This is not a sermon and I'm not really sure my thoughts are coherent, my purpose is just to capture them on paper and maybe to better understand.
I'm probably breaking my favourite rule in Proverbs.
Pro 17:27 He that hath knowledge spareth his words: and a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit. Pro 17:28 Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
Pastor Rob's sermons have been great and I am encouraged by them.
One of the tricky issues that rears itself almost immediately is the idea of whether Genesis 1 is to be taken literally.
I admired that Pastor Rob, said that the days in Genesis 1 could be taken literally. This wasn't the focus of his sermons, but spurred my curiosity, which generated these thoughts....
A literal six days of creation.
This sounds so foreign in today's culture it's like the acceptability of evolution is everywhere and seems similar to the almost universal acceptance of global warming and one would look upon one as being silly for thinking of a literal six-day creation.
Having received two degrees from MIT and the second graduate degree from Northwestern University, I should be one to readily accept the modern interpretation.
But there are a few things I struggle with today.
First there is a very big word in the Bible and that word is "believe". It's our our call to faith. But it's a really big word and it implies actually believing and just what should we believe?
Of course we are saved by faith. And we that believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ are saved. This is the essence of our faith.
Act 8:37 And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest. And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Act 8:38 And he commanded the chariot to stand still: and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch; and he baptized him
Act 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
Act 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.
Rom 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
But if we go further, if we go to 2 Timothy 3:16 and 17 we’re really encouraged to believe the whole word of God.
2Ti 3:15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
2Ti 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
2Ti 3:17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
But can we believe it literally.
We are encouraged to take parts of the Bible literally but we are encouraged that we don't have to take Genesis 1 literally. We can in fact just look at it as poetry. But can we make a rational case that it is literally true?
In no particular order some thoughts on this are:
Why should I take the account of Adam and Eve in the garden literally?
Why should I take Jesus changing water to wine as true? That's creating a new creation?
Why should I even believe the resurrection? Of the body? What about a new earth? And how long will that take to create?
This is not to mention the flood or Jonah and the big fish or Noah's 3 son's populating the world or the time of Nimrod and Babel?
Is it any harder to believe these things than the Genesis six-day creation. For that matter, why not just create the world in six minutes or six seconds? Even science says as much, at least in essence with:
The term singularity or sometimes called "the Big Bang".
We can fall back on the assurance of God's sovereignty and God's understanding and that what he did is what he did.
But today we do tend to believe that science has proven that God didn't create the world in a literal six days.
I personally though am being challenged more and more to look into the accounts and the arguments that run counter to this wisdom. In my life I'm working on trying to actually believe and believe even chapter 1 is actually literal.
One of the early books I read 40 years ago when I first became a Christian at MIT was:
There are others who do take this position. I'm currently investigating this series..
I did find the earlier lessons of this series.
I do think it is worth doing as this perspective is radically out of sync with all we are taught.
You can judge for yourself the nonsense or sense of it.
1st three parts are here...
I do think it is worth doing as this perspective is radically out of sync with all we are taught.
You can judge for yourself the nonsense or sense of it.
1st three parts are here...
In this series Mike Riddle talks about the use of the word "yom" in Hebrew in the Old Testament and it makes an interesting case about the qualifiers that define the word being used in the literal sense and it's something to consider....before accepting it's figurative meaning. Maybe he is misinterpreting Hebrew...I'd love to hear him debate that.
I also find that science isn't always right nor does science at any time have some monopoly grasp on what the truth is and understanding. A couple examples, I would use today are when the Bible speaks about Eve being formed out of the rib of man, of Adam, that actually would've seemed impossible in the past but with the advances that science has made in cloning it seems like it could be very possible. The virgin birth, what about today's artificial insemination procedures. If Jesus can enter a room through closed doors can God implant His seed in the womb.
And take what we now know about the content of the universe which scientist's admit it's almost nothing, the visible universe they say now is vastly swamped by the presence of what's called dark matter and even more so dark energy of which they know nothing. And the whole concept of gravity that no one has a clue as to how that actually works.
And it is often said that in Genesis 1, God got the order of creation in day three and day four backwards, creating plants before he created the sun and moon and stars. That can certainly be looked upon as being bacwards when one looks at the scientific view of long-term creation and evolution, plants certainly need light to survive. But to survive until tomorrow, well that might be possible.
Perhaps looking at it in a literal way, God created these beautiful plants and all that we see in the world and decided that we needed to actually see this so he shined light on it and that the light provided for healthy growth that needed to take place immediately to sustain it. I think it's just as amazing to see it in that way as to see the whole chapter as poetic.
