Dartmouth Bible Notes Notes from the Pulpit Ministry of Dartmouth Bible Church Series: Hope in God, Lesson 14 Scripture: Genesis 1:1-27; Romans 8:19-23 Speaker: Rev. Neil C. Damgaard, Th.M., D.Min. Date: August 26 th, 2018 Hope for Creation Genesis 1:1 27 (ESV) In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God 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. 6 And God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. 9 And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 And God said, Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth. And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day. 14 And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. 20 And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens. 21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. 24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds. And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Introduction I want to give a disclaimer for this message, that it is going to seem more like the presentation of a paper today. Bear with me today, please. Our reading lays out, according to its author, the sequence of events which brought all that we know into existence: the heavens, the earth, light, day, night, evening, morning, waters (seas), the expanse, dry land (Earth), vegetation, seed, stars,
seasons, days, years, sun, moon, living creatures, sea creatures, species, reproduction (multiply), livestock, creeping things, beasts, design and order (according to its kind), man in our image, male, female, dominion. By my count there are THIRTY specifically created items mentioned here. And they are not morally or ethically neutral because with each one God decreed them to be good. In 1969 I was a junior in high school; in the 11 th grade, in a suburban high school outside of Washington D.C. That year was dramatic and memorable for many reasons especially if you lived in the nation s capital. It was Richard Nixon s first year as President. It was the year of Woodstock and the year the Beatles broke up. In 1969 11,616 Americans were killed in action in Vietnam. And it was the year when I did my one and only foray into environ-mentalism (which lasted through 1970. I became very involved and very passionate about a 400 acre piece of land that was right on the Potomac River. It was called The Burling Tract. It had been owned by the powerful Washington attorney Edward B. Burling (1870-1966) and at his death was sold to a developer who was going to build 309 homes on the land, essentially changing it forever from a pristine forest to another crowded, snooty, high-end housing development. We went to the streets! And for me, it became my signature issue, my niche, a thing for which I would go to the mat. In this issue I had my first experience in public speaking, addressing on behalf of area students the Fairfax County government in a public hearing. Today, directly across the River from D.C. is Scott s Run Nature Preserve pretty much as it was in 1966. As Christians we believe what the Book of Genesis records, that God created the heavens and the earth. We also believe the Hebrew kings and prophets who later, after Genesis was written, affirmed creation as a fact. We also believe Jesus, who affirmed it (i.e. Matthew 19:4). We also believe the apostles, who affirmed it. We reject a godless cosmology which insists that the cosmos somehow, miraculously generated itself. We are not intimidated by science (which itself is still evolving, by the way), by modern educational theory and rhetoric which now mandate NO mention of God as an even possible agent or participant in where things came from (and now even intelligent design is banned on many campuses, I suppose because it implies a designer) and a cosmology with no designer bears no accountability TO that designer. We are completely at rest with just stating what the writers of the Bible stated, filtering in good science along the way as it becomes evident and free of any political agenda. I also believe that until you ve taken at least taken a full class or (better) obtained a degree in a hard science you should be very careful being too verbal about a few things you might have learned along the way about that science 2
Personally, I had high school biology, chemistry and physics and then took two years of undergraduate chemistry, two years of physics, one 5-credit class in thermo, classes in statics of deformable solids, dynamics of rigid bodies, aeronautics, materials science and electronics. That s my complete science résumé. I can I can say that I have been exposed to hard science to that level but I need to just be careful. When we speak of creation we mean just that. We mean what the Bible means. We don t have to prove it. (Presuppositional apologetics just states it). We see creation as always subjected to certain destabilizing and degrading forces. A big one is what physicists call entropy. Entropy is a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system. 1 (ds=dq/t) In other words entropy is a measure of the UNavailability of energy to do work in a system. Most simply put, this world is getting tired more and more so. I see this world as increasing in entropy. This world is slowly deteriorating, slowly coming apart at the seams, slowly rotting. That seems to me to be validated by the fact that everything we own seems to be wearing out. Nothing improves with age (with the possible exception of fine wine, Stradivarius violins and Beatle songs). Everything else wears out, runs down, molds, cracks, or loses its charge. It is part of what is going on in the universe. So my question today is, about HOPE from a Christian perspective, from the theology that we teach. IS THERE HOPE FOR CREATION? As another illustration, men and women have always been men or women. Ancient Egyptians did not designate 73 genders. Ancient Greeks didn t do so either. Now, since about 1980 we are increasingly told there are many gender choices and people can choose what gender they want to be, and if they change their mind they can go back. And society must now accept this as normal. And the pace of variation is increasing, it seems. I see this as societal entropy. After all, though, we love outside creation. We love the mountains in New Hampshire. We love the ocean and the beaches. We love flowers and animals (except grizzlies). We love to be outside and smell the fresh mountain air, or the fresh sea breeze. We love the seasons (one reason why New England is so great you get all four seasons here). But if entropy is on the increase, if pollution is real, if we should abandon coal and nuclear in favor of wind and wave and solar, if a big meteor strikes our planet, if we light off a nuclear holocaust, if aliens invade Santa Monica, CA (although many didn t like it, I loved the 2011 movie Battle: Los Angeles), what hope for creation IS there? 1 Britannica.com 3
