Doctrine of Creation

Lesson 6

Gen 1:1  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Gen 1:2  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.

Genesis is the foundation of the entire Bible.

• In the beginning at some point in time God created the heaven and the earth from nothing and He prepared it for human habitation.
• The foundation of the bible is about God
• The history of the bible is about God
• The beginning if life is about God
• The word Genesis means “beginnings.” Genesis tells the story of the beginning of the universe, solar system, earth, life, man, sin, Israel, nations, and salvation. An understanding of Genesis is crucial to our understanding of the rest of Scripture.

Genesis chapters 1-11 are quoted or referred to more than 100 times in the New Testament alone. And it is over these chapters that the primary battle for the historicity of Genesis rages.

Jesus Himself, on six different occasions, refers to each one of the first seven chapters of Genesis, thus affirming His belief in their historical nature.

• He refers back to Adam and Eve to defend His position on marriage and divorce in Matthew 19:3-6.
• He makes His argument a historical one when He says that “from the beginning” God created them male and female. Jesus affirms that Adam and Eve were real people.
• Jesus affirms the historicity of Cain and Abel in Matthew 23:29-36.
• Jesus confirms the historical nature Noah and the Flood in Matthew 24:37-39.

In many ways it is difficult to separate the book of Genesis, even the first eleven chapters, from the rest of Scripture, without literally rejecting the inspiration of Scripture and the divine nature of Jesus. It is hardly possible to assume that Jesus was knowingly deceiving these pre-modern people in order to communicate the gospel in a context they understood.

How can the first 11 chapters be separated from even the rest of Genesis? The time of Abraham has been verified by archaeology. The places, customs, and religions spoken in Genesis related to Abraham are accurate. The story of Abraham begins in Genesis 12. If Genesis 1 is mythology and Genesis 12 history, where does the allegory stop and the history begin in the first 11 chapters?

Galileo said, “the Holy Ghost intended to teach us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.”

Titus 1:1  Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God’s elect and the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness
Titus 1:2  a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time

Different views on the creation story

Among Bible-believing Christians, there are at least five primary interpretations of the creation account in Genesis 1–2.

1. Historic Creationism

In this view, Genesis 1:1 records the making of all creation by God out of nothing, or “ex nihilo.” The “heavens and earth” means the sky above and land below, or the totality of creation. Since the word used for “beginning” in Genesis 1:1 is re’shiyth in Hebrew, which means an indefinite period of time,

• Genesis 1:2 begins the description of God preparing the uninhabitable land for the creation of mankind.
• The preparation of the uncultivated land and the creation of Adam and Eve occurred in six literal twenty-four-hour days, as echoed in Exodus 20:11.

Exo 20:11  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.

• This view leaves open the possibility of both an old earth and six literal days of creation.

2. Young Earth Creationism

In this view, God created the entire universe, including Adam and Eve, in six literal twenty-four-hour days. This view believes that there was nothing at all and God created everything out of nothing, unlike the historical Creationism that believes the earth was there is some form but not suitable for human habitation. This view is almost always accompanied with a belief in a young earth as it seeks to be faithful to the biblical text while not giving much credence to the scientific claims of such things as an old earth.

3. Gap Theory

In this view, Genesis 1:1 explains a first creation that could have happened billions of years ago. Then, a catastrophic event, likely the fall of Satan from heaven, left the earth in the destroyed condition of Genesis 1:2. God responded to this disaster by recreating the earth again a few thousand years ago in six literal days and repopulating the earth as is recorded in Genesis 1:3–27.

• According to this view the earth is old but the creation of mankind is young because of the second creation.
• The problems with this view include the fact that nothing in the Bible speaks of two creations. Also, at the end of the six days of creation, God declared all that he had made “very good,” which does not correlate with the claim that the earth had been destroyed and made “very bad.”

2 Pet 3:5  But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water.
2 Pet 3:6  By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.
2 Pet 3:7  By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

• The problem

Isa 45:18  For this is what the LORD says he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited he says: “I am the LORD, and there is no other.

4. Literary Framework View

In this view, Genesis 1–2 is intended to be read as a figurative framework explaining creation in a topical, not sequential, order. The six days of creation listed in Genesis 1 are also to be interpreted metaphorically and not as literal twenty-four-hour days. The Literary Framework View is outlined here:

Forming

Day 1 – light and darkness separated

Day 2 – sky and waters separated

Day 3 – dry land and waters separated; plants and trees

Day 4 – sun, moon, stars (lights in heaven)

Day 5 – fish and birds

Day 6 – animals and man

2 Pet 3:8  But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

Exodus 20:11 clearly states that the six days of creation are literal; it ties our seven-day week with one day of Sabbath to the six days of God’s work in creation and his one day of rest.

5. Theistic Evolution

In this view, God essentially began creation and then pulled back from working directly in creation to instead work through the process of evolution. The only exception would be God involving himself directly again in the making of human life. For the most part, this view accepts the hypothesis of evolution but seeks to insert God as the creator of matter and overseer of the evolutionary process. This view also believes that species evolved over a long period of time, which requires an old earth.

