Systematic Theology: Creation #1

You know, are we going to interpret the Bible in light of science? Or are we going to interpret science in light of the Bible?

Those fundamental questions are at stake here. Why would we be intimidated by the philosophies of men when we have the Word of God teaching us what God has said? Systematic theology's aim is to arrange biblical truths in a self-consistent whole. And if you're going to gain a proper understanding of God's creation, you must approach the subject from that platform.

We'll begin doing so today here on The Truth Pulpit. Hi again, I'm Bill Wright, and Pastor Don Green is beginning a series titled, You Can Trust Genesis. And Don, why is this first book of the Bible so important to understand?

Well that's a great question, Bill. And you know, my friend, I understand that you've probably been exposed to different people telling you that Genesis can't be trusted, casting doubt on Noah's flood or the nature of creation, who Adam is. Well, the bottom line is that you have to get the starting point right. The Gospel of Jesus Christ can only be fully understood in light of the creation, fall, and the promises that go back to the record of Genesis. What we're going to see today is that God speaks with authority, and He does so right at Genesis 1.1. Okay Don, and friend, have your Bible open and ready as we join Don Green now in The Truth Pulpit. Now I think I said that what I want to do is I want to not only teach you on creation, but I want to teach you a method of thought, a way to think about creation in a broader context.

We always have to go back to broad general principles. You always, always, always start your thinking with general principles and then work into the details, rather than starting with the incidental details that might particularly interest you. Creation is part of a bigger aspect of theology. It is part of a bigger system of theology that the Bible teaches. And the first thing that we want to look at just briefly is the theological place of creation. The theological place of creation. Where does creation fit in our overall thought about systematic theology?

After all, it is a series on systematic theology that we are pursuing. Well, we studied Revelation, we studied the character of God, and then we also studied the divine decrees. The plan that God formulated for how the universe would go before time began. God, in His eternal mind, decreed everything that would happen in the course of the universe, in the course of human history. That was all set before time began. God planned everything that would ever happen in the universe, including, as we saw, the eternal destiny of His moral creatures.

We studied the doctrines of election and reprobation. Now, the plan, as it were, is in place. What came next? Well, what came next was creation. God, having formulated the plan from all of eternity, with the plan in place, now the creation is the beginning of the execution of the plan.

It's the beginning of the outworking of the divine decrees. And so we must understand creation as being rooted in the divine decrees, rather than something that is studied separately and independently of its own accord. And so, Louis Burckhoff defines creation as the beginning of the execution of the plan contained in the divine decrees. That's our definition of creation.

We'll use two definitions. Creation was the beginning of the execution of the plan contained in the divine decrees. Now, I think this elevates creation to a whole other level when you realize that there was an entire divine plan, generated by the omniscient mind and the omnipotent power of God that is in place, and creation is the beginning of the outworking of that. In other words, creation did not happen in isolation.

It was part of the entire plan of God. And let's put a theological definition on creation, a theological definition of creation as we establish the theological place of creation. And we'll use a definition from a theologian named Herman Hoaxum of Creation, and I'm quoting here, creation is that act of the almighty will of God, whereby he gave to the things that were eternally in his counsel existence in distinction from himself. Creation is that act of the almighty will of God, whereby he gave to the things that were eternally in his counsel existence in distinction from himself. So, in other words, God had all of this in his mind eternally, but there was only God before time began. Creation is the act of his will, the exertion of his will, where those things that were in his mind were given existence.

No longer just in his mind, they had their own existence at the moment of creation. That's the theological place of creation. It follows sequentially from the authority of Scripture, the character of God, the divine decrees, now creation comes. And we understand it in that sweep of systematic theology that helps us establish its proper place in a mind systematically built on the theology that Scripture teaches.

Now, let's move on from there to point number two here. The biblical teaching on creation. The biblical teaching on creation. Now, God's revelation, the Bible, begins with creation. This is the starting point of the way that God has revealed himself to us in Genesis 1-1.

Turn in your Bibles, if you will, just so you've got your Bible open there. Genesis 1-1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And I want to point out something to you.

I'm jumping ahead in my notes here just because I want to deal with something in a different sequence than what I had originally planned. But there's something very fundamental that you need to understand about that singular verse of Scripture. That single verse of Scripture, as S. Lewis Johnson has pointed out on numerous occasions, that single verse of Scripture, so simple in its language, so simple in its vocabulary, is sufficient to refute every prevailing philosophy about the origins of the world and the meaning of existence. If you think about it, Genesis 1-1 refutes atheism because it says God created. Genesis 1-1 refutes pantheism, the idea that God is in all and all is in God, because it establishes that God is separate from His creation. Genesis 1-1 refutes polytheism, the idea that there are many gods, therefore refuting Hinduism and every other polytheistic worldview.

One God created the universe. It refutes the idea of materialism, that matter had an eternal existence. No, matter had a beginning. Things which we see had a beginning.

