THE RECONSTRUCTION OF CREATION

Transcription

1 1 Dear Friend, this is a transcript of a sermon preached by Pastor Jeremy Tan from the pulpit of Amazing Grace Baptist Church Singapore. We are committed to expository preaching because we believe it is the most effective way to expose, explain and expound the Holy Scriptures. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, [Jesus] expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself (Luke 24:27). Through careful systematic and sequential exposition, the preacher is able to declare unto you all the counsel of God (Acts 20:27), and Christians are blessed with a regular, well-balanced diet of God s Word. Expository preaching also helps us to have a high view of Scripture. We wish to extend a warm welcome to you to join us in our church services for a time of uplifting worship and helpful Bible study, which will bring rejoicing and refreshment to your soul. Do visit our church website at or write to us at amazingracebc@gmail.com. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF CREATION Genesis 1:1 2 In our introductory studies of the book of Genesis, we have learned a number of fundamental truths about God and His creation. Genesis 1:1 is a denial of the philosophies of atheism, materialism, naturalism, pantheism, and polytheism. The Creator-God is the only uncreated being in the universe. He is the Supreme Being and the Ultimate Reality of the created order, both seen and unseen, visible and invisible. Before the beginning of time and beyond the end of time, God is self-existent. Without God, nothing exists. We have also learned the different views about the days of creation. We listed six views other than the biblical one. The first view is theistic evolution. This is the view that God created the universe and then He allowed matter to evolve into the different species, from simple forms to complex forms of life. But this view is an accommodation to the theory of evolution. We cannot accept theistic evolution and still interpret Genesis 1-3 literally and historically. The second view is the Gap theory, which we will discuss in this study. The third view of creation is the Day-Age theory. According to Psalm 90:4 and 2 Peter 3:8, a thousand years is as one day with God, so the Day-Age theory claims that each creative day in Genesis 1 must have been at least one thousand years in duration. But God is eternal, so one day or one thousand years are irrelevant to Him. These verses about the thousand years as one day with God are about His patience and longsuffering nature toward us. The fourth view is the Sabbath of Creation week. Since there is no end to the first Sabbath when God rested or completed His work of creation, this theory proposes that each of the six creative days must also have been several thousand years in duration, and still counting! The fifth view is the Days of Revelation theory, but this theory is not about the days of creation. Rather, it is about the six days when God revealed His creative work to Moses.

2 2 The sixth view is the Framework Hypothesis view. In this case, Genesis 1 is to be read as poetry, and the text should not be interpreted literally and historically. We reject all these views for the following reasons: the biblical text is misinterpreted or misunderstood, there is unbelief in God and His revealed Word, concessions are made to the claims of science, or they are a combination of all these reasons. Now that we have been introduced to the competing theories of creation, we are ready to exegete and exposit the biblical account of creation. So let us read the first two verses. Genesis 1:1-2 1 IN the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. In these verses, we meet three more competing theories that challenge the Genesis account. If we believe God s account of creation, we must be prepared to engage in apologetics, which is the defence of the Scriptures. In the words of the apostle in 1 Peter 3:15, we must be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: We begin with I. The Theory of the Gap. In Genesis 1:1 God created the heaven. God created every star and every galaxy in the universe, and there are thousands of billions of them in the expanding outer space. God put all the stars in space and He names every one of them (Isaiah 40:26; Psalm 147:4). If we want to get a sense of how awesome God is, just look at His universe. With the telescope named after the astronomer Edwin Hubble, there have been discoveries of more galaxies, but let me share with you a piece of news that ought to humble those who are high minded and think they have acquired plenty of scientific knowledge. On July 14, 2015, a spacecraft from NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), the unmanned New Horizons, will fly past Pluto. Pluto is a dwarf planet in a small solar system. Hitherto the best picture we have of Pluto is a blurry, pixelated blob, but now for the first time this spaceship will send back unprecedented high resolution images of Pluto (The Straits Times, April 16, 2015). This is only Pluto! There is much that we do not know, and have not seen, about the universe! Then from the heaven in Genesis 1:1, Moses turns to the earth. From here on, the focus and perspective of the Genesis 1 account is geocentric, which means that the view of creation is seen from the earth. Keep this geocentric view in mind because it affects our interpretation of the creation account. Even the sun, the moon, and stars are mentioned only because of their usefulness to the earth, which is to give light. In a sense, everything that occurs from Genesis 1:2 is about the earth. So what is the Gap theory? This is also known as the ruin-reconstruction theory. According to this theory, God destroyed His creation because of Lucifer s rebellion, and the time of God s judgment fits into the gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. In Genesis 1:1, God created the heaven and the earth. But then in Genesis 1:2, the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. The Gap theory posits that the wake of God s judgment against Lucifer left the earth in the state of destruction.