The biblical problems with theistic evolution are many.

• First, Genesis 1 repeatedly states that creation and its species came into existence because “God said,” and not because of evolutionary process. Additionally, Genesis 1 also continually states that after God commanded creation to come into existence, “it was so”; thus, God’s commands brought about the instantaneous response of creation rather than a long evolutionary process detached from God.
• Second, evolution teaches that one species evolves into other species while Genesis 1 says that each species had offspring “according to its kind” (e.g., 1:21, 1:24, 1:25) and not another kind as evolution assumtion.
• Third, the rest of Scripture portrays God as continually involved in the details of creation, including making the grass grow (Ps. 104:14; Matt. 6:30), feeding the birds (Matt. 6:26), and feeding other creatures (Ps. 104:21, 25–30). Scripture clearly does not paint God as remote or only indirectly involved in creation.
• Evolution pre-supposes a very old universe and earth (15 billion – 4.5 billion-years-old respectively), and evolutionists are very sensitive on this issue. Large periods of time are required on their reckoning for life to have developed to such complexity by random mutations at the microbiological level. But are the figures right?
• Few people realize that the ‘macro’ vertical evolution required for the origin of species has never been reproduced or observed. All that we see are tiny ‘micro-evolutionary’ changes within a created kind – the ‘natural selection’ of genetic information which already exists in the gene-pool of the organism. But these changes preserve they do not create.
• Natural selection does not lead to new kinds, only variations within a kind (micro-evolution rather than macro-evolution). The term ‘micro-evolution’ shouldn’t mislead us. Organisms are not on their way to becoming anything other than what they already were variations of sharks, cats, dogs, finches, apes or humans. No new information ever arises.
• Hence, there is only one ‘race’ among mankind: the ‘human race’. This includes all of our diversity in ethnicity, skin-tone, size, shape and form. The genetic information for all of these variations was distributed by generations of breeding, and present in Adam and Eve’s genes from the beginning. No new information was acquired, no increasing complexity occurred. This produced advantages for scattered individuals and populations as God intended in designing DNA and the human genome. Scripture affirms this in words spoken by Paul to the evolutionary thinkers of his day: ‘From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the earth’ (Acts 17:26).
• The concept of ‘positive’ random mutations runs counter to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This law states that the universe tends to move from a state of order to disorder, that matter is subject to entropy in any closed system and becomes more dispersed and randomised (springs unwind, plants and animals die, gases disperse, your desk becomes a mess!. There is no mechanism in physics that would or could organise initial life cells, let alone with the complexity of what is often called ‘the simplest cell’. We are living in a universe that is getting older, colder, and more disorganised.
• Evolution defies this process, asserting that creatures have arisen that have become progressively more and more complex by nature’s self-organizing power. This is not remotely plausible. Yet, paradoxically, many scientists who are opposed to ‘faith’ encroaching upon their disciplines, seeing it as mere ‘superstition’, are themselves forced to make giant leaps of faith when telling their version of origins. The fossil record contains no undisputed transitional forms or ‘missing links’. The billions of fossilized remains available, all display stasis i.e. fixity of form with only limited variations ‘according to their kind’, as in Genesis 1.
• The biggest ‘leap of faith’ secular materialists make on this model is that they believe in the eternity of matter and its limitless creative power.
• The matter created mind, that the impersonal matter created personality, that static matter created wisdom, that chaos created order, unconscious created consciousness, unintelligent created the intelligent
• Matter that does not matter, does not think, cannot feel yet can create people who can.
• They believe that nothing made everything and they deny that although everything man made that exists today has to have a creator and designer they are willing to believe that everything just came from nothing
• The reality of life is, the more complex a design the more intelligent we ascribe to the creator
• Someone said if we come from no one, live for no one and when we die we go nowhere what is the point of life. If life deals you a hard blow or tragic circumstances the obvious solution is suicide. Just get out of the race and it is all over.

The Anthropic Principle

There is a great debate going on with scientist, and they are debate what they call the Anthropic Principle. The Anthropic Principle says this, if you look at the universe it reveals an incredible design so that human life could exist on this planet, science has not been able to find another single planet that we could exist on

God created the earth, the universe, and everything that exists. This fact is certain. Several years ago a scientist wrote an article entitled, Seven Reasons Why I Believe in God. He argued his case as follows:

1. Consider the rotation of the earth. Our globe spins on its axis at the rate of one thousand miles an hour. If it were just a hundred miles an hour, our days and nights would be ten times as long. The vegetation would freeze in the long night or it would burn in the long day; and there could be no life.
2. Consider the heat of the sun. Twelve thousand degrees at surface temperature, and we’re just far enough away to be blessed by that terrific heat. If the sun gave off half its radiation, we would freeze to death. If it gave off one half more, we would all be crispy critters.
3. Consider the twenty-three degree slant of the earth. If it were different than that, the vapors from the oceans would ice over the continents. There could be no life.
4. Consider the moon. If the moon were fifty thousand miles away rather than its present distance, twice each day giant tides would inundate every bit of land mass on this earth.
5. Consider the crust of the earth. Just a little bit thicker and there could be no life because there would be no oxygen.
6. Consider the thinness of the atmosphere. If our atmosphere was just a little thinner, the millions of meteors now burning themselves out in space would plummet this earth into oblivion.