Before that, things were unseen. And it also refutes humanism, the idea that man is the center focus of the universe. God, not man, is the ultimate origin, and God, not man, is the ultimate reality.

And so in a single verse of Scripture, you have multiple philosophies that govern world thought refuted in the simplistic, not simplistic, in the simple language of the Bible. And so what we see here is this, beloved, and part of the reason that I wanted to jump ahead in my notes to make that point is this, is that our view of creation is a very well-defined and a very specific worldview that stands over against every other prevailing worldview in the world. And so this is a fundamental of most basic importance. This is of supreme importance in the way that we think. And because that is true, it is essential for us to get it right. To compromise, to get askew on your view of creation is suddenly to compromise the power and the position of your worldview against everything else that would rise up against the knowledge of God.

And so, beloved, we said you have to start with the question of authority. What is the source of truth? You know, are we going to interpret the Bible in light of science? Or are we going to interpret science in light of the Bible?

Those fundamental questions are at stake here. And if the implications of our prior position on the authority of Scripture and the nature of God lead us into conflict with prevailing thought about the age of the universe promulgated by NASA itself, then we're happy to take a position against NASA itself. We're not intimidated by that. Why would we be intimidated by the philosophies of men when we have the Word of God teaching us what God has said? This clarifies, in other words, this clarifies for us our position, and it calls us to faithfulness, and it calls us to recognize that we've been called out of this world not only in our moral conduct, but we've been called out of this world by the power of the Holy Spirit in our salvation.

We've been called out of the world in its whole system of thought. And because we love the Christ who gave Himself on the cross to save us, we're glad to submit to what His Word says and to believe it, to defend it, to teach it without shame and without apology. So the biblical teaching on creation, let's go back to point number two.

That'll save me time at the end. Now, there are some who say that we should not worry about the age of the earth or the time of creation, that Scripture doesn't really go into much specifics about that, and therefore we really shouldn't concern ourselves with it. We don't agree with that position. We believe that we should study all that Scripture says about creation and come to the logical conclusions and the understanding that God's revelation would give us about it. Those who say we shouldn't worry about the time of creation would silence the full counsel of God if we deferred to them. They would forbid discernment on the spirit of our age, the spirit on the way that our world thinks.

What I meant to say there, I'm getting ahead of myself here. They would silence discernment on the spirit of the world's thinking around us. If the world is young and if the world says it's billions of years old, then we shouldn't be silent about that. We need to honor the full measure of God's revelation and teach it and be faithful to it just as we would any other element of New Testament teaching on salvation, for example. The Apostle Paul made no apology when he said, I taught you the full counsel of God. Well, we're not going to be silent on things where Scripture speaks simply to avoid conflict and to avoid the ridicule of those who say that, you know, we're hillbillies with swamp fever, whatever. No, we're not going to do that. We believe Scripture teaches clearly on creation and we believe, therefore, that we are responsible to proclaim it.

And that's what we're going to seek to do today. So the biblical teaching on creation, what can we say about it? First of all, this is a subpoint. First of all, we believe that Scripture teaches that creation was recent. Creation was recent. We do not accept the teaching that the earth is billions of years old. Scripture teaches creation was recent within probably the past 10,000 years, depending on how you view the genealogies of Scripture. The whole reasoning behind this is the combined ages of the men listed in the genealogies of the Bible totals only a few thousand years. One writer, one theologian, well-known, who hesitates to uphold a young earth view admits this, and I quote, he says, it would seem to be quite foreign to the narrative of Scripture to think that millions of years have been omitted from the record, end quote. Scientific theories on origins require long ages of time to be viable, for the whole process of evolution to take place requires millions and millions of years. And if you take away the millions of years, the whole theory of evolution collapses of its own weight.

And if Scripture says that creation was recent, as we believe that it does, then there is no room for evolution to have taken place. Dr. Snelling said this in his work, and I quote, a choice has to be made between Scripture, which is authored by God, and modern science, which is authored by men, end quote. You have to decide, you cannot avoid the question. You cannot avoid the question, what is the authority for truth?

That question determines the direction of this, and you cannot avoid it. And while I have friends that are Christians that hold to an old creation view of things, I believe that they are sadly mistaken. I don't believe that you can avoid this question and do justice to the teaching of Scripture.

Here's what this means, beloved. Because Scripture is the authority for truth, therefore we must get our thoughts about time and the length of time that Scripture had, or that creation has been in place, we must get that informed by the historical book of Genesis. There is no other source of knowledge for us. And so Scripture, we believe, teaches that creation is recent. Secondly, Scripture teaches that God created in six literal 24-hour days. God created in six literal 24-hour days.

And how do we know that the Bible teaches that? Well, here in Genesis 1, let's just go through the narrative very, very quickly and simply. In Genesis chapter 1 verse 5, we're skipping over the details of each of the days of creation with what we're doing here, just for the sake of time. Genesis chapter 1 verse 5, God called the light day and the darkness, he called night, and there was evening and there was morning one day. Verse 8, God called the expanse heaven and there was evening and there was morning a second day. Verse 13, there was evening and there was morning a third day. Verse 19, there was evening and there was morning a fourth day. Verse 23, there was evening and there was morning a fifth day.

