Creation and the Bible

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Creation and the Bible

• Is Genesis relevant today?

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Englands Past

• Before the war
• Culture permeated with Christian morality
• 50 of people regularly attend church

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The foundations

• If the foundations be destroyed, what can the
  righteous do?
• Psalm 113

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The foundations
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All biblical doctrines are founded in Genesis

• I will show you that all doctrines are founded in
  Genesis, directly or indirectly

• Doctrine of Marriage
• Eating of animals
• Doctrine of Sin
• Doctrine of Clothing
• Doctrine of Atonement
• The Gospel

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Doctrine of Marriage

• 3Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They
  asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his
  wife for any and every reason?" 4"Haven't you
  read," he replied, "that at the beginning the
  Creator 'made them male and female,'5and said,
  'For this reason a man will leave his father and
  mother and be united to his wife, and the two
  will become one flesh'? 6So they are no longer
  two, but one. Therefore what God has joined
  together, let man not separate."
• Matthew 193-6

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Doctrine of Marriage
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Eating of animals

• 29Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing
  plant on the face of the whole earth and every
  tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be
  yours for food. 30And to all the beasts of the
  earth and all the birds of the air and all the
  creatures that move on the ground-everything that
  has the breath of life in it-I give every green
  plant for food." And it was so.
• Genesis 129-30

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Eating of animals

• 3Everything that lives and moves will be food
  for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I
  now give you everything.
• Genesis 93

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Doctrine of Sin

• 16And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are
  free to eat from any tree in the garden 17but
  you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge
  of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will
  surely die.
• Genesis 216-17

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Doctrine of Sin
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Doctrine of Sin

• A Why cant we just insist on the essentials
  of Christianity?
• B Well what are the essentials?
• A That Jesus dies on the cross, was raised
  from the dead, and died for our sins, theyre the
  essentials.
• B Why did Jesus have to die?
• A For our sin
• B What is sin?
• A Rebellion
• B How do you know that? Is it your opinion or
  someone else's opinion? Where do you get the idea
  that its rebellion? Some preachers think it is a
  lack of self esteem or a self centred attitude.

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Doctrine of Clothing

• 6When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree
  was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and
  also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some
  and ate it. She also gave some to her husband,
  who was with her, and he ate it. 7Then the eyes
  of both of them were opened, and they realized
  they were naked so they sewed fig leaves
  together and made coverings for themselves. 8Then
  the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD
  God as he was walking in the garden in the cool
  of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among
  the trees of the garden. 9But the LORD God called
  to the man, "Where are you?" 10He answered, "I
  heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because
  I was naked so I hid.
• Genesis 36-10
• 21The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam
  and his wife and clothed them.
• Genesis 321

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Doctrine of Atonement

• 21The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam
  and his wife and clothed them.
• Genesis 321
• 22In fact, the law requires that nearly
  everything be cleansed with blood, and without
  the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
• Hebrews 922

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Doctrine of Atonement
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The Gospel

• 15And I will put enmity between you and the
  woman, and between your offspring and hers he
  will crush your head, and you will strike his
  heel.
• Genesis 315
• 22We know that the whole creation has been
  groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up
  to the present time.
• Romans 822

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All biblical doctrines are founded in Genesis

• Every doctrine is founded directly or indirectly
  in Genesis

• Marriage Genesis 1 11
• Clothing Genesis 1 11
• Seven day week Genesis 1 11
• Work Genesis 1 11
• The curse Genesis 1 11
• Last Adam Genesis 1 11
• First coming Genesis 1 11
• Second coming Genesis 1 11

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Break for questions

• Please be kind!

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What the church is saying
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What the church is saying

• Dr Hugh Ross
• He believes
• The big bang
• Billions of years
• Local not a global flood
• There was a race of soul-less men and women
  before Adam and Eve.

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What the church is saying

• So, Gods revelation is not limited exclusively
  to the Bibles words. The facts of nature may be
  likened to a sixty-seventh book of the Bible.
• Hugh Ross, Creation and Time, page 56
• Not everyone has been exposed to the sixty-six
  books of the Bible but everyone on planet earth
  has been exposed to the sixty-seventh book, the
  book that God has written upon the heavens for
  everyone to read. And the bible tells us its
  impossible for God to lie, so the record of
  nature must be just as perfect, and reliable and
  truthful as the sixty-six books of the Bible that
  is part of the Word of God.
• Dr Hugh Ross, Staley Lecture Series

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What the church is saying

• but you need to know that the ministry of
  Promise Keepers takes no stand on issue like
  this Since different churches and individual
  Christians hold varying views about creation, it
  is one of those things we believe falls under the
  category of secondary doctrines, just as we do
  such things as spiritual gifts, eternal security,
  the rapture, etc
• Carolyn M. Bearse,
• assistant to the founder of Promise Keepers

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What the world is saying

• One of the leading anti-creationists in America
  at an atheism conference was asked this
• What do you do with the bible believing students
  in your class?

