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REATION IN SIX DAYS (1)A Meditation on Genesis 1:1-2:3
Many years ago Henry Ward Beecher, a strong Christian, displayed in his home a beautiful globe depicting the various constellations and stars. One day Robert Ingersoll, a well-known agnostic, was visiting Beecher, and while admiring the globe, he asked, “Who made it?” Beecher seized the moment to attack Ingersoll’s agnosticism, and said, “Who made it? Why nobody made it, it just happened!”
Christians say, “In the beginning, God.” Evolutionists say, “In the beginning, Bang!” The battle over cosmogony (the origin of the universe) is fierce. Even armchair philosophers understand that ideas have consequences. And the consequences that flow out of cosmogony are myriad and monumental.
Genesis (which means beginning) is the beginning of the Bible; it is the beginning of creation; it is the beginning of our history; it is the beginning of our faith. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen…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” (Heb. 11:1, 3). By faith we believe that the universe was created by the spoken word of God ex nihilo (out of nothing), because this is the testimony of Scripture. “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host…For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Ps. 33:6, 9).
The battle rages over cosmogony, because if this domino falls, the rest will follow suit. Again, ideas have consequences. If there is no Creator, there is no God; if there if no God, there is no Lord; if there is no Lord, there is no lawgiver; no lawgiver, no objective standard of right and wrong—no absolute truth. Without a Creator there is no real meaning or purpose to life, apart from what we make up as we go along to make life bearable. Also, history is not moving in a specific direction, except toward eventual annihilation, because according to the second law of thermodynamics (which doesn’t take into account Christ upholding the universe by the word of his power, Heb. 1:3) everything in the universe is breaking down. So the day is coming when the sun will cease to shine, and that will spell the end. Naturally there is no life beyond the grave, so you might as well live your life according to the philosophy of a beer commercial, and go for all the gusto now. This is the logical conclusion given the premise. The apostle Paul agrees, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die’” (1 Cor. 15:32).
Let’s not be naïve, evolutionists have an agenda. Aldous Huxley admitted, “No philosophy is completely disinterested. The pure love of truth is always mingled to some extent with the need, consciously or unconsciously felt by even the noblest and most intelligent philosophers, to justify a given form of personal or social behavior, to rationalize the traditional prejudices of a given class or community.” Obviously he was referring to Christian morality. Huxley also confessed that “he and most of his friends had accepted the theory of evolution as a means of escaping from Christianity” (Ralph A. Smith, Trinity and Reality, p. 52). Charles Darwin saw the implications clearly, he said, “A man who has no assured and ever-present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution or reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones.” Now, at last, without the Lord of creation, Huxley and the other evolutionists were free to indulge in every kind of sin and deviant sexual behavior they could dream of.
Ralph Smith writes, “If we say, ‘In the beginning, Bang!’ our confession of faith will lead to moral, ethical, social, and political con-sequences. Animal rights, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia are part and parcel of a new ethical system that is being promoted at Princeton University. A crucial assumption of Peter Singer’s popular ethics text-book is a logical conclusion of evolution; there is no reason to assume the superiority of the human race above other species. Besides promoting political policies that involve the redistribution of wealth and restrictive laws to protect the environment, Singer advocates legislation to limit the use of animals for experiments, while at the same time liberalizing our rights to terminate human life. Of course, not all evolutionists agree with Singer, but his views show us the kinds of practical issues that bring cosmogony and worldview into the political arena. In the end, the battle for the hearts and minds of men is never separated from the story of the beginning” (Ibid., p. 52-53).
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REATION IN SIX DAYS (2)A Meditation on Genesis 1:1-2:3
Genesis one tells us that God created the heavens and the earth, which includes the sun, the moon, the stars, the oceans, the mountains, the trees, the birds, the fish, the land animals and man (male and female) in six days. Modern man educated by Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species and Carl Sagan’sCosmos scoffs at this idea, because they assume that billions and billions of years were necessary. On the other hand, when a Christian considers the Genesis account of creation in six days he too scratches his head, but for the exact opposite reason. What puzzles the Christian is why God would take such a long time to create the world, when he could have easily done it in less than six nanoseconds. We could say to the evolutionists, what Jesus said to the Sadducees on one occasion, “You know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.”
The real question is, “Why did God stretch out the creation of the world, so that it took so long?” Why this drawn out almost ceremonial process? For example, on day one we have the command, “Let there be light” followed by the response, “and there was light.” Or, on other days, we read, “And it was so” (Note: “And it was so” immediately, not over billions of years). Then God steps back, as it were, and evaluates his work: “And God saw that the light was good.” Sometimes there is naming: “God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.” Finally, we have the time indicator: “And there was evening and there was morning, the first day” (Gen. 1:3-5).
The light that God spoke into existence on the first day of creation confounds many, since the sun, moon and stars weren’t created until the fourth day of creation. So what exactly is the light on the first day that preceded the other lights? It is the physical manifestation of the glory of God, brought forth by the Spirit, who was hovering over the face of the waters. The world began with God’s glory being its light, and it will end with God’s glory being its light for all eternity. In Revelation 21, an angel shows John the New Jerusalem, and John says, “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (vv. 22-23). “Some have argued that the first three days might have been longer than twenty-four hours, since the sun was not made to measure days until the fourth day. This, however, puts the cart before the horse. The day as a period of time already existed, and the sun was made to fit it” (James Jordan, Through New Eyes, p. 11). The sun doesn’t determines the number of hours in the day, God does.
If you have trouble remembering what God made on the different days of creation, think of Gen. 1:2a as an outline—it isn’t perfect, but it is helpful: “The earth was without form and void.” The NIV says “formless and empty,” which is not redundant; rather it provides us with a helpful distinction and outline. On the first three days of creation God gives the earth form, and then on the second three days of creation God gives the earth fullness, so that it is no longer void. Also, there is a correspondence between days one and four, two and five, as well as three and six. On day one we have light and darkness, and then God fills that with the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day. On the second day God separates the sky and the seas (I know, God didn’t call the waters Seas until the fourth day, which is one reason why I admit the parallel is not flawless), then on the fifth day he filled them with birds and fish. On the third day God created land and vegetation, and then filled it on the sixth day, by saying, “‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kind—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.’ And it was so” (Gen. 1:24, italics added). Perhaps, C. S. Lewis’ graphic depiction of this verse in The Magician’s Nephew, isn’t too far off. Aslan sings and the earth bulges up all over the Garden like a pregnant women and then the earth gives birth to the different animals. Finally, God created man on the sixth day to not only fill the earth, but to also subdue it and exercise dominion over it (vs. 28).
Now, let’s answer our earlier question, “Why this ceremonial process?” Because God isn’t just creating heaven and earth, he is also providing man with an example to follow. God creates man in his image to finish the work that he began. Let that hit you. God creates this vast universe, and then he hands it over to us, and says, “Here, I give you dominion over the work of my hands, and have put all things under your feet” (Gen. 1:26; Ps. 8:6). Then God rests on the seventh day, once again providing us with an example to follow (Ex. 20:8-11).
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