book of Genesis is narrative I I say vast majority because there are like I think there’s a section of Prophecy later on that is told in the poetic faction but this is a book of narrative so what would Genesis 1 be but still before we come to a conclusion there we want to know literary elements stylistic elements that are more akin to poetry certainly there’s heavy repetition there’s even this purposeful organizational structure what about symmetry oh I do have it listed up there do you notice there’s a certain amount of Correspondence between days one to three and days four to six on day one we see light created on day four we see the celestial bodies created that rule day and night and that emit light on day two we have the waters divided and the sky created and on day five we have the sea and air creatures created on day three the land appears and the vegetation is created and on day six we have the animals that are on the land created and man there does seem to be a noticeable symmetry even a pleasing symmetry to the way the creation account unfolds does that mean that this passage should be taken as poetry and that the events are not necessarily presented in chronological order don’t answer that yet let’s make a few more observations of the text and then we’ll move on to interpretation okay what period of time does this passage describe the beginning that’s what it says in verse one how much time goes by in this chapter it says six days who is doing the creating in this chapter God is and we could be a little bit more we could say it’s the Triune God we see the spirit is hovering over the waters and it also says then God said but it’s God how did the various parts of creation come into existence by God he spoke and they appeared then God said then God said sometimes it says God made but the majority of the time it says then God said and it was so and this Truth by the way is repeated in Psalm 33 6. Psalm 33 6 commenting on creation says by the word of the Lord or by the word of Yahweh the heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth all their hosts he just spoke he just breathed and it came to be this then can be called Fiat creation creation by decree creation by command all God had to do was order something to come into being and it was so and isn’t that amazing you he just ordered it it had never existed before and it just appeared amazing now we could definitely make more observations but we’re just doing preliminary ones for now let’s see if we can use these though to answer some questions of interpretation so let’s come back to that first question what genre is genoves this one this is narrative this is historical narrative from just looking at the text itself it should be obvious we have a set of event events here significant events presented in sequential fashion with specific time details that’s what a narrative is and because these events are historical ones we can include this confidently in the genre of historical narrative or simply history and as Dwayne pointed out this only makes sense because that’s what the rest of Genesis 1 is I mean not Genesis 1 the rest of the Book of Genesis is it purports to be the history of the beginning of the world and the history of Israel so it makes sense that this passage would be history as well yet what about those stylistic elements does the presence of literary devices like repetition or even symmetry contradict the idea that the passage is historical narrative can you have literary devices like that in a historical narrative yes you can in fact all the history writers in the Bible use things like these you go to the books of the rest of the Books of Moses or the Old Testament histories or the New Testament gospels you’re going to see the same kind of things that we see here repetition purposeful organization some things that make the text a little bit more beautiful that does not automatically make it poetry even in the histories that people write today they don’t write just clunky history that’s hard to read they try and make it a little bit attractive but that doesn’t mean that what they’ve written is not true or just a emotional description using a literary device does not make an account any less historical factual or true hang on a second I see some hands there but what about the symmetry well the presence of symmetry in the passage is not as significant as is sometimes argued for example Advocates of What’s called the framework hypothesis argue that Genesis 1 is poetry and does not actually indicate the exact order or events of creation and they assert that the tight symmetry of creation days one to three and three to four to six shows that Moses was presenting a nice topical view of creation rather than a chronological view of creation they say Moses was just using six days it’s kind of like an organizational framework it was just convenient to talk about it that way to summarize generally what God accomplished in creation over what was really an indeterminate amount of time they say that in days one to three we are presented with the main Realms of creation light seeing air land and then in days four to six we get the rulers of those Realms we’ve got sun moon and stars we get to see in air creatures we get the land animals and man so this type this very purposeful organization come on that is too tight that is too neat and nice for it to be a chronological account this must be figurative well there are two main problems with that argument what’s one of them did you say something Judy okay it is an opinion but is it faithful to the scriptures that’s what we want to find out uh Danny okay okay so there’s first of all this isn’t one of the things I was thinking of but it’s worth noting there’s first of all all the other details in the text that argue historical narrative okay we gotta deal with those somehow you may have this symmetry in part but what about all those other details but