Systematic Theology: Creation #2

When do you start taking Scripture literally?

When do you kick in? When do you start taking the Bible seriously at face value? Last time, Don helped us understand why the subject of creation is so vital to our overall faith. He also showed us why it's indisputable that creation was recent and carried out in six literal days.

Today, Don will call our attention to two more important points. So have your Bible open and ready as we join our teacher now in the truth pulpit. Turn over to chapter 31 of Exodus. Exodus chapter 31 verse 12. This is supremely important to God. This is a manifestation of His character. This is a manifestation of His command to His people. And He says you must live this way, you must honor this, or there will be death upon those who don't. So this is no trivial matter.

This is not something that's open to debate. This is a matter of strategic importance in the life of Israel. And look at verse 15. Six days the Lord made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor and was refreshed. This is so vital to understand. God commanded Israel to structure their entire lives, their entire work week after the pattern of creation.

Six days of work, one day of rest. And says the model for this is what I did in creation. Now, beloved, that makes absolutely, that is incoherent. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. That is utter nonsense if the six days of creation in Genesis are long ages. That makes no sense whatsoever. They cannot pattern daily life, weekly life, after six days and a day of rest if they're long ages. If they are periods of interminable time, ill-defined. Can you imagine an Israelite saying, you mean I've got to work for millions of years before I can get a day off?

That's not going to work. No, no, they structured the entire cycle of their life after this, and the pattern was the six 24-hour days of creation. They structured their life around a creation parallel, and that tells us that these were 24-hour days, not something else. Now, those in the name of biblical interpretation, who are influenced by scientific assertions, reinterpret that simple narrative of Genesis. They turn the days of Genesis into long ages by saying that the text is poetic, or the text is symbolic, or it is an allegory rather than the straightforward historical narrative that it so obviously purports itself to be.

We can't go into all of that, but beloved, understand what's happening. They are evading the text in order to accommodate scientific presuppositions that are based on naturalistic assumptions. We say that scientific assumptions of a natural order that has been the same for millions of years, that that presupposition is incorrect. That the fact that the world has always been the same as it is now, that is a fundamental misunderstanding of history that overlooks the biblical doctrine of creation and the biblical doctrine of a worldwide flood. And that because you ignore those facts in your scientific presuppositions, everything that flows from your presuppositions is going to be mistaken as a result.

Garbage in, garbage out. And it is an unnecessary accommodation to science to make those distortions of the biblical text. We can look at this from a couple of perspectives, beloved, just to drive this home.

And this is where I want you to see that a compromise in this area takes you places that you never want to go. You could ask the question, you say, okay, Genesis 1 is an allegory, okay? There are those who say that Adam is an allegory in Genesis chapter 2 and 3.

Sooner or later, as John MacArthur so poignantly asked, where do you kick in? When do you start taking scripture literally? Is it Genesis 6 at the Tower of Babel? Is it at the flood?

Is it at Abraham? When do you kick in? Why is it that you make this arbitrary distinction between sections of a unified book in order to accommodate science? When do you kick in? When do you start taking the Bible seriously at face value? There's no answer to that question. It exposes the fact that this is based on arbitrary interpretive decisions rather than a consistent literal hermeneutic that would help you understand all of scripture on its own terms.

Where do you kick in? And why should I believe when you kick in at Genesis 6 that you're not going to check out later on when other things get difficult? Think about it this way, beloved. Science would deny the resurrection. Science would say there is no resurrection from the dead.

Scripture says there is no salvation apart from the resurrection of the dead. If you are going to bend the knee to science in order to attain their approval of your worldview, understand that eventually when it seems that they are giving you a lollipop, you realize that you're licking on a ball of arsenic, something that will kill you, because science would deny the resurrection and without the resurrection there is no salvation. And so you cannot give science a role in determining or altering the clear meaning of the biblical text or eventually that leads you into places that will cause you to deny the testimony of scripture and deny that which alone can save your own soul. You must understand that the implications of the way that we think this go far beyond whether we say creation is millions of years old or it's only a few thousand years old.

The implications of it go far beyond that. It is the presuppositions that underlie science and underlie a biblical worldview that you must understand and grasp this issue at. Otherwise, you know, what's happening is that science has put a nice little piece of bait on the hook and tossed it in and you're the fish.

