What About Origins? (CreationPoints)
Page 4
‘But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord’ (2 Cor. 3:18)
‘Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God’ (Rom. 5:1–2).
One of the cardinal factors in the plan of God to restore us was that God himself was to take upon himself the likeness of sinful flesh: ‘But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons’ (Gal. 4:4–5). At the right time, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, became flesh and suffered so that we could be reconciled to our Creator:
‘For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit’ (1 Peter 3:18)
‘For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings’ (Heb. 2:10).
To comprehend this fully, we must appreciate the incarnation and the virgin birth—the fact that God, who is absolutely holy, resided in a body of human flesh. Jesus Christ was God in human flesh—it was not sinful flesh but was in the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom. 8:3).
The purpose of the incarnation was so that God could be the Saviour as well as Creator. In his humanity, however, God had to be ‘holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners’ (Heb. 7:26). Had Jesus Christ’s body been made by the normal process of reproduction, such a statement could not have applied. The body of Jesus Christ was specially prepared by God, and this is why he had to be born of the virgin Mary: ‘Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me”’ (Heb. 10:5). The Greek word that is translated ‘prepared’ in this verse is the verb katartizo. What is remarkable is that this same word is translated as ‘framed’ in Hebrews 11:3: ‘By faith we understand that the worlds were framed [katartizo] by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.’ In other words, the same processes that were employed in the preparation of Jesus Christ’s body were used in the ‘framing’ of the worlds—that is, special creation. In his perfect body, Jesus Christ, the Son of God dwelt among the people of the world. In his body, Jesus Christ:
‘grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him’ (Luke 2:40)
‘increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men’ (Luke 2:52).
The main purpose of God’s intervention into the affairs of man (as many like to put it) was to procure our salvation. To do this, the sinless Son of God not only had to die on the cross of Calvary, but on that same cross he who knew no sin also had to be made sin and bear the punishment for our sin: ‘For He [God] made Him who knew no sin [Jesus Christ] to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him’ (2 Cor. 5:21).16 Hence the perfect and sinless Son of God took our sins upon himself and was sacrificed for us—so that our sins could be forgiven. This, then, is the gospel, the Good News: sin which placed a barrier between God and humankind has been dealt with by God; ‘… the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin’ (1 John 1:7).
This is the only way to God—in and through Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son. But this is only part of the gospel message. The apostle Paul wrote the following to those in the church at Corinth: ‘For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures’ (1 Cor. 15:3–4). Here is good news indeed—Jesus Christ is alive! No wonder those who kept guard over Christ’s tomb and the religious leaders of the day could not produce the body of Christ after his death—he had risen from the dead! No wonder the writer to the Hebrews could write, ‘Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them’ (Heb. 7:25); and ‘… how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation …?’ (Heb. 2:3).
So far, we have considered the perfection of the original creation, the Fall and its consequences for us and the whole physical creation, and God’s plan to restore us to our former glory. This plan is referred to in the Scriptures as ‘God’s new creation’. This new creation began with salvation and will be complete when God makes all things new: ‘Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away’ (Rev. 21:1). In 2 Peter 3:9–14 we are warned to be mindful of this— and, indeed, we should be.
Although someone who is redeemed is referred to as God’s new creation in 2 Corinthians 5:17, as yet there is not a full restoration to the original creation. We are told in the Scriptures that those who are redeemed possess a ‘guarantee’ of it (Eph. 1:14) and have ‘tasted’ of the heavenly gift (Heb. 6:4); its fullness, however, is still to come. Although we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (Rom. 5:2), and although we can experience a progressive restoration even now towards it (2 Cor. 3:18), the full unveiling of the children of God in the full liberty of the glory of God is yet to come (Rom. 8:18–23). The regeneration of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5), which the Christian has already experienced, is a foretaste of the regeneration yet to come (Matt. 19:28). The creation will only be restored to its former glory when God creates a new heaven and a new earth; then will be fulfilled the vision of Isaiah:
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
The leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
Their young ones shall lie down together;
And the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play by the cobra’s hole,
And the weaned child shall put his hand in the viper’s den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,
For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD
As the waters cover the sea.
(Isa. 11:6–9)
‘The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
The lion shall eat straw like the ox,
And dust shall be the serpent’s food.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,’
Says the LORD.
(Isa. 65:25)
At last the glory of the Lord will once again fill the whole earth, as prophesied by the prophet Habakkuk: ‘For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea’ (Hab. 2:14). Amen!