there are still two other fundamental problems uh go ahead magnet okay okay so how does that make it so that how does that prove or how does that disprove their assertion because they actually might say exactly you can’t talk about the micro until you talk about the macro this is just all an organizational framework this is just convenient way of talking about it see this isn’t necessarily historical though I think you’re on to something two big problems first is the symmetry does not work the way that they assert it does the Symmetry is not as tight as they say it is because let’s look at it again what is created on day one light is created on day one but is that the only thing created on day one moreover it’s not the created realm of day one light is not a realm it’s something that exists in a realm and multiple realms they talk about water being the created realm of day two but water was already existed on day two it was not created on day two it was just divided on day two and divided on day three as well actually land it wasn’t created on day three it already existed on day three so these Realms did not come into being all nice and neat on these one two three days moreover there’s a problem with this assertion about the rulers of these realms they say that on you know days four five and six we get the different rulers of these Realms but the animals of day five and six they are never made rulers of these Realms that’s not what the text calls them in fact there’s only one creature in this text who’s designated as a ruler and which animal I’m sorry which creature is that man man is given Dominion over the earth and its Waters and the creatures of the waters sea and sky I’m using Waters Earth and Sky so this nice little tight framework doesn’t work quite the way they say it does so there’s a problem but here’s an even bigger one it does not follow that symmetry means figurative non-chrotological account why not it’s nice and orderly they say that must be it means it’s not factual why is that not a Fair conclusion to make yeah Dwayne exactly there’s nothing to say that if it is indeed symmetrical that God couldn’t have done it that way in fact just as Wayne was saying that would make sense for God to do it that way he is an orderly God it would make sense for him to go through Creation in a nice orderly way in fact that appears to be not just a a chance thing but look again at the situation described in verse 2 when it comes to the Earth it says the Earth was formless and empty or we could translate that the Earth was unformed and unfilled well what then proceeds in the narrative in days one to three God gives form to the Earth and Heavens divides the waters divides the sky causes the vegetation to appear and on days four to six we then see God filling the heavens and the Earth with his celestial bodies with the animals with man so that’s no figurative framework that’s just a logical progression based on God’s assessment of the Earth in verse 2.
so based on the Symmetry or based on the repetition of the text that is no reason to take this text as non-historical rather we have significant details that argue that this is a narrative of historical nature so this is one fundamental conclusion that we need to come to right at the beginning Genesis 1 even with the stylistic choices that Moses makes it is clearly historical narrative that’s going to have many important implications for how we interpret this passage and we’ll look at those in later classes but let’s look at some let’s consider some other questions of interpretation the first part of Genesis 1 1 says in the beginning in the beginning of what in the very beginning beginning in the beginning of time in the beginning of the universe and if this passage describes the beginning of the universe then what existed before Genesis 1 1.
only the Eternal God only the Triune God there was nothing else in the universe because if there were it’s not really at the beginning but someone might ask wait a second what about the angels I’m not mentioned in the text maybe they existed before the beginning well the Bible doesn’t give a very much information when it comes to Angels though we do know from the Bible that the Angels were created Colossians 1 16 says Colossians 1 16 speaking of Jesus says for by him all things were created both in the heavens and on Earth visible and invisible whether Thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things have been created through him and for him now that’s a significant statement about Jesus as God and Creator but note when it talks about things visible and invisible Thrones dominions rulers authorities that’s not just talking about human rulers actually those descriptors are used in other places in the New Testament to talk about Angelic beings I’m thinking of Ephesians 6 in particular they’re part of the group of things invisible and Colossians says Jesus created them Jesus created those Angelic beings they’re spiritual rulers also we know from The Book of Job that Angels were present during some portion of creation because Job 38 Job 38 4-7 records and this is in the midst of God’s reproof of job job 38 4-7 where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth tell me if you have understanding who said its measurements since you know or who stretched the line on it on what where its base is sunk or who laid its Cornerstone when the morning Stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy morning Stars sons of God those can’t be phrases that apply to human beings they must be understood as referring to angels from The Book of Job so Angels were rejoicing when God laid the foundation of the earth which should either be on day one or day three so we know that Angels were definitely created but when were the Angels created can’t say for sure John MacArthur and one of his sermons on creation he reasons that Angels were probably created shortly before they