Genesis 1 The real purpose of Genesis 1: What young earth and old earth, creationists and evolutionists are all missing

Transcription

1 1 Genesis 1 The real purpose of Genesis 1: What young earth and old earth, creationists and evolutionists are all missing The greatest, most epic battle of good versus evil in the movies Arguably, the greatest, most epic battle of good versus evil came to the silver screen on May 25, When I say arguably, what I mean is that you are welcome to argue about it all you want, but if you disagree with my assessment than you are just plain wrong... and stupid...and kind of ugly too. We aren t talking about opinions here, this is an objective, cold hard fact. I was six years old in 1977 and while I didn t see this movie on opening day, when I did it changed my life. Even today when people see this opening screen, there is visible excitement, trembling, sometimes tears of joy. It s palpable. (Cue Star Wars intro.) A long time ago in a land far far away.... STAR WARS Wait, wait wait, don t let it go any further. I just want to be sure we are all on the same page regarding the best, most epic battle of good vs evil ever. On May 25 th, 1983 at midnight, I watched the last ever movie that we can call Star Wars. Yes, I am making a bold statement about the prequels. The last real movie was so powerful. I remember when Darth Vader made his entrance, (music to empire) the whole audience stood up and cheered. The fear and excitement could not be contained. Literally. I think I peed myself a little that day. It s not what you think. It went back to Christmas morning 1978, seven years old. I woke up early and snuck into the living room in the darkness. There, next to the Christmas tree, was Darth Vader. Seriously. His lightsaber was out and I swore he was coming for me. The terror was uncontrollable. I screamed and ran for my parents bed. It took me several minutes to be convinced that it was a full size cardboard cutout for me. To this day, if I see Vader or hear the empire music, I lose control of my bladder. The trauma and years of counseling didn t keep me from spending nearly $700,000 on Star Wars action figures, AT AT walkers, the Millenium Falcon, a whole host of storm troopers with and without hoth battle gear. I had Luke Skywalker in Tatooine gear, in hoth gear, in jedi gear, in dagobah gear. I had Han in Bespin, Hoth, falcon, and even frozen in carbonite, which you can only get by buying Slave 1, Boba Fetts ship. I had everything. I have the Jawa sand crawler worth nearly $ today. Bought at yard sale for $2.00. So, if you think there is a better movie, you are just plain dumb.

2 2 So, let s go back and redo our star wars crawl to give us some history of where we are going the next few weeks. Our sermon series is not about Star Wars, rather its about (Cue star wars crawl again start it all over but this time have it say) It is a period of great struggle. CREATION WARS Rebel forces have been completely decimated by the Empire. The gods of Babylon have conquered the so-called God of Israel. The people are lost... exiled...dead. But the prophets continue to come and they continue to hold out hope. A new generation is being raised in the dark lands of Babylons gods, but hope is essential. The elders hold out hope to the young and the fathers tell an old story with a new purpose. The story is told in Babylon The story is simple. It s the story of an epic war that was waged before man came to be. It s the story of creation and the war that made it what it was. And it s a story told for a generation who needed to know that God was in control. What story? In the beginning Little Ya kov and Abdiel sit near the fire as Papa begins... of course they spoke in Hebrew (maybe) Do you recognize this story already? One of your versions says it like this: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (sky and land). It s in five parts Now before we go any further into our little story, I need you to remember this. This book, Genesis, is only part one of the story. It s kind of like Star wars. We get the set up, but we need two more pieces before the culmination. (Yes, I am sticking with my statement that there are only three star wars movies any story with Jar Jar Binks in it, doesn t deserve the Star Wars title) So, we have a five part series called the Pentateuch which begins with this creation story, climaxes with meeting God on Sinai and culminates with a charge to a new generation to keep the commands of God as they move out of the wilderness and into the new land. What is God trying to say in the Pentateuch? Listen up Israel, Yahweh created everything. The whole cosmos. Plus he redeemed you from Egypt and gave you a land for yourself and made you his people. He is your God. The only god. Worship only him.