Conclusion
In this chapter we have seen the scriptural evidence for the fact that God is the Creator of all things. The Christian’s acceptance of this doctrine is based on faith—faith in the authority of the Word of the living God who is wholly unaccountable to anyone, and by whom, as well as for whom, all things were created. No wonder this faith is so contrary to the faith of evolutionists, for whom the doctrine of special creation is so repugnant. Finally, we have considered how the original creation was marred and how the restoration of the whole creation is part and parcel of the message of the gospel. The creation message is, therefore, not a side issue or something we can ignore in order to keep the peace and unity with other believers. Rather, it is foundational to the understanding of our need of salvation.
Notes
1 Mark Twain, quoted at: twainquotes.com/Faith.html.
2 Dr John Whitcomb in an audio tape message entitled ‘The Creator and His Methods’ in the series The Bible and Science (Send the Light Trust, c.1976).
3 Mark Twain,
quoted at: twainquotes.com/Mississippi.html.
4 Ibid.
5 Richard Dawkins, quoted in ‘Faith v Fact’, 7 January 2005 at: guardian.co.uk. Until his retirement in September 2008, Professor Richard Dawkins held the Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford.
6 Edwin G. Conklin, Man Real and Ideal, quoted in Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried (New York: Dell, 1971), p. 127.
7 Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (London: Penguin, 1968), p. 293.
8 Whitcomb, ‘The Creator and His Methods’.
9 Exact reference not known.
10 L. T. More, The Dogma of Evolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1925), p. 304.
11 See section entitled ‘Atheism and Evolution’ in Chapter 9 and also Dr Tommy Mitchell and Dr A. J. Monty White, ‘Is Evolution a Religion?’ in Ken Ham, (ed.), The New Answers Book 2 (Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 2008), pp. 207–217.
12 Laura Sheahen and Dr Richard Dawkins, ‘The Problem with God: Interview with Richard Dawkins’, 11 November 2005, at: www.beliefnet.com/News/Science-Religion/2005/11/The-Problem-With-God-Interview-With-Richard-Dawkins.aspx.
13 Sir Julian Huxley, ‘At Random: A Television Preview’, interview for CBS, 21 November 1959; transcript published in Tax, vol. 3, pp. 41–65 (1960).
14 William Kethe, ‘All People that on Earth Do Dwell’, 1561.
15 The reason why the forbidden fruit is thought of as being an apple is because in the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible, the word ‘evil’ is quite correctly translated by the Latin word malus. The Latin word for apple is also malus, so people began to think of an apple when they read the Latin translation of ‘the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’.
16 This doctrine of penal substitution has been rejected by many so-called Christians since the publication of Steve Chalke and Alan Mann’s The Lost Message of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003). Steve Chalke and his co-author reject the idea of God’s having punished Christ in our stead, calling it ‘cosmic child abuse’.
Chapter 2
Theistic evolution?
Many Christians believe that scientists have proven that evolution has occurred and that it is fact. There are three main reasons for this. The first reason is that the education systems in the West indoctrinate children into believing that evolution is a fact.1 This is further strengthened by the implication that only those who are uneducated reject evolution. The second reason is that the media propagates evolution as the only explanation for the origin and development of life on earth. This is further strengthened by the fact that, when those holding creationist views are interviewed on the radio or television, they and their views are usually ridiculed. The third reason is that many influential church leaders believe in evolution and they are vocal in their opposition to a creationist interpretation of the origin and development of life on earth.
Such Christians want to believe that God is the Creator of all things. What they therefore do is come to the conclusion that God used evolution to bring about his creation. In other words, they believe in ‘theistic evolution’—that is, that evolution has occurred but that somehow God controlled the processes. They believe this without really thinking about the implications of a compromise position, for a compromise position it is—as we shall see.
I am sure that many who read this book will be surprised to realize that many pastors, elders and deacons are totally opposed to the teaching of creation in their churches. When I was Chief Executive of Answers in Genesis, I encountered churches that refused to have a speaker from Answers in Genesis because the pastor or one or more of the leadership team did not want the creationist view to be presented in the church—even though members of the church wanted a speaker to come. Sometimes it was the pastor who wanted to hold such a meeting and one or more of the elders or deacons did not want to have it. On more than one occasion I also experienced situations when a youth leader arranged to take the church’s youth away for the duration of the meeting(s) in order to prevent their hearing what the Bible taught concerning creation.