could do their function I mean that would just make sense and their function is to proclaim the revealed glory of God and to minister in his creation so MacArthur suggests that the Angels were created on day one or day three Answers in Genesis takes a similar view don’t know for sure but Angels were created during the creation week now it recorded us for specifically in Genesis but it must be that way because it says in the beginning now go back to Genesis 1 1. the second part of the verse says God created the heavens and the Earth what exactly does that phrase mean I don’t know if you’ve ever stopped to think about it but is this a summary of God’s creation activities on days one to six which are then explained in more detail in the rest of the chapter or is it actually a description of what God did first on the first day did it create the heavens and the Earth and then create light or is this just a kind of catch-all description and light is the first thing created there’s some difficulty in this question but I’m going to present to you that I believe Genesis 1 1 is a description of God’s first creative acts rather than a simple summary of the rest of the chapter and let me tell you why because notice again in Genesis 1 2 the description of the earth State before God creates light God’s notes that it was formless and void but what else do you notice about the Earth from that verse it was dark okay it’s formless it had a surface what else say that Danny it had water and it was there the Earth was there it had water on it it was dark but it was formless and void now that’s significant because nowhere else in the days of creation does it say that God created land or water it’s already there even on day three as I noted earlier day three is not the creation of land but the what of land say that again that’s right it just appeared on day three the waters moved out of the way the land appeared it wasn’t created so when were they created for the more days two and three do not describe the creation of water on the earth just the separation of water we talked about that so it would be strange for Moses to assert that the very first creation act would be the creation of light when that light shines on an empty unformed Earth because that raises the question of where did the Earth come from where do the waters come from where the Earth and Waters previously created before day one were they eternally existent wouldn’t it be much more natural to considering it is day one the first day in the beginning wouldn’t be much more natural to mention the Earth’s actual creation with its water before describing its state in the creation of light now there is one difficulty of taking this View on day two it says that God separated the waters by an expanse and he called the expanse heaven wait if you’re saying that Genesis 1 1 is a description of God’s first creative acts that says he created the heavens and the Earth day two says that God created heaven on that day doesn’t that contradict didn’t God already create the heavens in Genesis 1 1 on day one rather than day two well my reply to that objection is yes God did create the universe and the heavens on day one yet they were unformed they were incomplete really this idea of filling in what was incomplete it it’s what drives the flow of the narrative God creates the Earth the Earth was unformed and empty but then he continues swimming it and filling it it’s the same thing with the heavens in Genesis 1 1 the heavens are created that is the unfilled Cosmos but they’re not fully formed and they’re still empty so the expanse on day two is part of completing the forming of the heavens and the celestial bodies of day four thou would be part of filling the heavens so what’s happening with the Earth over days one to six is also happening with the heavens on days one to six so I don’t believe Genesis 1 1 and Genesis 1 2 or um Genesis account for what happens on day two really contradict one another so to summarize when I’m presenting to you I assert that Genesis 1 1 is not a summary of the preceding account of creation but the description of God’s first creative Acts if you don’t buy that you say Dave it really sounds like a summary or if you think that as many good men do that it’s both both a description and a summary I’m not sure how that works but okay if you take either one of those views well then I would at least insist that you accept what is stated explicitly in Exodus chapter 20 verse 11. Exodus 20 11 says for in six days Yahweh made the heavens and the Earth the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day therefore Yahweh bless the Sabbath day and made it holy did you hear what Exodus 20 11 says in six days God made the heavens and the Earth they were created as part of that span of six days so even if if Genesis 1 1 is a summary implied in that summary is that God created the earth and the water on day one of the creation week and not before it’s part of that span it couldn’t have happened on any other day other than day one why is that significant well that means that there is no room to believe in eternally existent matter or what is called The Gap Theory the idea that billions of years went by between Genesis 1 Genesis 1 1 and Genesis 1 2 God created the heavens and the earth a whole bunch of time went by then God did the rest no Exodus 20 11 doesn’t leave room for that you cannot fit an old Earth between the first two verses of the Bible all right not another question Exodus 2011 Exodus 2011 yeah it’s part of the Ten Commandments and actually has to do with another question well we’re going to ask in a second now if you’re in Israelite listening to the law of Moses being read before going into the promised land or being read soon after you’ve come into the Promised Land why should this passage be significant to you what is the main point that you’re supposed to get from this account in Genesis 1 or in Genesis 1.