1. Should Christians care about creation and give effort to creation care and preservation? 2. Should we support politicians who say at least that they consider environmental protection to be important? 3. Does our world-view see creation s health as important? 4. Do we support the idea of limiting or even halting population growth or industry in the attempt to arrest environmental entropy? 5. Should we pay attention to the fish population or to flora or fauna that give evidence of being on the brink of extinction? 6. How does Christian hope affect how we interpret creation? Here is an extraordinary insight which the apostle Paul had about creation. Romans 8 is not about creation; it is about redemption. But while discussing the plan of redemption Paul connects it to creation. I believe this is the REALITY of what is going on all around us: Romans 8:19 23 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Paul personifies creation almost as if it were a person! He wrote that creation: Waits Gets frustrated Has a will Can be enslaved Groans, like in childbirth Is connected actually to people (the children of God) Paul sees creation as connected to people especially to US, Christians in that we both groan, awaiting the conclusion of the age when Christ will return. This is one of those things we would find difficult to explain to non-christian skeptics. They would ask, who do you people think you are? We would have to humbly reply, We think we are who the Bible says we are: the bride of Christ, a nation of priests, the children of God. We would have to say, Yes we have a high view of what is the Church the universal Church. That is because we believe the Bible, not because we think we have earned this status or because we think we re smarter or more noble than anyone else. The Bible forecasts that this world is going to see its own entropy win. And slinking around, while creation s 4
entropy increases is a real enemy afoot too, whose goal is destruction of anything which is God s handiwork. Peter wrote (KJV): But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. (2 nd Peter 3:10) God, THE God, is sovereign over time and has a plan for the whole creation, including even the heavens! And it was the apostle John saw and then wrote down: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a on voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Rev. 21:1-4) Creation gives us hope. It gives hope because it is the beautiful art and testimony of its Creator. But it got broken and it will continue to degenerate; it will fall prey to the forces of sin and the original fall will see its own full-blown conclusion; the broken creation will be done away with and then remade. God creates He designs--and He will remake a new dwelling place in which He, Himself, will dwell with His bride. That was His plan all along, you know? That sister in Zabaldika, Spain who told me that she really revered the outdoors as the sacred space had a good sense of the wonder of creation. But even as beautiful as it is, it is fallen and broken. It is deteriorating. It is only temporary. Creation is not a thing I have preached on much. I am a creationist with no nervousness at all about it. I believe that we, as Christians, should not worship creation over the Creator but that we should look at ourselves as stewards of the creation. Dominion does not license people to ruin. We should worship God and protect His handiwork. That is the most fundamental reason to be pro-life. That is the most basic reason to guard marriage. That is why we honor people going into medicine and nursing and pharmacy and forestry and meteorology and fire prevention and many other fields where creation is held in wonder. Conversely if a profession or an employment destroys or abuses or ruins creation we do not honor that no matter what the profit margin. 5
We should see God in every part of His created order, including the design that He used. Conclusion: there is hope for creation as long as it is respected and interpreted as something with God s fingerprints on it. That is part of worship, as a Christian. That is part of seeing God all around us. I came to this viewpoint and perspective when I met the Lord Jesus Christ by faith. My first church that I attended had been founded by Dr. Henry Morris (and others) and pastored by a man who championed scientific creationism. Dr. Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research and from my first summer in the faith I was exposed to a church whose leaders were well-versed not only in the Bible but in science and engineering. Those church leaders were knowledgeable about science but they did not worship science. They did not put science ahead of theology. They saw God as the creator and the evidences of His work all around them, even as they studied science and engineering. I am glad to have been introduced to the importance of creation from my first months as a Christian. When you ponder creation mountains, sea shore, flying in an airliner I hope you see the handiwork of the Lord and its beauty gives you hope in the Lord, who made it all. He is good. All the time. Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty All Thy works shall praise Thy name In earth and sky and sea Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and Mighty! God in three persons, Blessed Trinity! 6