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WE HAD a guest preacher scheduled
for today, but the plan fell through, so we'll have a “questions
answered” time — only with some differences. I will
look at three puzzling issues.
1. SIX DAY CREATION? (Gen
1: 1 - 2: 3)
When people ask me for my views on creation, I usually avoid
answering. There's no point in getting involved in fruitless
debates.
I believe the Bible, and I want nothing to do with heresy. And
it is heresy to put any theory, any doctrine or dogma, above
the central place of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that goes for
theories of creation.
But people ask, so I'm going to tell you three things everyone
should know about the first couple of chapters of Genesis.
Please listen carefully. Some of what I will say might sound
strange and even unbiblical to you. Hear me out, and get the
full picture. These three things are three basic paradoxes about
Genesis 1 & 2.
These three paradoxes are,
(1) Genesis is single, but
it is compound
(2) Genesis is myth, but it is true
(3) Genesis is evangelistic, but it isn't the Gospel .
SINGLE, BUT COMPOUND
Think about Genesis. It was woven together from at least
four different stories. Many parts of Genesis speak of
God by his “generic” name, Elohim. In other parts he
is known by hs personal name, Yahweh.
Other parts are similar to Deuteronomy,
and there are a few short pieces which seem to go back to the
Jewish priesthood of Aaron.
What we have today is single, but it came from various sources.
The parts were put down in way that told a particular story,
a story about how the God who created everything is Yahweh, who
loves humans and wants fellowship with us.
So the pieced-together nature of Genesis reminds us what
the main purpose of Genesis is. It's not about how to
create a world if you happen to be God. It's about why
God created a world full of human beings.
TRUE MYTH
Back when Genesis was written, there were plenty of myths
around, telling various crazy stories about the creation. Some
told of a war among the gods, and the world was made from the
body of one who got killed; others said a goddess gave birth
to the world, and so on. These myths were so far from the truth
that they gave all myths a bad name. A myth doesn't have to be
untrue, but most are.
Actually a myth is really just a piece of literature about the
activities of gods and other beings with divine powers.
And that pretty well sums up Genesis, doesn't it? It's
all about the acts of God. But Genesis doesn’t contain
all that nonsense of other creation myths. It's sensible, it's
simple, and it's consistent with nature as we find it.
What I mean is that you can't find any traces of the sheel of
the egg that the world hatched from, but there's no problem with
God's saying, “Let there be light!” and that starts
off the Big Bang, or even starts off street lamps, for that matter.
Nothing that research ever finds can prove or disprove that it
all came from the mind of God through his powerful Word.
EVANGELISTIC, BUT NOT THE
GOSPEL
But remember this: none of the apostles ever preached on creationism
to bring people to faith. The centre of their message was always
Jesus. Anyone who makes any other message central is a real heretic!
If anyone says, “All real Christians believe in six day
creationism” or says, “You can’t be a Christian
unless you believe in theistic evolution,” or anything like
that, that person is a heretic.
Although none of the apostles preached creationism, you need
to know that Genesis is an evangelistic book. But it's
an evangelistic book like you’ve never seen.
When it was written, the Jews lived in a world where people believed
all kinds of myth.
And Genesis uses the form of a myth to undermine all pagan
myths.
You know that spy stories are the big thing these days. Many
people will see a spy book in a book shop and grab it. There's
Austin Powers and Vin Diesel in that XXX movie
-- I thought it was an ad for the X-box at first. And there's
The Bourne Identity. They're everywhere.
If you want people to know the
gospel, why not write a spy book so that people will buy and
read it?
That’s how we got Genesis.
The facts were fitted into the box of myth so that people would
read it and suddenly discover that they were reading a “myth”
that made sense.
That's why Genesis does strange things with language,
almost as though it is saying, “Look at the real meaning:
don’t get hung up on unimportant things.”