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What the world is saying

• I attended the Teaching Evolution seminar
  yesterday led by Eugenie Scott An awful
  negative was suggested to those experiencing
  opposition from students. The teachers were
  advised to suggest to the Bible-believers to
  consult their clergy who would usually assure
  them that belief in evolution is OK!!

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What the world is saying

• It becomes clear now that the whole
  justification of Jesus life and death is
  predicated on the existence of Adam and the
  forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without original
  sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adams
  fall into a life of constant sin terminated by
  death, what purpose is there to Christianity?
  None.
• G. Richard Bozarth,
• The meaning of Evolution, American Atheist

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What the world is saying

• If Adam may be held to be no more real a
  personage than Prometheus, and if the story of
  the fall is merely an instructive type,
  comparable to the profound Promethean myths, what
  value has Pauls dialectic.
• Thomas Huxley,
• Science and the Hebrew Tradition Essays

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What the world is saying

• I confess I soon lose my way when I try to
  follow those who walk delicately among types
  and allegories. A certain passion for clearness
  forces me to ask, bluntly, whether the writer
  means to say that Jesus did not believe the
  stories in question, or that he did? When Jesus
  spoke, as of a matter of fact, that the Flood
  came and destroyed them all, did he really
  believe the deluge took place, or not?
• Thomas Huxley,
• Science and Hebrew Tradition Essays

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What the world is saying

• And what about the authority of the writers of
  the books of the New Testament, who, on this
  theory, have not merely accepted flimsy fictions
  for solid truths, but have built the very
  foundations of Christian dogma upon legendary
  quick sands?
• Thomas Huxley,
• Science and Hebrew Tradition Essays

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What the world is saying

• Christianity has fought, still fights, and will
  fight science to the desperate end over
  evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and
  finally the very reason Jesus earthly life was
  supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve
  and the original sin, and in the rubble you will
  find the sorry remains of the son of God. Take
  away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not
  the redeemer that died for our sins, and this is
  what evolution means, then Christianity is
  nothing.
• Richard Bozarth,
• The meaning of evolution, American Atheist

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What the world is saying
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What the world is saying
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What the world is saying
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Consequences of rejecting Genesis

• 9. How did sin arise?
• (a) The garden of Eden is a myth, i.e. a
  historical tale embodying spiritual truth. From
  the viewpoint of anthropology it is exceedingly
  unlikely that there was a First Man and Woman.
  Yet the myth contains great truths
• (b) Human beings are the result of evolution, and
  shaped by natural selection.
• Self-centeredness and aggression were essential
  at every stage of evolution.
• (c) Human beings natural inherit this
  self-centeredness (original sin) and without it
  babies could not survive.
• Hugh Monefiore, Confirmation Notebook

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Consequences of rejecting Genesis

• What the cross is not the cross is not the Son
  standing in my place to take the punishment that
  I ought to have. Such a view is immoral. In any
  case, no one person could suffer the whole
  worlds punishment
• Hugh Monefiore, Confirmation Notebook

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How atheists see evolution

• The day will come when the evidence constantly
  accumulating around the evolutionary theory
  becomes so massively persuasive that even the
  last and most fundamental Christian warriors will
  have to lay down their arms and surrender
  unconditionally. I believe that day will be the
  end of Christianity.
• Richard Bozarth,
• The Meaning of Evolution, American Atheist

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How atheists see evolution

• As were many persons from Alabama, I was a born
  again Christian. When I was 15, I entered the
  Southern Baptist Church with great fervour and
  interest in the fundamentalist religion. I left
  at 17 when I got to the University of Alabama and
  heard about evolutionary theory.
• Dr E. O. Wilson, Harvard Professor
• (Socio-biology), The Humanist

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How atheists see evolution

• raised a Methodist in Indianapolis and went to
  church regularly as a child and teenager. I
  believed all this God stuff, he said. I was a
  good little boy and all that . . . In school, we
  opened every morning with the Lords Prayer. That
  was big stuff. That changed when he attended
  Purdue University in Indiana. After taking
  physics and chemistry, he began to question the
  veracity of the Bible. In particular, he doubted
  how the entire world could have flooded in the
  days of Noahs Ark. The Bible says it rained for
  40 days and 40 nights, he said. It included
  Mount Everest. Where the . . . did all that water
  come from? Out of the ground?
• Richard Suhre in suit to remove the Ten
  Commandments from Haywood County, NC, Courthouse

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How should we respond?

• What is the problem?
• If the foundations be destroyed, what can the
  righteous do?
• Psalm 113

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How should we respond?
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How should we respond?

• What is the solution?
• Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and
  will raise up the age-old foundations you will
  be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of
  Streets with Dwellings.
• Isaiah 5812

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How should we respond?
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Recommended books

• The Lie Evolution by Ken Ham
• The (Revised and Expanded) Answers Book edited by
  Dr Don Batten

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Questions

• Please be kind!