3 3 Now this is really important because remember that Ya kov and Abdiel are being told this story in exile. After they had experienced the frown of God because of their consistent worship of other gods. Why must they worship God? Why must they worship only God? 1. He is creator of world 2. He is redeemer of Israel Context helps shape meaning Here is what I am saying: It is very important to realize that this story, in the form we currently have it is probably written long after Moses. There are numerous comments in this book that convince most scholars that it was written during the exile or even after they are back in the land. I am not saying that Moses didn t compile some of the great and ancient stories. I am not saying that he had nothing to do with a primitive narrative, I am just saying that its current shape with what amounts to two creations stories a fall story, a story of the effects of evil and the creation of Babel (Babylon) probably come some thousand years after the events in Moses life. I want you to know the context because it shapes the purpose. If you decided to read Animal Farm you would have a pretty good time picturing the pigs walking on two legs and them running off the farmers, but unless you knew it was written in 1945 as a critique of Stalin s oppressive regime, you are missing the main purpose. You need to know that Snowball is Lenin, Squealer is the newspaper, the dogs are the KGB. The Old Testament is story, written in light of national (exile) to encourage continued to God. The Old Testament is Israel s story, written in light of national trauma (exile) to encourage continued faithfulness to God. But isn t it about Creation out of nothing? This might help you see more in Genesis 1 then simply God speaking and puff, things appearing. In fact, if you read this carefully you don t see ex nihilo (creation out of nothing) at all. You see a molding and shaping out of something that is there. Col 1 and Heb11 both relate that God creates out of nothing, but Peter on the other hand says the earth was formed out of water and by means of water. My point is not to debunk ex nihilo, but to say that Genesis isn t answering that question. It doesn t care. It has an all different reason for being written. It s not really in the beginning

4 4 So, let s start our text and try to read as people 2500 years ago might have read. I am going to read my translation while you are looking at your NIV, to show you some of the things we have to deal with right away NIV Genesis 1:1 In the beginning when God began to create the heavens and the earth. 2 the earth was formless and empty (tohu vabohu = chaotic), darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit (wind) of God was hovering (swept over) over the waters. Now I don t know about you, but it seems that, despite the in the beginning that what we really have is something after the beginning. We have entered something in the middle. So it s the beginning of something but not the beginning of the universe. The authors couldn t care less about the beginning of the universe. Rather, they are starting with water. Do you see this mysterious word deep which is also called the waters? What do Tohu and Bohu mean? Plus we have this formless and void thing. It s the words tohu and bohu which mean without shape and empty. Best word to fit this idea: Chaos. In the ancient world we hear about a lot of gods. There are all kinds of books about gods that are written before and after the Bible and the gods don t create out of nothing. Rather, what they do is tame the chaos. So, this first chapter is not about creating out of nothing really, it s about the power of this one single God to tame the chaos in only a single work week. By himself. Ordering the chaos is about cleaning off the table It s about an ordering of chaos. And you all know this chapter. First he creates light, then he separates the waters by putting some in the sky and some lower ones. Then he separates them so that land appears. Then to govern the light of day 1, he puts a sun, moon and stars. To govern the upper waters (sky) he puts flying things and to govern the lower, swimming things. On the sixth day, to govern the third day stuff he makes animals and man. He has ordered things. Everything has its place. Anyone played monopoly? If your house is anything like mine, the first thing you need to do is figure out a place to play. If it s the table you have some work to do. Get rid of the homework pages, clean off the syrup from the morning and the jelly from lunch and the eraser junk from homework time. Put the grocery list back on the fridge, the seventeen cups because your kids cant seem to reuse the same cup EVER! That s whats happening in Genesis. He had to turn the light on and clean off the table (days 1-3) so he could start building his hotels (4-6). The author picks a fight