For example, in Gen 1:1, we read,
...the Spirit
of God hovered over the waters
The word for hovered in Hebrew
is a word mainly used for ducks, not for the Holy Spirit.
In Gen 2: 21, we read about the creation of Eve. God took
...one of the
man’s ribs and closed the place with flesh.
Rib? In Hebrew, the word used
is “rafter”. In other words, God took something from
the man to make the woman, but he isn’t going to be specific
about what he did.
There's a lot more, but I want to go back to Gen 1: 1, where
we read,
...the earth
was formless and empty...
This is one of only two cases
in the Old Testament where you find a rhyme in the Hebrew, va
tohu va vohu ha-aretz. It’s very unusual.
It’s as though Moses wants us to realise that these words
are very important.
On days 1 – 3, God created light and darkness, waters and
sky and land and sea. He took the formless creation and gave
it form. Then, on days 4 – 6 he filled the realm of light
and darkness with the sun, moon and other lights, he filled the
water with living creatures and the air with birds, and finally
he filled the land with living creatures including humans. He
took the empty creation and filled it.
Then, having reached his goal, God rested.
This doesn't mean that God doesn’t
still take an active role in his creation.
For example, we know that evolution
certainly continues at some levels,otherwise we wouldn’t
need a new anti-flu vaccine each year. The flu virus evolves
so quickly.
But God has gained his goal of creating humans, so that from
us could come the Messiah.
What does this all come down
to?
It means that we can’t be definite on whether the days refer
to a literal 24 hour period or not. If they do, though, that's
not the main point. The main point is that God created everything,
that God both created it and shaped it, that there is nothing
outside the scope of his creation.
The other point is that God did it by his word of power, and
it was good. It was not the unfortunate by-product of a struggle
between God and the devil, as some creation myths said; it was
God’s good handiwork.
So if you want to know how long
the creation took, or what processes were involved, ask a scientist.
But, if you want to know who did it, go to the Bible.
2. DID JESUS REALLY DIE? (John
19: 28 – 37)
This might sound like a silly question. But a heretical sect
in the second century, the Docetists, said that he only appeared
to die, because he was God and God can't suffer.
Muslims say that God wouldn't
let a good man and a great prophet like Jesus die so cruelly.
They say that God slipped someone else in, who died in Jesus’
place.
Hugh Schonfeld, a British scholar,
claims that Jesus went into a coma on the cross, but recovered
in the tomb.
One way or another, these are
all attempts to dismiss the idea that Jesus rose again. If he
didn't die, then he didn't rise.
First, the Docetist and Muslim
views are nonsense. If God sneaked someone else in, and did it
so well that no one even suspected the switch, obviously, they
can’t know it happened. If people who say he died are wrong
because the truth was hidden, people who say he didn't die have
no proof either.
Schonfeld has a better try. He’s
looking for an explanation which takes into account the evidence
that Jesus was crucified, that explains the evident belief of
the disciples that Jesus had returned to life, and doesn't require
any supernatural act of resurrection power.
That’s fair for an historian, though he should be honest
and admit that he doesn’t believe that resurrection is possible.
Maybe he did make that admission.
If Jesus didn’t die, we
don’t have to think about resurrection. If he did die, then
we have to explain the strong New Testament conviction that he
returned to life, and appeared to several hundred people as the
risen Lord.
The first evidence is a letter
from the Roman writer and politician, Pliny, to the Emperor,
Trajan, around 112 AD.
Pliny wanted to know what to do with Christians who had been
reported to him.
Pliny ddn’t like Christians, but he wanted to be fair and
legal. In his letter he remarks that he had tortured some Christians
and hadn’t found that they did anything particularly bad,
but they were followers of Jesus who had been executed under
Pontius Pilate, about 80 years before.
It’s just a passing reference, but it shows that the Romans
believed they had killed Jesus. The Romans were very thorough,
and kept accurate records; so, if the Romans thought they had
killed you, they probably had.