3 3 The fall of Lucifer is not stated in Genesis 1, but it is revealed in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah 14: How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. Lucifer wanted to be like God and to be higher than the other angels, so God judged Lucifer and he fell from his angelic status. Notice that Lucifer will be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. Where is this pit? In Revelation 20:1-3 we read that Satan or Lucifer will be cast into the bottomless pit and chained for a thousand years. Isaiah said that Lucifer fell down to the ground, but there is no mention of Earth being destroyed. The earth is NOT the pit! However in Jeremiah 4, the prophet used the very same words as in Genesis 1:2 to describe the destruction of the earth. Jeremiah prophesied about the earth becoming without form, and void. Jeremiah 4: I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. 24 I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. 25 I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. 26 I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger. Without form, and void. The language is similar to that in Genesis 1:2, but the prophet is not describing the state of the earth. The context of the prophecy is about judgment on the land of Israel and its cities. This is the prophecy of the Babylonian invasion that left the land desolate and void or empty of its inhabitants. As for the heavens [that] had no light, this may be due to the smoke from the fires that razed the cities, which blackened the sky and blocked out the light from the sun. So when did Lucifer fall? Did he fall in the gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2? The Bible does not reveal the time to us, so it is an argument from silence to speculate that he fell in the gap between the first creation and a reconstructed Earth. Remember, Moses is writing from a geocentric perspective, so it is not his concern to write about Lucifer s rebellion in Heaven that led to his fall. Now let us interpret the meaning of the phrase without form, and void, the words used in Jeremiah 4:23 and Genesis 1:2. In Hebrew, these words are tohu wa bohu. They mean unformed and uninhabitable. The picture of earth as tohu wa bohu, or unformed and uninhabitable, is described by Umberto Cassuto in his commentary on Genesis. Just as the potter, when he wishes to fashion a beautiful vessel, takes first of all a lump of clay, and places it upon his wheel in order to mould it according to his wish, so the Creator first prepared for Himself the raw material with a view to giving it afterwards order and life.it is this terrestrial state that is called tohu and bohu. (R. Kent Hughes, quoting Cassuto, Genesis: Beginning and Blessing, p. 21).