what do you think I heard Mike say God is God um uh Glenda we’re gonna say something more right it’s revelation of who God is Judy I couldn’t hear the last part of what you said yeah very good so they do need to go even as a Mike and Glenda were saying they need to know who the true God is especially because they’re about to go into another land where there’s going to be temptation to worship all these other gods who seem to have created or have some important role in creation and Moses is clarifying God’s clarifying through Moses from the very beginning they’re not Gods they’re not creative they’re not the ones who sustain this universe I am so don’t look to them to me can we say anything more yeah Emma Okay so it’s going to be an explanation of where man came from Man was created by God why is that significant for the Israelites okay so the Israelites man didn’t always exist so why is that significant okay they had to come from somewhere they came from God so what obligation do they have towards God that’s right that’s right so this isn’t just a matter of okay which God are we going to go with are we going to go with that God or this God there are no other gods there’s no other Creator in fact if he created you then you are responsible to him he’s the one that you should see and more than that look at how we created this wasn’t hard for this God this wasn’t some ordeal where he’s like man I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to pull this off he just commanded it and it was and it was good now why is that significant for the Israelites yeah mark Ed Psalm 33 and I love where it says he’d spoke and it was done he commanded and it stood fast and to my I had you might have come across uh evolutionary creationists right they say that God created through a process I think that doesn’t say he spoke at a kickoff hmm yeah okay so you said a number of good things there this is really emphasizing the power of God’s word and that has certain implications about some attempts at integrating um modern Theory with the creation account but again just thinking specifically about what the Israelites were facing they’re not just going in there and Counting other gods they’ve got something to do when they go into the promised land what do they got to do they got to conquer it they gotta fight enemies they gotta do battles against a people several peoples that probably all together are more numerous than the Israelites and they’ve got fortresses they’ve got chariots how are you going to beat these guys well you’re going to trust God you’re going to trust God who is powerful who’s the creator whose word makes anything sure and come to pass you don’t have to fear those enemies if you have the creator of God on your side so this is so significant for the people of Israel in terms of their being directed to trust God to believe in God to worship God to rely on God as they obey God and of course that isn’t just something that they needed to hear that’s something for us too isn’t it and I’ll talk more about application in just a little bit this is not just informational this is meant to be transformational yeah sure in the beginning was our beginning your question is did we establish that in the beginning was our beginning in a way yes right so this isn’t the beginning of God no right and I think the rest of the scriptures make that clear especially when God is explaining his name and um Exodus 3 I believe it is Exodus three and four to Moses tell them Yahweh sent you I am I’m the self-sufficient one I wasn’t created I’m the one who um no I don’t need anything from anybody so this isn’t the beginning of God but yes it is the beginning of our world now technically we weren’t created on the first day so I don’t want to say in the beginning and like man was right there at the exact first moment of time but yes this is the beginning of our world this is the beginning of our history and we are very close to the beginning of the world we receive our beginning and our first parents let me keep moving though why would six days be important later for the Israelites exactly this is kind of basic but it’s important this pattern of how God created the Earth Works six days rested on the seventh that would become the direct pattern that was commanded for Israel they were to keep the Sabbath because God had Sanctified the Sabbath when he rested on it that’s actually when I quoted you that passage from Exodus 20. that’s the context it’s the Sabbath command of the Ten Commandments he says why do you do this because this is the way God created that is significant because some people say well why would God create in six days couldn’t he do it all in a moment of course he could have but he chose not to why because he wanted to set a pattern actually kind of an interesting Factor church history Augustine did not believe in literal Six-Day creation kind of funny the reason why it had to do with some uh uh adoption of Greek philosophy but he reasoned that God would have created everything all at once because he’s a powerful God I see where he’s coming from but that’s not what the text says and let’s not paying close attention to the pattern that God was setting it’s not as if God needed to rest on that seventh day but he wanted to send a pattern yeah yes God maybe yeah are we really going to accuse God of second thoughts when he he himself says this is a very good creation hang on to that comment I want to make sure we have enough time for everything and I think we already went through this last one why would it be important for the Israelites to realize God’s ownership and omnipotence so that they would seek Him and they would trust him now we’ve done our overview of the passage some have tried to take creation sequence given in Genesis 1 and they’ve tried to fit that with what is popular today the Big Bang evolutionary model for the origins of the Earth and universe and life and they suggest that we can integrate these two things we can take the six days that are given in the accounts of Genesis 1 and interpret them not as literal days but long ages millions of years they were part of the process of a process of creating the earth I mean Genesis 1 is not wrong but these are figurative days well can the Bible in modern secular Theory really adhere to one another in this way let’s do an activity to find out calling this the order matters and we’ll go through this kind of quickly what we’re going to do is we’re going to take certain stipulations of the typical secular scientific view of the Universe At the beginning and we’re going to compare it to the biblical view so what’s actually said in Genesis 1. so I’ve got nine main assertions we could do more but nine main assertions from the secular view of Origins and let’s compare it with the Bible number one in the secular view of Origins the sun was formed before the Earth but in the biblical view which came first the Earth came before the sun which we see in verse 1 and verses 14 to 16.