In the UK and USA, most Bible colleges do not teach creation but theistic evolution as the way of explaining how things came into existence. It is easy to determine why this has happened in the UK. In order to get their qualifications recognized by the state and by universities, Bible colleges have had their courses and qualifications accredited by a university (usually, but not always, the local one). This has enabled their students to get help towards their tuition fees and what amounts to interest-free loans from the state for their living expenses while they study. However, in order to get their courses accredited in this way, the Bible colleges have had to compromise their teachings, especially about the early chapters of Genesis; they have to teach that these chapters cannot be interpreted as being historically accurate.
There are a number of prominent and influential church leaders on both sides of the Atlantic who oppose creation in favour of evolution. One such man, who has had influence in the Anglican community, is Richard Harries, now Lord Harries of Pentregarth, the former Bishop of Oxford. In an article published in the Observer on 16 April 2006, Richard Harries made reference to his opposition to the creationist position and stated that creationism ‘should not be taught in schools’.2 Steve Chalke is a prominent Baptist leader who also opposes the teaching of creation in schools. In the UK, Steve Chalke is a well-known evangelical, TV personality and adviser to the UK government on religious matters. He is the founder of Oasis Trust, an organization which undertakes mission, healthcare, education and housing initiatives not only in the UK, but across the globe. When the Oasis Trust announced in 2004 that it was planning to open a new faith-based Academy School in Enfield in North London, Steve Chalke said that the creationist view of origins would not be taught there. He was quoted as saying, ‘My personal belief is that … those who wish to read into Genesis chapter one that God made the world in six days … are not being honest and scholarly. It won’t be taught in the school because I think it’s rubbish. It’s a bizarre thing to claim the Bible suggests that’ (emphasis added).3
In the USA, Hugh Ross and his very popular Reasons to Believe website (www.reasons.org) has had a profound influence on Christian thinking in the area of origins and has caused many to believe in theistic evolution. Hugh Ross’s problem is that he recognizes not one, but two revelations from God—God’s Word (Scripture) and God’s world (nature), as stated clearly in the statement of belief found on his website.4 Although he maintains that these two revelations never contradict each other, Hugh Ross nevertheless accepts the evolutionary account of the history of the origin and development of life on earth, rather than the simple account that we read in the early chapters of Genesis. Herein lies the danger, as is pointed out by John MacArthur in his excellent book entitled The Battle for the Beginning: ‘Scripture, not science, is the ultimate test of all truth. And the further evangelicalism gets from that conviction, the less evangelical and more humanistic it becomes.’5
In general, there are two different interpretations of the early chapters of Genesis that are held by those who believe in theistic evolution. One proposes that these early chapters are poetic and/or mythical—the result of oral traditions handed down by the patriarchs in poetic or story form in order to explain problems such as sin, suffering, death, language differences and so on. This interpretation maintains that the early chapters of Genesis are not historical but contain an element of truth in them. The other interpretation teaches that the early chapters of Genesis contain a simplified historical account of the creation and early history of the earth which in no way conflicts with the evolutionary account. It is usually—but not always—the case that more liberal-minded Christians follow the first approach, whereas those who wish to try to maintain their fundamentalist views tend to follow the second. In the next couple of sections of this chapter, we will examine these two approaches.
Is Genesis mythical or symbolic?
Does the Bible teach that Genesis 1–11 is poetic or mythical? This is a question that must be answered. The Bible teaches that ‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God’ (2 Tim. 3:16), and it can be seen from 1 Timothy 5:18 that both Old and New Testaments are included in the phrase ‘all Scripture’. This means that Genesis 1–11 was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. With this in mind, we have to ask: Are the early chapters of Genesis straightforward history, or is God trying to teach us lessons in these chapters by telling us stories that did not happen—that is, by using parables or poetry?
This question has been adequately answered by Dr James Barr, who, it should be pointed out, did not actually believe that Genesis was true history. However, in a personal communication to the late David C. C. Watson on 23 April 1984, Professor Barr, who at the time was Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, wrote,
Probably, so far as I know, there is no Professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the idea that:
(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience;
(b) the figures contained in the genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to the later stages in the biblical story;
(c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.6
If this is the case, why do the majority of Hebrew scholars insist that the early chapters of Genesis need to be reinterpreted as mythical, allegorical or legendary? The simple answer is ‘evolution’. These scholars assume that evolution has occurred, so they reinterpret the early chapters of Genesis to fit the story of evolution.