4 4 So Genesis 1:2 is a description of the earth at the beginning of God s creation: it was like a lump of clay, waiting for the divine Potter to begin His work; it was unformed and uninhabitable. Then the word deep in Genesis 1:2 is the term for the water on the surface of the earth. In the beginning, the earth was wholly covered with water. There was only ocean. Land did not rise up from the sea until Genesis 1:9-10. Jonah used the same Hebrew word for deep to describe the sea into which he was thrown from the ship (Jonah 2:5). We also read in Genesis 1:2 that darkness was upon the face of the deep. Some have made the point that darkness is a symbol of God s judgment. But God made both day and night for the earth, and in Genesis 1:18, God saw that it was good. Psalm 104:19-24 also make it quite clear that physical darkness is not inherently evil, but that it is His blessing to His creatures. The formlessness, the emptiness, and the darkness describe the state of the earth when God created it. Next in Genesis 1:2, Moses wrote, And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. In Hebrew the word spirit is ruah, and this word can mean wind or breeze. In this context, it does not mean the wind or breeze but it refers to the third person of the Godhead. How do we know? Job 26:13 By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent. Psalm 104:30 Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth. The words translated moved over is the same verb used in Deuteronomy 32:11 of the eagle hovering over its young. Deuteronomy 32:11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: Therefore, the imagery we see is that of the Holy Spirit moving over the face of the waters, just like the eagle hovering over her nest, to care for the infant earth. How and when did the Gap theory begin? It is useful to know some historical theology: how theological ideas and doctrines are discussed, debated, discarded or developed in the past. The modern form of this theory began with the Scottish theologian Thomas Chalmers ( ). In 1814, Chalmers proposed the Gap theory to take into account the new findings of fossils that suggested the earth was millions of years old. He explained that the fossils are the records of a catastrophe that occurred between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. The Gap theory was given wide circulation in the early part of the twentieth century by George H. Pember, whose book Earth s Earliest Ages appeared in But the greatest influence for the Gap theory was from C. I. Scofield ( ), who promoted it in his Scofield Reference Bible. The most scholarly and lengthy defence of the Gap theory is Arthur C. Custance s Without Form and Void in Most people who hold to the Gap theory are vague about the details but as generally taught, the theory asserts that God created a perfect heaven and earth. The earth was

5 5 inhabited by a pre-adamic race and ruled by [Lucifer], who dwelt in the Garden of Eden. [Lucifer] desired to become like God and eventually rebelled (Isa. 14). Thus sin entered the universe, and God s judgment came in the form of first a great flood and then, when the light and heat from the sun ended, a global ice age. All plant, animal, and human fossils date from this great flood and are genetically unrelated to plants, animals, and humans on the earth today. (John J. Davis, Paradise to Prison: Studies in Genesis, p. 43). Now, think about it. If Genesis 1:1 is a statement of God s perfect creation, why did God have to destroy the earth when it was Lucifer who rebelled against Him? What about humanity before the so-called Gap? Why did God judge the pre-adamic race for Lucifer s rebellion? God judged Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit, but what did the people before the Gap do to be destroyed? In my view, there is no gap between Genesis 1:1 and 2. Instead, these two verses introduce God as the Creator at the beginning of creation. Genesis 1:1 is an independent clause describing creation ex nihilo. Genesis 1:2 gives a series of three circumstantial clauses describing the conditions of the earth before God completed His work of creation. Genesis 1:3 to the end of the chapter give us the sequence and details of God s creative work. Now let us move on to a related theory II. The Theory of Geology. In geology, there is the theory of uniformitarianism that we must know something about. Uniformitarianism is the idea that natural and geological forces have been operating continuously, with uniformity, and without interruption. Scientists and geologists who hold this view believe that the forces of nature are essentially fixed and constant. This means that layers of sedimentary rock strata are formed on top of one another over billions of years in an orderly manner. Thus the deeper the layer of sediment, the earlier the forms of life are to be found. The uniformitarian theory is advanced as a geological time clock for the history of the earth. The deeper you dig into the rock strata, the older are the fossils found there. The theory of uniformitarianism was first proposed sometime at the beginning of the nineteenth century by two British geologists (James Hutton and Charles Lyell). One of the two men, Charles Lyell, wrote a book Principles of Geology that became the textbook for Charles Darwin ( ). In his book, Lyell insisted that all the features of earth s geology must be explainable by natural, rather than supernatural, processes. He regarded all biblical or supernatural explanations as inherently unscientific and therefore false. (John MacArthur, The Battle for the Beginning: the Bible on Creation and the Fall of Adam, p. 50). But there are big problems with the theory of uniformitarianism. This theory is only valid if it is true that sedimentary layers are formed in a uniform and orderly manner. But that does not happen! During an earthquake, the ground opens up to produce gigantic folds of earth which are thrust on top of another, and the surface of the ground may be tucked beneath an older layer. Then when there is a tremendous flow of water, such as a flood, the ground beneath the water are violently churned about. We only need to recall the power of the tsunami to have an idea of how things are sifted, shifted, and moved about. It s a mess! When the March 2011 tsunami hit Japan, there were objects from Japan taken out to sea and washed up on the west coast of North America. The violent churning of immense volumes of water and the violent upheavals in an earthquake will upend the theory of uniformitarianism! Now