Biblical evidence of Creation

However, an increasing number of scientists, philosophers and theologians are confident that we have good reasons to believe Genesis is reliable history. Unlike other history books we have read, the Bible starts earlier and finishes later. It speaks about both the beginning and end of the world, and since no human was present at the former or has lived long enough to see the latter, we have only God’s word on these events. Genesis is history from God’s point of view. It speaks of God’s original plan for the world, what went wrong with it, and how it can be put right – Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, and Re-creation in Christ – the biblical worldview. Genesis is crucial for our understanding all that matters most in life.

It was confirmed by Isaiah

Isa 46:8  “Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels.
Isa 46:9 Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.
Isa 46:10 I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.

Spoke of by the prophet Hosea

Hosea 6:7 Like Adam, they have broken the covenant they were unfaithful to me there.

The authenticity of the scriptures was declared by Paul and Peter

2 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
2 Pet 1:19 And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
2 Pet 1:20 Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation.
2 Pet 1:21 For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

It was recorded in the genealogies of the NT

Luke 3:38 the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

Confirmed by Paul

Rom 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Rom 5:14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
1 Cor 15:45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being” ; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
1 Tim 2:13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve.
1 Tim 2:14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.

Spoke by Jude

Jude 1:14 Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones

Revealed by Jesus

Who the bible says was involved in it.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:2 He was with God in the beginning.
John 1:3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
Col 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
Col 1:16 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 and for him.
Mat 13:35 So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden since the creation of the world.”
Mat 19:4  “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’
Mat 25:34  “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
Mark 10:6  “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’
Mark 10:7  ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,
John 17:24  “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

The biblical response is we can listen to the theories of the theologians, smile at the ignorance of the atheists, and even debate the issue with some Christian scholars.

But we cannot deny the truth of the scriptures that has never once called the Genesis account into dispute. In fact I will always choose to believe the prophets, the apostles and Jesus who was the creator of the heavens and earth and happen to be there and openly declared that Adam and Eve where apart of God’s creation.

Rev 22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

To doubt the Genesis account will nullify the authenticity of the entire scriptures, invalidate the person and purpose of the cross that came to restore and redeem us from the fall of mankind in the garden and ultimately give me no legitimate grounds to have my faith firmly planted in the Word of God.

Interesting Facts

The Solar System consists of the Sun and those planets that are all bound to it by gravity, they all orbit the Sun, there are eight relatively solitary planets whose orbits are almost circular and lie within a nearly-flat disc called the ecliptic plane. The four smaller inner planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, also called the terrestrial planets, are primarily composed of rock and metal. The four outer planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, also called the gas giants, are composed largely of hydrogen and helium and are far more massive than the terrestrials.

Gen 1:14  And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years,
Gen 1:15  and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so.
Gen 1:16  God made two great lights–the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.
Heb 1:3  The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

Species known to exist in the world

The marvel that God created man and women in all their diversity and complexity, is an absolutely amazing concept to grasp.  that in it’s self would be amazing. But to understand that he created 2 of every living species both male and female is beyond incredible.

Mammals                    5,416

Gen 1:24  And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so.
Gen 1:25  God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

• With every animal they all have a perfect partner, male and female, they very much only mate with their own species and each one designed perfectly different to carry their young. Each one is totally unique and extremely different, could all that just evolve or was there an amazing creator.

Fishes                          30,000

Birds                            9,956

Gen 1:21  So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:22  God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”

Reptiles                       8,240

Amphibians                 6,199

Lev 11:29  “‘Of the animals that move about on the ground, these are unclean for you: the weasel, the rat, any kind of great lizard,
Lev 11:30  the gecko, the monitor lizard, the wall lizard, the skink and the chameleon.
Lev 11:31  Of all those that move along the ground, these are unclean for you. Whoever touches them when they are dead will be unclean till evening.

Invertebrate Animals

Insects                                     950,000

Lev 11:20  “‘All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you.
Lev 11:21  There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground.
Lev 11:22  Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper.
Lev 11:23  But all other winged creatures that have four legs you are to detest.

Molluscs                      93,000

Crustaceans                50,000

Lev 11:9  “‘Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams, you may eat any that have fins and scales.
Lev 11:10  But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales–whether among all the swarming things or among all the other living creatures in the water–you are to detest.

Plants

Flowering plants (angiosperms)         258,650

Conifers (gymnosperms)                    980

Ferns and horsetails                           13,025

Gen 1:11  Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so.
Gen 1:12  The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.

Please complete and submit this part of  lesson, we are looking forward to seeing what God has revealed to you in His Word and through this Study.