There's also a passage in some
copies of Josephus which speaks positively about Jesus and says
that he was handed over to the Romans for execution because of
the jealousy of the Jewish leaders.
Until recently, this passage was dismissed as a Christian insertion,
because it was so positive about Jesus, and Josephus was a Jew
who had sided with the Romans.
In the last 20 years, new evidence has shown that it probably
was original material.
But our best evidence is in the
gospels themselves. The fact that they are not identical underscores
their historical value. They are reliable historical texts.
They show that Jesus took an
unusually severe beating before his crucifixion. Many people
died of a standard Roman whipping, which tore flesh and muscle
off their backs.
The gospels also reveal that Jesus refused the vinegar and myrrh
mixture which was a mild anaesthetic and helped keep people alive
longer.
They show a centurion, not an ordinary citizen, pronouncing Jesus
dead — centurions knew about killing.
And they show blood and water flowing from the spear wound to
his side, showing that the blood had already clotted. In other
words, it had stopped pumping. A deep spear wound like that would
have killed him anyway.
There's a lot more detail, but
not a lot of time, so I'll leave it there.
The question is, if Jesus did
die, then he must have risen again. So what will you do about
that?
3. WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO NEVER
HEARD THE GOSPEL? (Rom 2: 12 – 16)
How can a just and righteous God condemn people to hell when
they have never even heard the gospel? It’s a common question.
The Bible doesn’t give us a complete answer, but it gives
us some clues.
The first was in the passage
we just read. When pagans do what is right, they show that they
have a general sense of what God wants of them, even if they
don’t have written and codified laws.
Another is the vast number of
verses which declare that God has no delight in the death of
the wicked, and that he loves the entire world. God is not out
to kill, but to save.
But two conversations I have
had with some Buddhist friends showed me just how great their
need was.
One felt he had failed his parents so seriously that he could
never make up for what he had done. He had virtually taken over
the housework so that he could compensate for his misspent youth.
He felt he had a great burden tied to his back, and, no matter
how hard he tried, he couldn't feel free from it.
I asked him how much washing up would he have to do to take the
load from his shoulders? They were two different things. He needed
forgiveness, not to make compensation. But he was so tied to
the idea of bearing his own guilt that, to the best of my knowledge,
he is still washing up.
There is a load we can't ever
remove by our own efforts. We need someone powerful enough to
pay the entire price and set us free.
So, though pagans know they have
a need, they are rarely able to work out what to do about that
need.
They also seldom understand that God requires us to love him
with everything we've got and to love our neighbour as we love
ourselves. We break these two commandments every moment. Well,
I do, anyway!
Which brings me to the other
Buddhist friend, who said that Christians are arrogant to think
that only Jesus can bring salvation to people.
I told him that it is not a matter of arroganc, but of realism.
1. People have the possibility of knowing they are out of step
with God. In fact, in most societies, people know it well. But
they don't know how to change the situation.
2. Trying to find your own solution seems sensible, but it really
only compounds and worsens the problem when even your solutions
fail to change anything. You just collapse under an increasing
burden of sin and failure.
3. Jesus has already died for the sins of the whole world —
those who know this fact, and those who don’t.
4. Just as the ancient sacrifices stood in until Jesus sacrificed
himself for us on the cross, so people of non-Christian faiths
have the capacity to repent and cast themselves on God’s
mercy and grace, even if they don’t know the story of Jesus.
5. But, without the story of Jesus, and without an understanding
of the enormous cost of salvation, hardly anyone will discover
this way; in fact, it's doubtful that any will work it out.
6. Therefore we must, as part of our duty of care, proclaim the
gospel to people so that they have a chance to hear and respond.
So, my challenge today is, if
you know the gospel, then, out of obedience to a loving God,
and so as not to despise the sacrifice Jesus made, tell people!
Tell the world! And may all the glory be to our father God through
Jesus our Lord, AMEN |