6 6 instead of a tsunami, think of a great worldwide flood, and you will see how the theory of geology is unreliable. In the theory of evolution, fossils are the only true historical evidence. It is often claimed that fossils prove the continuous evolution of the species from the simplest forms to higher forms. However, no fossils have been found that prove the gradual development of the species. There are no fossil records of creatures in transition from one form to another, such as a fish becoming an amphibian, and then from an ape to a human being. Instead, major groups of creatures appear suddenly in fossil remains. For example, there are dinosaur bones and the remains of other animals discovered, but there are none found that prove the transition of animals from the simpler to the complex. Why? The reason is that fossils are formed only through a catastrophe, such as in a sudden flood when animals are trapped and buried alive in the mud, and their remains are preserved. In normal cases, creatures do not die and become fossilized, but their dead bodies decompose and turn to dust. Now, there are places in the world where large numbers of fossils were discovered. In Siberia, there are not just fossils found but well preserved carcases of the mammoth. There are also fossilized remains of fish found high up in the mountains. Why are there fossils discovered in one place, but not everywhere? There may have been natural disasters that trapped a herd of animals and preserved their remains deep in the ground, but why are there fish fossils in the mountains? The universal flood that occurred in the days of Noah is the reason why fish fossils are embedded in the mountains, thousands of metres above sea level! III. The Theory of Evolution. During a five-year sea voyage on board the H.M.S. Beagle ( ), Charles Darwin explored the variety of living creatures on the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador. In 1859 Darwin published his book The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection, detailing his view that all life came from the process of survival of the fittest. At one time Darwin considered entering the clergy of the Church of England, but he began to trust his own observations of the created order than in the written revelation of the Creator- God. Darwin s descent from believing in God the Creator to trusting the natural selection of the creatures follows the path that the apostle Paul described in Romans 1: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. There are four problems with the theory of evolution. First, there is the problem of the origin of matter. Where did matter come from? Certainly not from evolution. The origin of matter points to a Creator because nothing cannot produce something. The second problem of evolution is the form of matter. Hydrogen, which is the basic building block of everything, is complex, not simple. There is a proton, neutron, and electron,

7 7 all operating according to fixed laws. What is the origin of these fixed laws? These laws did not evolve. The theory of evolution is about the simple becoming complex, but the fixed laws are present in matter from the start. The third problem with the evolutionary process is the emergence of life. How is life ever produced from a piece of rock? The fourth problem of evolution is the emergence of human personality. How did man evolve from matter to possess a soul and spirit, which is his consciousness of God? Evolution is aligned with the philosophies of materialism and naturalism. It is supposed that matter have always existed, that matter is eternal. But how did inanimate matter evolve into life? Matter is impersonal, so how did it evolve to become a person with intelligence, emotions, and personality? The only answer for the theory of evolution is that it takes time, billions and billions of years. Time is the hero of evolution. Just give it more time, and something will evolve. But it is impossible for matter to evolve into a living thing, no matter how many billions of years we wait! The book of Genesis declares that God created the heaven and the earth in six twentyfour hour days. God created the universe in 144 hours. There is a conundrum often presented with this question, which came first: the chicken or the egg? It is true that chickens are hatched from eggs, but this is not true with the first fowl. In the beginning, God made a fullgrown chicken. In fact, there were a pair of them, and the hen laid her eggs! What about Adam? God did not create Adam with a single-cell, or as a baby! God created Adam a fully mature man, and then God made Eve from Adam for procreation. The same is true with all the animals. When God paraded the animals before Adam in Genesis 2:19, Adam saw full-grown creatures, not animals in early stages of their evolutionary development. There are evolutionists who recognized the lack of fossil evidence that prove creatures in transition of development. So an answer given for the lack of evidence is that the species mutated from simple to complex forms. It is a fact that there are variations in the major animal groups. For example, there are different breeds of dogs. However, dogs stay within their main group. You will not find a cat mutating into a dog, or a dog evolving to become a lion. Mutation requires genetic change. Every living thing has a complex genetic code, stored in its DNA an abbreviation for deoxyribonucleic acid that determines its fundamental characteristics. The DNA code is analogous to a computer s program. DNA contains the information that enables the organism to reproduce, preserve, and repair itself. The genetic structure of every living organism limits that organism to what it is no more, no less. There is no genetic information that can enable an organism to transform itself into something it is not. (MacArthur, p. 134). Science is always adjusting its theories to new discoveries. In his day, Charles Darwin knew nothing about a DNA code, so he attributed the evolution of the species to the environment. For example, Darwin explained the length of the giraffe s neck because of its need to stretch for the high leaves in trees; so over time, the conditions of the environment led to giraffes with long necks, and this part of the anatomy was passed on to their offspring. But