in the secular view number two the earth started as a molten ball but in the biblical view what is the beginning state of the Earth covered with water it’s formless and covered in water which is what verse 2 tells us number three in the secular view the stars were formed before the Earth in the biblical View the opposite the earth was formed before the Stars Earth is formed on day one stars are formed on day four in the secular view the dry land was present before the oceans but in the biblical View you add water before you add land or the water was covering anything that the land hadn’t appeared in the secular View FC creatures evolving before land plants in the biblical View you have plants created before any creatures were created number six in a secular view trees evolved long after a simple plants appeared but according to the Bible they were created at the same time there’s no gap between these two things of plants and the trees created to the same day same time in the secular view land reptiles evolved before Birds in the biblical View Birds created first Birds created on day five reptiles which would be in the category of creeping things created on day six and the second review the reptiles of all before mammals in biblical view great at the same time day six in the secular view humans evolved long after mammals in the biblical View created same day now probably humans were the last creatures created but we’re not talking about thousands of years apart we’re talking like minutes apart both on day six now we could do more comparisons but I think you were seeing a pattern let’s draw some conclusions hang on to that question does Genesis 1 seem to indicate that the events described happen in a particular order yes clearly how consistent are the order of events between the two views the biblical and the secular they’re not consistent at all in fact they’re opposite in many ways if you really were determine what might you do to make the secular view align with the biblical View you have to reinterpret the Genesis 1 account you have to take what it indicates it means and you have to ignore that and you have to interpret it in another way and this is what many people do you make the days mean vast periods of time and make the days overlap with one another you make the days topical rather than chronological that will enable you to fit a secular view of Origins into the Bible but you’re not actually letting the Bible speak because really are the secular and biblical views compatible with one another they aren’t they aren’t you have to reinterpret the text in order to fit old Earth assumptions in there this only destroys God’s original meaning the text indicates historical chronology and sequence you have to compromise that to fit the secular view you have to contradict the text you cannot let it what it you cannot let it mean what it clearly indicates to you that it means and the Israelites they saw nothing in the text to interpret it according to an old Earth Big Bang evolutionary worldview you’re never going to get that from the text and neither virtually did any Christian interpreter until about the year 1800 nobody looked I shouldn’t say nobody we ever have Augustine but virtually nobody who was a Christian looked at the Genesis 1 account and said oh this is in history this is just figurative who knows how God made the world he might have used some crazy process we’ve never heard of virtually no Christian no Israelite did that before the year 1800 what happened in 1800 well Enlightenment ideas made Christians begin to compromise so why should we today say that the text indicates something different than God’s people have interpreted to indicate for more than three thousand years nobody got it right until Modern Man we shouldn’t have pause if that’s what we’re going to assert we can trust the Bible’s account of creation over the scientific and philosophical assertions of men today only God’s word is completely trustworthy and authoritative they say but what about the specific objections well we’ll get to those in the coming lessons we’ll talk more about why today’s prevailing scientific theories and the Genesis account can’t coexist but for now I hope you see that these two of you have Origins they are fundamentally opposed to one another even in simply the order of how things took place so we’ve overviewed the Genesis account today the creation account and we’ve compared it to the evolutionary view of Origins with our last minutes here let me take us through some application questions and I’ll have to do this quickly too many people claim that the Bible doesn’t tell us how God created it just tells us that he did create is that an accurate statement based on the text of Genesis 1.
