This is message number six in our look at Genesis chapter 1 in the study of origins. Some people have asked me, “Are you going to do the entire book of Genesis?” And the answer is no. Others have asked me, “How many messages will there be?” And the answer is I don’t know at this particular point. As you might imagine we’re just taking what comes in the text. I was also asked tonight if I had preached on this before, and the answer to that is no. This is the first time I’ve really gone verse by verse through the account of creation. Obviously I’ve studied it through the years and, of course, writing the notes for the Study Bible as well, going into it in some depth, but this is the first time for me, so I’m sharing with you as I go. And that’s the richest way to do it actually.
Now as we come to Genesis chapter 1, we come to that now very familiar verse to us, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And that answers the question of origins. The heavens and the earth which was the Jewish phrase substituting for the absence of a word for universe by which they described the universe and it answers the question of origins, “In the beginning God created the universe.”
Now we’ve been adding to that as we’ve been working our way in to the text of Genesis a little bit. And let me sum up what the Word of God in Genesis teaches about origins. It is really unmistakable, it is plain language. There is an inescapable account here in Genesis telling us about the origin of the universe. And summing it up, this is what it says. The eternal God at some point in the past created out of nothing without preexisting material the universe as it is now in six solar days. He capped His creation on the sixth day by creating man in His own image, that is intelligent, with personality, with self-consciousness, and cognition, or the ability to think and reason. This creation occurred in six days, the seventh day it was over and God rested from creating. It occurred about 6000 years ago and the entire creation was mature and aged at the instant of its creation.
At the time of creation death did not exist. In fact, no corrupting influence of any kind existed, and that’s why God looked at His creation and said it is very good. There was no death, there was no corrupting influence. Therefore there couldn’t have been any animals dying, any plants dying. There couldn’t have been any kind of natural selection process going on. There couldn’t have been any survival of the fittest because everything survived in that perfect creation. Death and corruption entered the creation for the first time when Adam and Eve sinned and disobeyed God, then came death and then came corruption. But that is described in chapter 3 and has nothing to do with the six days of creation.
Later on after the Fall, the surface of the now cursed earth was reshaped drastically by a worldwide Flood that was so deep that it completely covered the mountains all over the face of the earth. It was that cataclysmic world Flood that drastically reshaped the surface of the earth which also deposited fossil beds all over the globe. That Flood wiped out all humanity with the exception of eight people and the animals in Noah’s ark, they alone were the survivors.
Now that is the Genesis record of origins…creation, the Fall, the Flood, reshaping cataclysmicly the face of the now corrupted cursed earth. Great judgment falls on all of humanity so that only eight survive. All of us then are the descendant of those eight…Noah, his three sons, Noah’s wife and their wives, that is the Genesis record.
And let me say something to you that maybe you can just kind of file in your permanently useful file. Science is not a hermeneutic for interpreting Genesis…or for that matter for interpreting any other portion of Scripture. Science is not a hermeneutic. It is not a principle of interpretation. The Bible does not bow to science. The accuracy of the Genesis text is no different than the accuracy of any other portion of Scripture. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. All Scripture is God-breathed. All Scripture comes not by any private interpretation but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus summed it up when He said, “Thy Word is truth.” The Bible is true whether you’re talking about revelation and eschatological prophecy or whether you’re talking about Genesis and historic origins. The Bible is true whether you’re talking about the history of Israel or the history of the Canaanites. The Bible is true whether you’re talking about salvation or sanctification, whether you’re talking about the life of Jesus or the theology of Jesus. Whatever the Bible says is absolutely true. And the Bible is as true in Genesis as it is anywhere else, and everywhere else.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
