Creation as Foundational Truth, Week 3

“Believing in a supernatural creative God who made everything is the only possible RATIONAL explanation for the universe, for life, for purpose, and for destiny” (John MacArthur).

God’s answer to men who think they can question Him: “Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:  ‘Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer Me. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding’”  (Job 38:1-4).

Section 2:  The Six Days of Creation

The Day-Age Idea

This idea is popular among those who want to deny that creation took place in six literal 24-hour days. It says that each of the days of the creation week was a long period of time, and God used evolution as the means of creation.

Some point to 2 Peter 3:8 as proof of this. “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”  However, thousands of years do not meet the millions of years the evolutionists arbitrarily assume. This merely tells us that God is outside of time.

Day/Age puts death before sin and denies the plain teaching of the Bible.

We should not “interpret” the creation account.  Rather, we should simply believe it.

The clear teaching of Scripture is that the creation took place in six literal 24-hour days.

The First Day  (1:1-5)

Creation of time.

Only God can even understand time in light of eternity, since He created time, and He lives in eternity. “…Only an ‘observer’ to all events that have occurred in the past, present and those yet future can actually relate to the true nature of time. There is only one who can be that ‘observer.’ It is God, the infinite One who inhabits eternity. God is effortlessly aware of all events that ever occurred or those that will occur in the future as well as those events occurring now, with a perspective of choice to look either way at any time unhindered by the present” (Ken Schmidt, “Time and our Future,”

http://www.livingtruthministry.com).

Creation of the heavens and the earth. God created space and matter in addition to time.

Creation of light (before the sun). Skeptics doubt this … yet God is not subject to man’s understanding of science.

Beginning of day and night (probably the beginning of the rotation of the earth).

The Second Day (1:6-8)

Separation of the waters above and below the atmosphere. This gives credibility to the “vapor canopy” theory.

There are many scientists on both sides of this, but either way, we know there was water both above and below the atmosphere. God did this according to His will.

The Third Day  (1:9-13)

Separation of the dry land from the water.

Creation of plants. Notice that the plants were created a day before the sun. Those who want to change the days into long periods of time must also change the order in order for plant life to survive. Once someone starts playing with the Scriptures, it is necessary to continue to modify them, kind of making up a new lie to cover an old one.

The Fourth Day (1:14-19)

Creation of the sun, moon, and stars.  (See Isaiah 40:26.)

Objection by skeptics:  If stars and galaxies are millions of light years away, then the universe has to be old enough for the light to reach us.

Possible answers:

1)  Decay of the speed of light. In 1982, Dr. Barry Setterfield made an amazing discovery that tabulated the speed of light between 1675 and 1983. His computer-generated curve showed that the speed of light of slowing at an exponential rate and predicted an age of the universe of 6,000 – 7,000 years. Immediately, the scientific community immediately tried to discredit his report, but much of their work only verified that he was likely correct to an extremely high statistical probability. Obviously, evolutionists would ignore any such study, because it doesn’t fit with their narrative.

http://www.intelligentdesigntheory.info/speed-light.html

Such a decrease in the speed of light would be consistent with the fact that everything is winding down in a fallen universe. “…because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now” (Romans 8:21-22). If evolution works at all, it works in reverse.

2)  We know that God created light before He created the sun. What is to say that He did not or could not create the starlight at the same time as He created the stars? Scientists come down on both sides of this idea as well. Evolutionists will downplay such ideas. They say all we have to fall back on is “God did it.”

So? God DID do it. We don’t have to explain miracles. He is all-powerful. It is possible that neither of these explanations are correct, but that doesn’t matter. We don’t need to know HOW. Our inability to figure it out just shows His omniscience and omnipotence compared to our limitations.

God is not limited by fallen man’s understanding of what he thinks he knows through science. Science changes all the time. His Word abides forever. “…having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever” (1 Peter 1:23).

“By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Hebrews 11:3).

His creation praises Him. “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork” (Psalm 19:1). “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:40).

If we could have stood on the earth when God created the stars, we no doubt would have seen them immediately. HOW doesn’t matter. That’s His business.

The Fifth Day  (1:20-23)

Creation of fish, other sea creatures, and birds.

Another poke in the eye of evolutionists:  God created birds before the land animals, yet evolutionists say birds evolved from dinosaurs. Any creationist who accepts evolution must deny and modify the Scriptures in many ways.

The Sixth Day (1:24-31)

Creation of land animals, insects, etc., and man. This would include the "dinosaurs."

“Let Us make man in our image…”  (The Trinity in cooperation.)

“Let them have dominion…”  (Man is to rule over all other forms of life.)

Man was created in God’s image. Man has an eternal spirit. In many other ways, man has characteristics like God’s:  emotions, will, ability to reason, etc.  Animals do not have these characteristics.

Man was blessed and told to multiply.

Both man and animals were vegetarians in the beginning. Otherwise, there would have been animal death before sin came into the world.

The Completed Creation  (1:31-2:4a)

His creation was “very good.”  It was complete and in perfect harmony. They were not standing on the fossil remains of millions of years of death.

God “rested” on the seventh day. He was not tired. He ceased from His work and set a pattern for us. “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it…”  He gave us a pattern for rest from our work.

The Creation of Man and Woman (Genesis 2)

2:4-6   

Genesis 2 gives a more detailed description of the creation of man. It does not contradict chapter 1.  The conditions of the earth were ready to support man. There were plenty of plants for food. A mist went up to water the vegetation and keep it plush.

2:7-14

God formed man and prepared the Garden of Eden for him.

Man was made from the dust of the ground.

God breathed into him the breath of life. Only human life is described in this way. Humans are truly a special creation.

Man was placed in the garden. There were two important trees:  The Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Exactly where is the Garden of Eden? There is no sense in looking for it. It would have been destroyed by the flood.

2:15-17

God’s one commandment to Adam:  “…of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (verse 17).

2:18-20

Adam named all the animals.

Adam needed an appropriate helper.

Continued next week with “The Creation of Woman”…