Perhaps this is even more in tune with the CS Lewis narrative in the Magician's Nephew of God's creation. The majestic beauty of and in the symphony of creation, God revealing what is created. The light being shined upon it.
I know it's very difficult to believe all this from Genesis 1 but I'm challenged and confronted with the option of believing.
Mat 17:20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Mar 9:24 And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.
We have great rational answers of what we want to think and the Bible says the heart can be deceitful and I haven't a clue that I'm actually right on this. Only God knows what he did but for me at this stage I'm choosing to believe. And right or wrong I'm trying to make a rational case for believing the irrational.
Sometimes I wonder why Jesus and the apostles quoted the Old Testament so often if the didn't believe it.
I pray that God gives me the faith to believe it's not wrong.
Finally, I've been impressed for several years now with what I read in G.I. Williamson's study guide to the Westminster Confession of Faith in chapter 6, I quote part of it here perhaps he is a bit strong in his perspective or too orthodox, but his point is worth considering ...especially considering where we have progressed in the past hundred years in the church.
Westminster Confession of Faith: For Study Classes by G. I. Williamson
From Chapter 6
"The fall of man needs as much emphasis as his creation" (C. Van Til). This is especially true today because of widespread dominance of neo-orthodox theology. Neo-orthodoxy (which is supposed to mean "new orthodoxy") arose in early-twentieth-century Europe from the spiritual ruins of an older "rationalism."
The "rationalists" enthroned human reason and made the Bible subservient to it. When Karl Barth (the originator of neo-orthodoxy, which is therefore also called "Barthianism") first appeared on the scene speaking with great power against the emptiness of the old rationalism, many were impressed. He even revived the terminology of the historic Christian faith, speaking of "creation," "the fall," and "election." Many hailed him as a prophet who would lead the Church back to the orthodox faith.
But the sad truth was that Barth (and others who soon followed) did not replace the authority of man's reason with the authority of the Bible. They were merely exchanging the old form of reliance upon the supremacy of man's reason with a new form of the same evil. Thus neo-orthodoxy claimed that it affirmed the doctrine of the fall, but then denied that there was an actual historical person who at a particular time and at a specific location on earth ate a real piece of forbidden fruit. It affirmed that the doctrine of the fall is "true," but it meant thereby only that there is nonhistorical (or symbolic, or mythical) meaning in it. It meant that the Bible is "true" much as Aesop's fables are "true." "The creation and the fall," says Barth, "lie behind the historical."
Why did neo-orthodoxy take such a contradictory position? Why did it attempt to affirm (that the Bible teaches truth) and deny (that what the Bible says is actually true) at the same time? The answer is that these modernists (for that is what neo-orthodoxy really is: modernism) wanted to have their cake and eat it too.
They wanted to be accepted as Christians and respected by this world. Because the earlier "rationalists" created a climate of opinion which regarded as completely outdated the idea of putting God's Word above human wisdom and science, the neo-orthodox theologians could not dare hope to find acceptance if they did such an old-fashioned thing. Respectable people had long since agreed that the Bible could not be considered scientifically accurate or historically dependable.
But the neo-orthodox theologians realized that without the things spoken of in the Bible there was no "Christianity" left. Not wanting this, they were determined to believe those things anyway-but not in such a way as to offend the "modern world." This led to a complete dilemma.
There were but two choices: (1) either accept the authority of God's Word and lose standing with this world, or (2) retain the approval of the world, and reject the authority of the Bible.
It was the latter which was chosen, but the ingenuity of the neo-orthodox theologians was seen in their ability to camouflage the loss of biblical authority. They did it by removing doctrine from history. And so long as they did not say that these doctrines are really true (that is, that they actually happened in history), they were free to say that they are symbolically true (that is, that they are above and beyond our world). In this way they were free to preach about such things as "the fall" without losing their self-respect and standing with the world. All this is only a working out in Adam's children of the principle evident in his first sin. Adam's first sin was an attempt to have truth apart from subjection to the word of God.
The tree in the garden was "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." By accepting, without question, what God said about that tree, Adam could gain true understanding of its meaning and purpose. God's interpretation of things was original and determinative. Adam's interpretation could be right only if it was non-original and determined. But as soon as Adana sought to know (make interpretation) apart from subjection to God's word (Gen. 3:6), he was lost, and wholly in error. And as soon as the authority of God's word was rejected (3:4) and the authority of man's own reason enthroned (3:5-6), it became necessary for Adam to deny that the "fall" had happened as God said...
Get the book and read the rest...
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