5 5 Look a little more closely: 3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day. Notice there are no sun, moon and stars. Just light. The sun, moon and stars don t show up till day 4. He has to be able to see to work. But when he does fill the days with the sun, moon and stars, it almost looks like the author is picking a fight. 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, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 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. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning--the fourth day. I don t like your Sun and Moon god Now, I said that it looks like they are picking a fight, but to see that you probably have to know something about Babylonian worship. They loved astrology. Their sun and moon were likely gods and they told the future. But here in Israel s story, they aren t gods at all. He doesn t even give them names, just greater and lesser lights. This is like a smack to the face. And what are these lights purpose?... to mark the seasons. They don t predict the future, they just mark the passing of time. In fact, the words signs and seasons here is used often to refer to the times when Israel is to keep a certain feast for Yahweh. Babylon s gods are given a job you keep track of when it s time to worship God with a big feast. That s at least a jab to the kidneys. How about day 2. Any literary attacks here? 6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day. I don t like your Marduk god On day 2 he put one part of the waters up high and one down low. Again, you need to know something about the Babylonian stories. Enuma Elish is kind of a big soap opera where the god Marduk (not Marmaduke) has a long standing animosity with his great-grandmother Tiamat,

6 6 usually represented by a serpent/dragon. Now since Tiamat won t do counseling, they go to war. Marduk is victorious and slices Tiamat in half longways fileting her. Half of her body was used to hold up the waters in the sky. Now that is Babylon s creation story, but look how different Israel s story is and how they take a right hook to Babylon s gods. Yahweh doesn t do battle at all. Although if you look closely in verse 2 you might see some left over Babylonian myth. The word Deep, from darkness was over the surface of the deep is Tehom, which may be etymologically connected to Tiamat. So maybe she is there, but she isn t personified. She isn t even worthy of a mention. He doesn t do battle and win as much as he just does the victory move putting a raqia (firmament, expanse, dome) in the sky. And to make matters worse he fills it with birds. Absolutely no dignity at all to the sky, because the sky isn t a god at all. It s just the movements of a God who is unrivaled. If the Babylonians heard this they would be shocked and ticked. You mention Tiamat as if in passing and she is of absolutely no significance? How rude. I don t like your Tiamat god Can I jump back to the raqia for a second. Mainly just because I fear we are still reading Genesis 1 like Ken Ham does trying to make it a science textbook rather than a primitive theological rhetoric designed to persuade. He might say it is designed to persuade us that the earth is young or that it wasn t evolution, but I would say that the author doesn t care about these issues. He wants to persuade that God is better than all the other gods. The raqia is just another example of an ancient near eastern cosmology that is readily adopted by the storytellers of Scripture. A raqia is a large dome that separates the waters above from those below. Basically, it is a pounded out clear metal dome that is stuck up in the sky. Picture a snow globe with the water outside not inside. Man is safe to walk around on the ground because the waters have been separated in every direction. I don t want to walk through every part of this passage, but let s glance at verse 31 as my last point. Instead of the same repetition of everything being good, here it says that it was very good. Only after he created man was everything very good. Because according to verse Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. I don t like your king as God They are in his likeness and image. Not just kings which is what the Egyptians and Babylonians and most everyone else thought. They weren t the only representatives of God. No, Israel s God says that everyone bears the image of God. Everyone has royal status and are called to have dominion.