it’s not it’s not the passage says many times how God created he spoke he commanded and it came to be Psalm 33 6 confirms this Hebrews 11 3 also does it says the worlds were prepared by the word of God the Bible is not fuzzy about this number two as we approach this topic in conversations with fellow Believers what should be our attitude it’s good for us to have a Zeal for the Lord but we got to remember first Peter 3 15. but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts being always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you yet with gentleness and reverence this is not a salvific issue this is not something that you should call somebody a heretic over you should want them to go into hell no good for you to be zealous for the truth people who are caught up in the error of trying to integrate secular Theory with the Genesis account or just take it figurative that’s going to be hurtful to them that’s going to be hurtful to the church but this is a topic that we need to approach gently and in love many different positions in today’s Church on creation will talk about some of them as we go forward it’s worth talking about but with gentleness and reverence and as we seek to persuade our Brethren when it comes to the right view of creation what should we use as our chief support the word of God always go to the scriptures scientific evidence has a place but even that has to be interpreted according to a worldview and we need the biblical worldview after all creation was a supernatural event it doesn’t fit strictly with the natural logs we observe today you need a supernatural witness to understand it and what do you know we have it in the scriptures God was gracious to provide it so when we’re talking about this with our Brethren let’s not argue simply based on scientific data let’s direct our Brethren to the ultimate Authority which is the word of God speaking of this persuasion what about when talking with unbelievers should our approach to supporting the biblical view of creation look different when we’re talking with those who are not Christians not really we should still be going to the Bible as our ultimate support in either situation I mean actually that’s part of showing people where the real Authority is if you go to some Authority outside the Bible to prove the Bible Well the Bible’s not really the ultimate Authority it’s whatever you point it to though there will be one difference in how we talk to unbelievers about creation that we want to make sure that creation and convincing them about creation is not ultimately what we’re after we want to give them the gospel we want to bring them the word that saves we can persuade them about creation but if we leave them in the dark when it comes to their soul we’ve done them a disservice number four if we suggest that the account of Creation in Genesis is a myth or an allegory what important biblical doctrines would be affected we could point to a number of them anderancy is infected because what the Bible says is not true marriage how you understand marriage is affected gender sexuality man your anthropology original sin if Adam if the first man and woman weren’t correctly created the way they were then how does original sin work total depravity Christ who is said to descend from the first man and woman the gospel because even the gospel connects with creation because we talk about the first Adam and the last Adam these all are connected so there’s good reason for us to want to get this right and to help our Brethren get this right this isn’t just like oh you know if you get if we want to talk about corrosion I guess we can no this is this is important and then finally we touched on this earlier how should understanding that God created the universe in six days by simply speaking it into existence affect us well the same way was meant to affect the Israelites God’s omnipotence should give us faith in his promises if he speaks the world into existence he can be faithful to whatever he’s promised you he is able to give New Life to all those who call upon him because he gave life in creation God’s Majesty should give us awe and thankfulness in being able to know him God’s ownership should convict us about rebellion and cause us to seek reconciliation with him through the one who is who is God’s only intermediary Jesus Christ so there’s much for us even to apply just from this first chapter of Genesis now I know there are some other questions or comments from hands raised but I wanted to make sure that we can and we could get through all the things we want to talk about today but you still have those comments and questions come see me after class or email me or something like that this is just the beginning of our series next week we’re going to be looking more closely at the first four days of creation and we’re going to especially investigate the meaning of the word day a Hebrew word Yom how are we supposed to understand that word when creationists come and say oh it’s just you know 24 hours are they really justified in saying so well look at that together if you’d like more information on this topic of course you and I can talk about it but I also recommend answers in genesis.org and they have a lot of good information there and also recommend the book coming to grips with Genesis biblical Authority in the age of the Earth it’s a collection of essays from Seminary professors and others on different issues related to Creation maybe you have questions and like I really want somebody who’s thought about this a lot to answer it well you’ll find a lot of great answers in that book so check those out yeah very good so beyond just yeah not beyond the website we also in our Book Nook and probably in our lending library we have a number of resources from Answers in Genesis good for you good for some other people that you know good for your children as well all right let me close there hope to see you back next week for God you are the mighty Creator You Are So Glorious Lord just even hearing this account and seeing it visually depicted Lord I’m brought back to awe like wow I can’t believe God you just thought this all up and then you spoke it Lord You Are God you are worthy of Glory you are worthy of our devotion and worship Lord help us help us to not become timid about what your word says about you because your word is reliable when the world contradicts that and says no no no that can’t be how it happened what would help us to truly have a Biblical worldview to start with and stick with your word knowing that the word of the Lord proves true and you are shield to all those who trust in you in Jesus name amen thank you