And in verse 31, God saw all that he had made and behold it was very good and there was evening and there was morning the sixth day. Now, beloved, going back maybe three years or so, we studied the book of Genesis in a very survey fashion. We did a single message on the entire Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible.

Here's something very important for you to remember flowing out of that. The first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy were all written by Moses. Scripture makes this very plain. There was a single author behind those five books, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Now, that means, that means something.

That means something really crucial. Because just from a human level, there was a single author, you would expect a consistency of thought throughout those what we call five books, but was really a single book when Moses wrote it. From a human perspective there would be consistency on things. When you add on top of that the fact that Moses was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that God was guiding him in what he said, it means that he was protected from error in all that he said. So, from the perspective just on a horizontal level of a literary composition by a single man added to the vertical dimension of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we expect and we believe that there is an utter consistency and no contradiction within the four corners of that document, right? Moses was consistent with himself, and more surpassingly, God was consistent with himself, and God who is true and therefore cannot lie, God who is omniscient and therefore cannot make a mistake revealed things through Moses that we have recorded in this single book called the book of Moses, the law of Moses, and about eight other terms that Scripture uses to describe it. That's all really, really important for what I'm about to say. To me, what we're about to say here, the most compelling manifestation of Scripture in terms of what God taught about the recent nature of creation and the fact that it happened in six 24-hour days, not six day ages and long periods of time.

What we're about to see, I believe, is conclusive and has settled this issue in my mind, never to be raised again. You must ask yourself this, how did the original audience of Moses' writings understand what he was teaching in Genesis chapter 1? How did they understand it? What did Moses intend? Now, if you only had Genesis 1 to go by, maybe, maybe you could twist it around and make it fit modern views of billions and millions of years. Maybe you could do that.

I don't think so. But if you only had Genesis 1, then there would be some, maybe some little margin of excuse for infidelity to the text. But that's not what we have.

That's not all that we have. Contained within the same book of Moses is other instruction which tells us how to understand Genesis chapter 1. And I invite you, I ask you, to turn to Exodus chapter 20. Exodus chapter 20.

And going back, you know, another thing that I could have said in this, some two, three years ago we did a series of messages on how to study the Bible and how to interpret the Bible. And one of the key principles of biblical interpretation is to let Scripture interpret Scripture. Let other passages of Scripture throw light on the passage that you're looking at when that is possible.

Well, here God has given us very clear instruction about how we are to understand it. Look at Exodus chapter 20 verse 8. Exodus chapter 20 verse 8.

There is no other way to understand this and let Scripture be consistent with itself. In the Ten Commandments, the Fourth Commandment says, remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God.

In it, you shall not do any work. You or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. Verse 11.

Four. Because in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day, therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. Keep your finger there and turn over to chapter 31 of Exodus. Chapter 31 of Exodus. Beginning in verse 12.

I'll read this passage and then we'll draw out the import of these things afterwards. Exodus chapter 31 verse 12. The Lord spoke to Moses.

Okay? We've got the Lord speaking who spoke in Genesis. We've got Moses here, so we have the same actors, so to speak, the same players, the same individuals. God and Moses that we were talking about earlier, you have them both here. God speaking to Moses, helping him to instruct the people of Israel. The Lord spoke to Moses saying, verse 13, but as for you, speak to the sons of Israel saying, you shall surely observe my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations that you may know that I am the Lord who sanctifies you. Beloved, watch this.

Look at this. That as the Lord is saying this, he's going to be using the doctrine of creation to expand his revelation of himself and theology proper. Creation is going to be that which teaches us about the nature of God itself. And so he says, I am the Lord who sanctifies you, verse 14. Therefore you are to observe the Sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death, for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people.

Look, the death penalty being instituted for those who violate the Sabbath in Old Testament Israel. This is supremely important to God. Well, if you thought defending your belief in Christ and his resurrection to an unbelieving world was challenging, it gets even more so when you assert the biblical truth of recent creation in six literal 24-hour days. But God does not and cannot lie. His word is truth. Pastor Don Green will continue our series You Can Trust Genesis on our next broadcast. Keep studying with us here on The Truth Pulpit.

Right now, though, Don's back here in studio with some closing thoughts. We want to bring God's word to you in a way that makes it alive and applicable to you and brings you into a deeper knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, if you've benefited from this broadcast, we just ask you to do a simple thing. Go to our web page or go to our Facebook page. Look us up on Facebook and just drop us a little note, just a word that would let us know that you've appreciated today's broadcast or the other aspects of our ministry. We would love to hear from you. Thank you for listening to The Truth Pulpit. We are grateful to Christ for you. Thanks, Don and friend, we'll see you next time on The Truth Pulpit.