The bait looks good and the bait looks harmless and then all of a sudden science has jerked you out of biblical revelation. Not only that, it's not just a matter of interpretation. It's not just a matter of biblical presuppositions. This implicates the authority and the trustworthiness of Christ. Look over at Matthew chapter 19 verses 4 and 5.

Pharisees are asking Jesus about the issue of divorce and listen to this carefully. Jesus answered them and said, Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Jesus ties the beginning to the sixth day of creation when God made Adam and Eve. If the biblical narrative is intending to teach long ages of millions of years in the first chapter of Genesis, what Jesus says makes absolutely no sense. How could you say that God made Adam from the beginning? That makes sense in a one-week context of 144 hours. That makes sense.

Calling that the beginning to say that from the beginning, by which I mean millions and millions of years, then God created Adam. This turns language on its head. Then language is meaningless and what Jesus said cannot be trusted. Why? Why would we go to someplace where the words of our trustworthy, loving Lord who is God incarnate, who is truth incarnate, who is the way, the truth, and the life, why would we distort his words in order to accommodate scientific presuppositions that are based on a natural view of the world that excludes the miraculous and excludes God from their worldview? Why would we do that? Why would we throw everything out? Why would we throw Christ out for their sake? Why would we do that?

That's unthinkable. And if the people, the fine folks at NASA, criticize us, mock us, hey, have at me. Have at me. I will not throw Christ out to get your approval. How can you call Jesus Master and Lord?

How can you call him your teacher if you would distance yourself from him on something so fundamental? Now, beloved, we can't do that. Some people will quote the New Testament to make room for long ages, quoting 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 8. Just listen to me as I read it. It's a familiar verse. 2 Peter 3 verse 8 says, do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like one day. So the argument becomes, see, a day can be a thousand years and then it can just expand out from there and that accommodates it and they would reinterpret Genesis based on this single verse in 2 Peter. Well, when you read the text, he's not saying that one day equals one thousand years. He's only saying it's like that and it's like that to God in particular, he's saying. Time is irrelevant to God because God is eternal and therefore the concept of time loses its meaning inside his eternal mind. That's not an interpretive key to Genesis for us because for us, men who are in time, man who is temporal, time is precise and time has a specific meaning. And so this is not, God didn't give us 2 Peter 3.8 in order to undermine the whole foundation of his revelation on creation.

That's not the point of that text. So we believe that creation is recent as covered by the things that we've said and that God created in six 24-hour days. Now, third aspect, third subpoint of this is this, is that God created ex nihilo, ex nihilo, E-X-N-I-H-I-L-O. That is a Latin term that means out of nothing. God created all that we see out of nothing.

He did not use pre-existing matter. There was God as a spirit alone in existence and he spoke and matter came into being. Romans chapter 4 verse 17, I won't, I'm going to rush through a little bit on this just for the sake of time. Romans 4 verse 17 says that God gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. So there was a time, so to speak, when matter did not exist and God calls it into being. In Hebrews chapter 11 verse 3, it says, by faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. That's Romans 4, 17 and Hebrews 11 verse 3.

And I am particularly am indebted to Dr. Snelling for the way that I want to phrase what I'm about to say. God in six days created a mature and fully functioning universe. The trees that he created were bearing fruit. Animals were fully developed creatures. Adam had a body to work a garden and a mind to name animals. So there was a maturity and there was a full functioning taking place when God did his creation. And so we don't strictly speak of this rightly as God creating it with an appearance of age, as if God were deceiving us, making it look older than it really was. God created it in maturity and then gave us his word, his revelation that this is how it happened. And so that God created it all in a short period of time. God created it mature and then in his grace he gave us a word to tell us exactly what he did. There is no accusation of deception that could be raised up against God in these things.

So we've put it on the line tonight, haven't we? What about those who mock the biblical view of creation? That think we are hicks for believing such things. Happy to quote my former pastor John McArthur at this point who said this, to those who will inevitably complain that such a view is credulous and unsophisticated. The biblical teaching on creation adds a fourth aspect that we want to point to here just briefly. To say this is that God did not use evolution. God did not use evolution. Scripture says that God created Adam from the dust of the ground in Genesis chapter 2 verse 7. Not from some pre-existing hominid, not some pre-existing ape or monkey. No, God did not put Adam on the earth in that manner. He created him out of the dust of the ground and dust is not an animal.

