Genesis: Creation – mfairlady

The following is based on the phonetic writing of the expository teaching tapes of Pastor Jim Mooberry.

The creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 is foundational to all that we believe as Christians. We need to resist the trend to water down and compromise because of intimidation by the scientific establishment. God has a very special way to speak to men that science knows nothing about. The philosophy of scientism is convinced that man is a chance product of evolutionary processes through millions of years of time so therefore he is really just a higher order of animal. Therefore man can only really know what his senses tell him and his reason interprets it to mean. The Bible says that is a total lie. Men and women were created with unique attributes and one of them is that they are capable of recognizing God’s voice when He speaks His word in the recesses of our hearts.

God created man so that when He speaks to them through His word it will get through by the illuminating work of the Spirit. Man then is responsible to heed the word God has given him or you are doomed forever. God does not judge man for what he cannot do, but man can hear the voice of God in the Word of God in the recesses of the heart and spirit and this is the basis on which He saves people if they believe His word. It is His Word that creates us as new creation just like He created the universe.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day,’ and the darkness he called ‘night.’ And there was evening, and there was morning–the first day.” Genesis 1:1-5

We live in a day of desperate tension concerning the authority of God. Especially because it is a day that is deeply honoring, and almost to the point of worshiping, the achievements and the claims of modern science. Its probably not an exaggeration as John Whitcomb in one of his books said, “The vast majority of scientists today are convinced that nothing has ever happened in this universe that cannot be explained ultimately in terms of purely natural processes that are understandable and discernable by the scientific mind and its methods.” If that statement is true than the Bible and Christianity are false. There is no middle ground on that kind of a statement and a belief. No where is the tension between evolutionary science of our day and the authority of the Word of God more obvious than in the question of origins.

We have been bombarded with the theory and worldview that says “the cosmos is all that is, ever was, or ever will be….the universe has always been here and earth is a rather young product of natural processes perhaps 3-5 billion years old. Everything we see is simply a product of chance, random events through the endless ions of time.” But the earth was created as a solitary object in an empty universe shrouded in total darkness and covered with a shore less ocean. In fact, not until the fourth day of creation that God created the sun, the moon, and the untold galaxies to shine upon the earth as we see them today. We have become so totally immersed in the evolutionary concept of ultimate origins that even the vast majority of Bible believing Christians today cannot take the statements of Genesis 1 and 2 seriously or at least completely literal.

If God is in your life He will demonstrate the truth of His Word repeatedly. In Genesis 1 and 2 we have the biblical account of creation. In the first verse we learn some interesting things. “In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1. The first thing we notice is the “time of this event”—in the beginning. “In the beginning” refers to the inception of some event, which must, in this context be, the origination of the universe as we know it. So we are not talking about the beginning of God, for He is eternal. We are not talking about the beginning of time, because time existed prior to the creation of the universe.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.” John 1:1-3. The Trinity, the Triune God already existed and is eternal. Prior to the creation of the universe the Word of God existed. There are indications in the Scriptures from the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 and the way they are written that there is evidence to believe that from this creation event took place some 4000 years before Jesus Christ. The universe had a beginning contrary to evolutionary theory.

The agent of this event in verse 1, in the beginning “God” created the heavens and the earth. The only true God. The only self-existent personal divine being consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient who has always existed and was created by no one. This Who create this universe. The agent was not chance, not random, not accidental—these are all names of gods for the theory of evolution. It was the personal triune God that created this universe.

“Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Psalm 90:2.

There are three important things about the “manner” in which the universe came into being. First, it was ex nihilo. That’s a Latin phrase that means “from out of nothing.”

“By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” Hebrews 11:3.

“For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” Colossians 1: 16, 17.

The whole universe did not exist prior to Genesis 1:1. Evolution believes that matter and the universe is eternal; the eternality of matter. That viewpoint is really a pagan viewpoint.

It was create out of divine fiat; by a spoken word of God. God spoke and it came into existence. His eight commands explain everything in the universe. In speaking the universe into being, God was willing that it should appear and become and it did. His thought was shaping it exactly from the least cell in Adam to the furthest star and galaxy at the same moment. For in Him all things were created and in Him all things hold together. What does this say about His personality and His infinite beauty and intelligence and wisdom of the Creator of the universe? When we look at the farthest galaxy we can see and then we look in the microscope at the smallest particle we can see and realize that one personality designed and created that. And the power of His word—he spoke a word and things came into existence. And this power is resident in the Word that we have written here as well. Hebrews 4:12 said that the Word is alive and active and powerful.

It was created with order—created days. In Genesis 2 it says that the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. The condition of the earth immediately after it was spoken into existence on the first day creation—it was created instantly as a dynamic highly complex entity. It was already spinning on its axis, there was morning and evening, there was a cool crust, it was covered with water, in fact, it was perfect as a planet in every way. But at this stage it was not an appropriate home for man and that is why God continues in His creative work. Formless and void means without significant features; topographically, it was empty of life. In the next days of creation He begins to divide it and give it form and then He begins to fill it, fill the void, with life that man might have a suitable habitation.

In creation days 1,2, and 3 God is correcting the “without form condition” with three acts of dividing and creating form. In days 4, 5, and 6 He is correcting the “void” or empty condition by three acts of furnishing or filling. In verses 3-5 He separates the light from the darkness. And then, for our sake, for the dwellers on the earth, in verses 14-17 He creates the sun and the moon and the stars to fill the expanse to give us, as is says in verse 18, to govern the day and the night and to separate the light from the darkness and God saw that it was good. In verses 7 and 8 He divides the waters from those that are above the expanse to those that are on the earth below and so there is this atmosphere that is created. In verse 20 He fills the atmosphere with birds and He fills the waters on the earth with fish. Verses 9, 10, and 11 He separates the waters on the earth from dry land and then He also creates vegetation. In verses 24-28 He fills the dry land with beasts of the field and ultimately, then with man. There is an order that God has engaged in creation in everything that we see around us.

