God and Creation
Genesis 1:1-25
Introduction: As we come to the Biblical account of creation we come to one
of the most important subjects in the Bible from the standpoint of modern
man. Many today reject outright the creation account contained here in
Genesis one. They say that this is nothing but mythology based on
superstition and ignorance. They also say that science has long ago proven
the Bible to be false in regard to its statements concerning creation and the
beginning of life and that evolution is an undeniable fact.
“Recent advances in cosmology suggest, the laws of gravity and quantum theory allow
universes to appear spontaneously from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there
is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not
necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.
Our universe seems to be one of many, each with different laws. That multiverse idea is
not a notion invented to account for the miracle of fine tuning. It is a consequence
predicted by many theories in modern cosmology. If it is true it reduces the strong
anthropic principle to the weak one, putting the fine tunings of physical law on the same
footing as the environmental factors, for it means that our cosmic habitat—now the entire
observable universe—is just one of many.
Each universe has many possible histories and many possible states. Only a very few
would allow creatures like us to exist. Although we are puny and insignificant on the
scale of the cosmos, this makes us in a sense the lords of creation”
I propose that the evidence points in the exact opposite direction, and at the
end of the day the Genesis account of origins is completely accurate and in
perfect harmony with the facts.
a. I want to begin by reading you two creation accounts: a modern one, and
then the Biblical one and leave you to decide which is fact and which is
fiction. Which is history and which is mythology.
“In the beginning there was light- but also quarks and electrons. The Big Bang spewed
out energy that condensed into radiation and particles. The quarks joined into protons and
careened wildly about in a hot, dense, glowing goop as opaque as a star.
Time passed (300,000 years or so). Space expanded. Mattered cooled. The electrons and
protons, electrically irresistible to each other, merged into neutral hydrogen, and from
this marriage, the first atoms were born. Space between atoms became as transparent as
crystal...
Atoms merged to form dust clouds, which grew into stars and galaxies and clusters. Stars
used up their nuclear fuel, collapsed and exploded in recurring cycles, fusing elements in
the process. Occasionally, a stable planet condensed around a second-generation star,
where carbon based life forms grew into, among other things, cosmologist, the better to
contemplate it all”.
b. Read Genesis 1:1-25. Comment on two accounts.
c. Some would say that the Genesis account is not mythology it’s allegory or
poetry. Is it allegory or poetry? No! Genesis one is straightforward, matter of
fact, speech. It is prose not poetry or allegory. Jesus understood it that way
and that to me settles the question!
d. Let’s look at some of the keys things taught in Genesis one relating to the
current debate over the origin of the universe and life-
1. The universe had a beginningAll of the ancient cosmogonies (theories of the origin of the universe), as well as men
such as Plato, Aristotle, Darwin, Lyell right up through Carl Sagan believed that the
universe was eternal. It was Sagan who stated, “The cosmos is all that there is, or ever
was, or ever will be”. Those men were all wrong. Of course those who believed the Bible
knew they were wrong, but they were proven to be wrong through the work of Stephen
Hawking, Roger Penrose and George Ellis.
Listen to the comments of Astronomer, Robert Jastrow, ‘I am fascinated by some strange
developments going on in astronomy- partly because of their religious implications…
The essence of the strange developments is that the universe had, in some sense, a
beginning- that it began at a certain moment in time… Most remarkable of all,
astronomers have found proof that the universe sprang into existence abruptly, in a
sudden moment of creation, as the Bible said it did.’
2. Absolute CreationThe very first words of the Bible teach the absolute beginning of all things (space, time,
energy and matter). According to the plain meaning of verse one in the original Hebrew,
the infinite personal God at a particular, chosen point in eternity, created all reality
outside himself out of nothing that existed previously.
a. Bara- absolute creation as opposed to secondary or relative creation. As human beings
we “create” but only in the secondary sense, out of existing material. God alone creates
from nothing or as it is in Latin, ex-nihilo.
Augustine wrote, “For you created from nothing, not from your own substance or from
some matter not created by yourself and already in existence”.
This is what Hebrews 11:3 is referring to when it say, “Through faith we understand that
the worlds were framed by the word of God so that things which are seen were not made
of things which do appear”.