7 7 28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." Mankind as king. This goes against everything Babylon thought. The Atrahasis Epic has humans created as an afterthought to do the work that the gods were too lazy to do. They were grunt labor at best. But Israel says, No, all men are created equal. This is an uppercut to the jaw. Not a battle against primitive thinking There is a literary battle going on. And it s not against evolution or old earth theorists. Israel doesn t laugh at primitive writings by arguing that there is nothing in the sky to hold back the rain. That s just primitive idiocy. They don t say, no no no you dumb ignorant Babylonians, the stars are actually billions of light years away and the earth is a nearly round ball that revolves around the sun and that the universe is expanding at an amazing rate. Come on you Babylonians, get it together. No, they shared the same basic understanding of the universe. Genesis one is mocking the Babylonians though Your stories say there are many gods, who work together or are at least needed to create and they create man as a slave and they are all to be worshipped as in control of their domains: sky, water, air, land, fire, etc. But the reality is that it is about chaos being ordered and God doing it all by himself. It is about the other gods being mocked and mankind being exalted. It s saying, you may think we are weak because we are captive in a foreign land, but the reality is our God could take out your gods with but a whisper. Does God really do battle? It s a creation war, not literally, but literarily. It s not like God actually did battle with monster gods in space and time, but that the authors of Scripture are doing battle against Babylon s authors with a very specific purpose to remind their own readers that Israel s God is greatest. So the ground is set, the war (and I put that in quotes) is finished. God has spoken and chaos has moved to order. But Chaos is not to be undone. It sure looked easy, but there are more hands to be played. They know what they are supposed to believe and who they are supposed to follow, but there are always servants of chaos out there who whisper enticing words in our ear. Maybe Babylon s gods are greater? Maybe Yahweh isn t the greatest. We are created in God s image? Well, that means that we should get to do whatever we want whenever we want to. The snake/ false prophet entices creation into its downfall. So much so that brothers kill brothers, angels interfere on earth, chaos reigns again and God is compelled to destroy the chaos and with it the entire cosmos. Creation is undone.

8 8 Do the Creation Wars continue? But let me ask you this. Is there still a war for creation? Have the creation wars continued? I hope you see very clearly that that the battle continues. The question is Which gods will we follow? Yes, as we choose who to serve Do we follow the whisperer in the garden who seeks to deceive? How about the dragon god who prefers chaos to order? Does your mess rule your world? Can you not be hospitable because you are such a slob? How about gods of order who aren t Yahweh? Are you such a neat freak that you are constantly worried that someone might have fun around you and destroy the perfection? Does the sun and moon rule your day? The times and seasons. Your schedule? Instead of them calling you to worship the King, they actually call you to worship your job, your vacation, pretty much everything comes before your God. Does the water above or below or beside beckon you? Maybe the beach is all you desire. Maybe the rain keeps you from finding joy and the snow keeps you depressed for months on end. Have these become your gods, even if hated gods? Do the birds and fish keep you from what is best? Hunting fishing, trapping? How about other animals. Both living and dead. Do your pets keep you from loving on others like you should? Do they preoccupy you to the point of ruining your worship not Sunday worship, but daily worship? Maybe it s the dead ones that occupy you is food your god? Has it passed the point of being a blessing and become a curse? Maybe even people have become your god. Your parents so much love was there that now that they are gone it makes you doubt God. Maybe it s that boy or girl. They don t want to go to church, but you love them. And they are a good person. Are they stealing you from being the best you can possibly be? Are friends so preoccupying your time that you have no time for God, or for his people? Yes, but we are already victors The good news is that in one sense the battle has been fought and the victory has been won. On the cross, God destroyed the work of chaos forever. Those forces that seek to undo the world will ultimately fail. Let me not go past this too quickly. There is a prince of the power of the air. He is in the world seeking whom he may devour. Seeking to rid the world of virtue and submission to God. Trying to undo that which God is doing. But he has been vanquished. He has fallen like lightning from his place of power. He has been bound and his house is being looted. And that is us. We are looting his house. We are God s forces for order and righteousness in the world. We are new creations. Yes, Satan has done a good job in bringing in death and disorder and disrepair. But we are called to bring order to the galaxy.

9 9 The serpent says, join me and I will complete your training. And we cry out, I ll never join you. He cries out that he is your true father and together you can reign and bring order to the galaxy And you realize that while in a sense he is your father, you were conceived in sin and tainted with sin, you have been adopted or recreated by another, one who was truly your father long ago. The whole bible is a constant creation and uncreation and recreation story. God creates and the chaos overcomes it and he is forced to uncreate and start over. But what he has said is that darkness will ultimately not overcome it. It seems too throughout history and it really seems to as darkness covers the earth when Jesus dies. Creation reverses. But Sunday morning, Jesus is a new creation. A new spiritual body, the same body but different. The Tenebrae is defeated and light will shine. That s our promise Christians, that if we belong to him, we will defeat the darkness. Our light will shine. Creation will be redone and all will indeed be well.