Are these days literal days or are they somehow representative of ages? There is an attempt of Christians to try to combine the theory of evolution and the Scriptures account of origins and say that maybe perhaps the Scriptures are saying in a metaphorical way, or some other sort of symbolic way that these days are actually millions of years or thousands of years that science tells us it was necessary for all of this to come into existence. The word of days in Genesis 1 is “yom.” The normal meaning of “yom” is a 24 hour day and secondly, whenever “yom” occurs with a number like the forth yom or the fifth yom it is always a 24 hour day. Third it says there was a morning and an evening.

The next question why 6 days? Why not all in one day? The answer is in Exodus 20:9-11 in the giving of the ten commandments, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.” God gave mankind a pattern, an example. He applied it to Israel in the strictest way of the Sabbath day being observed, but it is nevertheless a pattern for mankind to set aside a seventh day for worship and rest in their schedule.

In summary, the world was created ex nihilo, out of nothing, by divine fiat, by the spoken word of God, and in order by days. What evidence supports this account? If Romans chapter 1 is true when is says that all men are held accountable before God because that which is known about God (vs. 19) is evident within them for God made it evident to them for since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power, and divine nature has been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so they are without excuse. God says in the creation it is self evident that his fingerprints are there. That man can look at what has been made and with the reason that God has given man can come to the conclusion properly that God created this. Because man denies that is evidence of the sinfulness of man and the fallen depraved minds that we have today. But we are without excuse God says.

Creation is not demonstrable today, its not happening in the laboratory today, but the same is true about the theory of evolution. Just because a few fruit flies have a few mutations does not anywhere near prove that theory. That theory is founded on three pillars. The first is accidental mutations, the second is natural selection, the third is the inherit-ability of acquired characteristics. All three of those have to be functioning in order for that theory to work in the limited time frame and it just does not. Creation better explains the observable reality of what we see.

Creation alone explains the existence and the origin of matter. Where did all of this come from? The evolutionist must believe in the eternality of matter and universe since they reject a supernatural God and a supernatural Creation. So they say what’s out there has always been here, but that’s a “huge” step of faith. It actually goes against one of the most basic axioms of science, they are denying the very foundation on which their science is built on. That axiom is that every affect has a cause. Science means nothing if that’s not true. There are no uncaused affects because there can be no uncaused affects. The notion of an uncaused affect is analytically false. It is false by definition; if an affect has no cause than it is not an affect. Evolution has no answer except that it was always there. Creation better explains the observable reality of our world.

Only Creation explains the intricate order in the universe. You cannot explain the degree and the depth of order in our solar system and our planetary system and in life by random chance. A watch demands a watchmaker. The geometry of nature, the construction of cells and the growth, the efficiency of nature—when you go pick an orange off a tree its “packaged fruit,” and the ecological chain—each creature supplying a link in the ecology in the whole—we have little animals and things that clean up after us on the earth. When you really stop and think about the order that is in the creation it is absolutely astounding.

Only Creation explains the difference between man and animals—it is an unbridgeable chasm. Evolution would have you think that we are simply animals just a higher form. God created us as altogether greater than any higher animal because we are created in His image. Only Creation explains moral nature. Every single tribe of people throughout history has had a moral value system; a distinction between right and wrong. This comes from the conscience that was planted in man’s hearts. This consciousness of his moral nature is the basis of all law and sanity and of all purpose and meaning in life. This is not from a physiological transformation of any cell because we are now talking about the area of soul. Evolutionists have no answer for soul.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of he air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’” This is the separation between man and everything else. The Trinity is also being taught to us in this verse too: the plurality—let “us” make man in our image. Within the moral universe in which we live the existence of the concept of good and evil and sin and death is only explained by the Genesis Creation account.

Is this doctrine optional? Are Adam and Eve historical people? You cannot interpret Genesis 1 as figurative or metaphorically and say that the days really refer to eons….and then say Adam is historical. All is historical or neither is historical. There are some real consequences about that. We cannot be “fuzzy” about this because the issues are too great. Two things that are at stake are the integrity of Scripture Is the universe a product of God’s creative work in 6 literal days as the Bible says or not? Did Adam the first man exist historically or not? Is evil in man a direct result of a historical man and woman eating a historical fruit from a historical tree in disobedience to God or not? Was the moon the stars and the earth created on the forth day or not? Once we leave the literal, inerrant, inspired Scriptures we move into a sea of relativity where we can be certain about nothing.

If there is no literal creation as recorded in Genesis 1 and 2, and there is not historical Adam created in the image of God, no historical fall into sin for which is the explanation for why we are all sinners, and therefore there is no need for a Savior because in reality there are no eternal souls, we cannot have a personal relationship with God because He does not exist, and Jesus Christ was a liar because Jesus referred to a historical Adam and taught that he existed.

Christianity is worthless if this book is not true and salvation is empty. There is not a middle ground on the historicity of these events and regarding salvation. If Jesus Christ is our Savior He is our Savior from sin. Where did Adam come from? He was created by God.

Let us be very clear about what God says about our origins and our condition:

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the time set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us… For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising Him from the dead.” Acts 17:24-31.

God has appointed the God-man Jesus Christ and He will either be your Savior or your Judge. In the recesses of our hearts we can hear this word. The issue becomes ”what have you done with Jesus Christ?”

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