“This verse conveys the real meaning of creation ex-nihilo. It is a way of saying that the
visible reality we perceive: the room we are in , the trees, the soil, our bodies, the stars do
not originally come from other things that we can see (or even theorize), such as simpler
life forms: protoaoa, amoeba or sheer dust, as though they were a rearrangement of
earlier types of matter. Instead, things that we see were made out of things that do not
appear; that is to say, out of nothing”. Douglas Kelly
Physicist Arno Penzias made this confession, “Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a
universe which was created out of nothing, one with a very delicate balance and one
which has an underlying (one might say supernatural) plan”.
3. God created everything in Six literal daysa. Why do we say literal days?
Because of the influence of evolutionary thinking on the minds of Evangelical scholars
the idea that God created the universe in six literal days has been largely rejected and
replaced with the theory that the word day is not limited to a 24 hour period and more
than likely refers to an indefinite period of time.
1. The day age theory- Each days represents a long age of time where God was using an
evolutionary type process to create the world as we know it.
2. Framework hypothesis- Six days are not spans of time but only a literary convention
for presenting a six-fold creation.
b. Days literal of figurative?
1. Yom- Most commonly used to describe a day as we think of it, a 24 hr. period of time.
Also used to refer to the daylight part of the day. Occasionally used for an indefinite
period such as “the day of the Lord”.
2. Whenever day (yom) is modified by a number (day one or day two) its universal
Scriptural usage means normal day. In other words if modified with a number (like here
in Genesis one) it only always means a 24 hr. day.
3. All ancient scholars both Jewish and Christian understood these days as literal days.
4. Even liberal scholars (those who reject the inspiration and inerrancy of scripture)
believe Genesis one to be referring to literal days.
“So far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class
university who does not believe that the writer of Genesis one intended to convey to the
reader the idea that: creation took place in series of six days which were the same as the
days of 24 hours that we now experience. Or to put it negatively, the apologetic
arguments which supposes the ‘days’ of creation to be long eras of time… are not taken
seriously by any professor, as far as I know”. James Barr, Theological professor, Oxford.
“If the word day in this chapter does not mean 24 hours, the interpretation of Scripture is
hopeless”. Marcus Dods, Theological professor, New College, Edinburgh.
5. Why do otherwise conservative evangelical scholars reject a 24-hour day and opt for
long ages? Academic pressure! To modern intellectuals a young earth, six-day creationist
is the equivalent of a person who believes the earth is flat. The well know Evangelical
scholar R.C. Sproul has recently announced that he has changed his mind and after thirty
years of holding to the “framework hypothesis” he is now a literal six day creationist!
All of these views were developed and are held for one reason only: To accommodate the
evolutionary idea that the universe is billions of years old.
c. The Gap theory1. Although those who hold to the gap theory generally also believe in a literal six-day
creation it is still one more attempt to accommodate millions or billions of years.
2. What is the gap theory or the restitution theory?
a. Dr. Thomas Chalmers, in the late 1800s popularized this idea.
3. Problems with the gap theorya. Not in the text.
b. Requires death before the creation and fall of Adam.
c. Requires all other life forms to have been created millions or billions of years before
man. (The fossil record contains life forms that we can identify today right along side of
what they would call pre-historic or pre-adamic life forms).
d. It contradicts the plain statements of ScriptureFor in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them,
and rested the seventh day. Ex 20:11
4. God did not utilize any process that harmonizes with the theory of
evolution.
a. He created everything out of nothing.
b. All biological life is categorized and each category produces after its own kind.
Fish did not become reptiles, reptiles did not become birds, birds did not become
mammals etc. 10 times God says everything produces after its kind!
c. Theistic evolution is an oxymoron. This is one area where I actually agree with
Richard Dawkins. If evolution is true, God is unnecessary. If the Bible is true, evolution
is unnecessary and false.
d. With the evolutionist themselves admitting the weakness of their position, I don’t
understand for the life of me why anyone in the church would give any place whatsoever
to such an untenable, bankrupt and godless theory!
5. True confessions of the evolutionistSir Fred Hoyle,
The likelihood of the formation of life from inanimate mater is one to a number with 40
thousands zeros after it. It is enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution.
There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings
of life were not random they must therefore have been the product of purposeful
intelligence.’
Nobel prize winning biologist Francis Crick,
‘An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that
in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many
are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going’.
Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate, George Wald,
‘One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous
generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet we are here- as a result, I believe, of
spontaneous generation… When it comes to the origin of life there are only two
possibilities: Creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous
generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other
conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical
grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by
chance!’