Author: Paul A. Bartz
Creationists are often told that while their concern for the Bible’s teaching on creation is admirable, such a concern has little to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In reality, Scripture can be compared to Christ’s robe, which was woven of one strand. Nothing could be cut out of it without the entire robe unraveling. And nothing can be cut out of Scripture or ignored without doing damage to the biblical message of salvation in Jesus Christ.
1. The biblical teaching about creation is important because it is part of the Bible’s teaching on the Person and work of Jesus Christ. No place does Scripture make this more clear than in the first chapter of John’s Gospel. Read the first three verses of John chapter 1. Now turn to Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 14, 20, and 24. Can you identify the connection between God’s act of creation and the Word in John 1?
What was the Word’s very first contact with man? Does this help you understand why he was so concerned about us that He would even give up His throne and His life on our account?
2. Here we begin to see the incredible depth of His love for us. He made us to be perfect and to be in fellowship with Himself. But when, through our sin, we ruined that relationship, He loved us so much that He was willing to submit to the greatest torture and degradation in order to make it possible for us to once again have fellowship with Him. The connection between the Bible’s teaching on creation and the Person and work of Jesus Christ is so intimate that they cannot be separated.
3. It cannot be said that the important point here is merely that He created us – it doesn’t matter how, whether by evolution or some other means. To question the accuracy of Genesis’ account of creation also means to question the Person of Christ as the Son of God. This is because Jesus makes reference to the work of creation as literal fact in many places in the Gospels. To what does Jesus make reference in Mark 10:6-8? Mark 2:27? Matthew 19:4-6? Luke 16:29-31? Luke 24:27?
4. In John 10:35 Jesus, citing Scripture, underlines the fact that “Scripture cannot be broken.” How does His argument (read the entire context), hinge on the truth of Scripture? Taken in context our Lord’s comment is the very clear teaching that the Scriptures are the Word of God and they must always be true.
As you read the context of Jesus’ remarks, do you think that it requires as much faith to accept what the Scripture says about Jesus’ point as it does to believe what the Bible says about creation?
5. In Luke 11:28 we have Jesus’ comments on the relative importance of the Word of God as compared with earthly things. One of the women in the crowd said that for bearing Him, His mother must be very blessed. But Jesus says, in comparison with motherhood, even Mary’s high honor as the mother of the Lord, that they are more blessed who hear the Word of God and keep it. How does Jesus’ attitude toward the Word here suggest that Scripture is more important than simple folk myths from past generations? How does His attitude here argue for a high view of the nature, source, and purpose of Scripture?
6. Of special note is John 5:46-47, which ties in very closely with Luke 16:29-31. In both these instances Jesus ties faith in His saving work and Person to what Moses wrote. How do our Lord’s words here support what we read in John 1?
Is it valid to say that Jesus accepts the history of which Moses wrote, including the creation account as literal and accurate history? What knowledge is in the balance when we call Moses’ writings into question?
7. Can we say, as some have, that Jesus was, in these instances, simply bowing to the ignorance of His own day? In every instance where people’s understanding of the facts were wrong, Jesus taught to correct their understanding. When people willfully misunderstood Scripture, He was especially firm.
If Jesus was ignorant of the truth in these instances, then He was not God. If He is not God, we are still in our sins. If He is not God, Scripture lies when it says that He was present at the creation, and that it was through Him that we and all things were created. If followed consistently, rejection of a literal understanding of creation is rejection of Christ!
8. Jesus also believed that God’s Word is intelligible to rational people. In John 14:24 the Lord connects His Word to God – what He speaks is God’s Word. As you study this statement, those that we have just looked at, and many of Jesus’ other statements, you will see statements of fact and arguments from logic. God’s Word is not the subjective thing many people make it out to be. The message of the Word of God can be discussed, understood, and considered under the rules of logic.
This tells us that the Word of God deals with facts and reality, not subjective interpretations and feelings that might be in the eye of the beholder – as modern approaches to Scripture suggest.
9. Evolution (especially as accepted by those who also accept that there is a God – theistic evolution) challenges the Bible’s teaching on the nature of God and His intent toward man. This is what makes theistic evolution a dangerous, soul-destroying option. Theistic evolutionists accept that there is a God, and often they think that they accept the God of the Bible. The problem is, they believe that God’s action in the world is limited to His use of the natural laws He has created. But the central message of the Bible is that God’s most earnest desire is for a personal and individual relationship with each individual human being.
Just as He individually hand made the first man and woman, so we, too, are individually created by God to have a daily, personal relationship with Him. God does not even turn lesser creatures over to automatic natural laws. He is aware of every personal tragedy of every sparrow on Earth (Matthew 10:29-31). He even gives each breeze its speed and direction (Psalm 148:8). It is the message of a personal God Who is daily, intimately involved with His creation that is the message of the Bible – His highest involvement with man being through His grace in our lives! It is this biblical teaching about the nature of God’s involvement in His creation which is the beating heart of the Bible and which is directly challenged by evolutionary naturalism of any sort. This is why creation is vital to Christianity!
Footnotes:
1985 Bible Science Newsletter.
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