8 8 the real reason for the long neck is not due to the environment; the giraffe s neck is determined by its genetic code. DNA codes are unique, and these codes do not jump from species to species. Therefore, mutations that result in wholesale changes are out of the question. The lack of fossilized evidence that proves one creature evolving into another, and the presence of unique DNA code, prove that the theory of natural selection of the species is false. Evolution is a religion masquerading as science. Evolution is a religion because faith is required to believe that man is the product of billions of years of evolutionary development. Indeed, evolution requires a giant leap of faith. Evolution is science, but it is false science. Yet, people hold to evolution because they reject God as their Creator and they do not want to be morally accountable to Him. They reject that creation is the supernatural work of God, so they turn to naturalism and materialism to explain everything in the universe. Conclusion Genesis 1:1-2 are verses that introduce God and creation. The rest of the chapter from Genesis 1:3 is the record of what God created. There is no gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 wherein God destroyed the earth because of judgment against Lucifer, and the earth became a wasteland, without form and void, and left in darkness for thousands, even billions of years. There was no ruin and reconstruction of creation. Besides the theory of the Gap, we have also disproven the theory of uniformitarianism in geology, and the theory of evolution that deny God as the Creator. Do you believe that God created the universe? Do you believe that God created you? Unbelief in God as the Creator reminds me of the story about a family of mice that lived all their lives inside a grand piano. To them in their piano-world came the music of the instrument, which filled all the dark spaces with beautiful music. At first the mice were impressed by the sound and harmony. The music gave them comfort, and they often wondered about the source. Who made the music? Where it did come from? Though unseen, the mice loved to think of the Great Player. One day, a daring mouse climbed up part of the piano and returned very thoughtful. He had discovered how the music was made. Wires were the secret! Music came from tightly stretched steel wires of graduated lengths when they trembled and vibrated. They must revise their old beliefs: none but the most conservative mouse could any longer believe in the unseen Great Player. Later, another mice-explorer saw something else. He saw hammers. Ah ha! Hammers were now the secret: numbers of hammers dancing and leaping on the steel wires. This was a more complicated theory than the trembling and vibrating wires. The mice again revised their theories. Now they believed that they lived in a mechanical and mathematical world that produced the music. The Great Unseen Player became a myth. But outside the dark spaces and sight unseen, the pianist continued to play the music.

9 9 Friend, God has revealed Himself as the Creator, but fallen humanity reject Him as their Creator and Judge. Instead of submitting to God in faith and repentance, people turn to evolution, which dismisses God and exalts man. If you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, we wish to point out that there is no creation without Him. Christ, the Son of God, is the Creator who sustains and holds creation together. Colossians 1: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: 17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Without Christ, there is also no salvation for sinners. The life of an unsaved person is without form, it is void of God, and it lies in spiritual darkness. Salvation means to have your sins forgiven, to be justified through personal faith in Christ, and to become a child of God in His family. If you are not saved, come now to Christ in faith and repentance, and become a new creature of God. Permission: We share our materials with you as a blessing from the ministry of our church. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format, provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on our website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be explicitly approved by Amazing Grace Baptist Church. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: Copyright: Amazing Grace Baptist Church Singapore. Website: Used by permission as granted on website.