You want to talk basic science. Dust is not an animal. Dust is not an ape. So let's let Scripture have the word on it. Let's let Scripture speak for itself. He formed Adam from dust and breathed life into his nostrils. He did not take a pre-existing primate and make Adam. Now there's another aspect that many have pointed out.

Evolution requires long ages for death and change to take place in order for us to get to the point that we're at today. Scripture utterly forbids that view. It rejects it. That cannot possibly be right. The order of Scripture is this. Adam came first and then sin and Romans 5-12 says death entered through sin. You cannot reverse that and say that death was going on, that evolution was taking place and there was all of this death and competition and then Adam showed up and then sin happened. No, that's a violation of the most basic teaching of the Bible. Death entered through sin, Romans 5-12 says.

In 1 Corinthians 15 verse 21, it says, For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. You cannot put death before Adam and keep biblical teaching. You cannot make Adam into some mythical allegorical figure and keep Christ because there was the first Adam and then there is the second Adam. If you make the first Adam an allegory, you turn Christ into a myth and you once again you have forfeited biblical salvation. You are still in your sins.

So, let's wrap this up. The implications of biblical creation. The implications of biblical creationism. We've looked at the theological place of creation.

We said that it comes on the heels of the divine decrees. We have looked at the biblical teaching on creation. We said that it is recent that God created in six 24-hour days, especially interpreted by the passages in Exodus. We have said that God created ex nihilo, matter is not eternal. We said that God did not use evolution. What are the implications of this? Well, as I said at the beginning of the message, this is where that other stuff was supposed to come in. It refutes all the prevailing philosophies of the world.

This is a call against those things. We can also say this, the implications of this is that it establishes the purpose of all existence. The purpose of all existence. Creation establishes purpose in life. Again, quoting my friend and colleague, Dr. Snelling, who said, An origin at the hands of an all-powerful, pure and loving God guarantees a divine purpose in history and meaning to our existence, a future in the hands of a caring God who made us and has made provision for us and our future. All of a sudden there is purpose in life. If the world of creation just happened, by chance there is no purpose in life, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die and go out of existence. On the contrary, if God created us and did it in accordance and in keeping with his divine decrees, then there is a divine transcendent purpose in everything that happens in creation, and you and I are a part of it.

Not only that, there is suddenly accountability. If we are creatures, we are accountable to our Creator. The purpose of all existence, not just purpose in life from a human perspective, but the ultimate goal of creation is the glory of God. Romans 11 verse 36 says, For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. So in the context of everything coming from God, everything coming through him, everything aiming to him, Scripture says to him be the glory forever.

Amen. So, ultimately, where creation brings you is to this most magnificent and far reaching point. The doctrine of creation brings upon your conscience, Christian and non-Christian alike, it imposes upon you an obligation to render worship to this greater one who made you, and to render thanks to him for giving you life and sustaining you. Creation ultimately teaches you that you are under an obligation of worship and gratitude to your Creator, and that the purpose of your existence is a small subset of the greater purpose of all of creation, to render glory to the one who made it, to join with the heavens, who day and night declare the existence of God and the glory of God, Psalm 19, and that you join with the heavens in giving testimony to the existence of your Creator and giving glory to him. What is the outcome of creation? Where does creation put you? What is the final word, the purpose of creation? For all men everywhere, not just for us in this church, but for the billions of people who now walk on the earth, what does creation say?

What is the purpose of it? It is simply this. Behold your Maker. Bow low and worship Him.

We can trust the book of Genesis to tell us the truth about creation, and it follows that we can also trust it to teach us about the historical Adam. Pastor Don Green will turn to that subject next time here on The Truth Pulpit. Don't miss a moment. Right now though, Don's back here in studio with some closing words.

Hi, friend. As we close today, I just want to make something available to you. You know, as you listen to these radio broadcasts, they have to fit into a 25-minute format, and we're very grateful for the opportunity the Lord's given us to do just that. But the radio messages are born out of a longer sermon message that contains more information, more background, a fuller explanation of the passage than what we're able to do on radio. So I encourage you to go to our website and find the link that says, Follow Don's Pulpit. That will lead you to a podcast that gives you the full-length sermons from every Sunday and every Tuesday from my pulpit. I really think that it will minister to you over time to hear the full-length messages. So we make that available for free, and we would love you to join us in that way as well. Thanks, Don. And friend, to take advantage of what Don just mentioned, simply visit thetruthpulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you next time for more from the Truth Pulpit.