Author: Pastor Paul A. Bartz
Note: Creation Moments exists to provide Biblically sound materials to the Church in the area of Bible and science relationships. This Bible study may be reproduced for group use.
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 John 1:1-14. Who is here identified as the Word?
What is the first thing recorded here that He ever did? (See verses 3 and 10).
What was His first contact with human kind?
What act of this Word is described in verse 14?
2.How do these facts help us understand (at least a little) why He was so concerned about us that He would even give up His throne and His life on our account?
Seeing this, 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, 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.To question the accuracy of Genesis’ account of creation also means to question the Person of Christ as the Son of God. In many places in the Gospels Jesus makes reference to the creating work as literal fact: Mark 10:6-8, Mark 2:27, Matthew 19:4-6, Luke 16:29-31 and Luke 24:27. Of special note is John 5:46-47, which ties in very closely with Luke 16:29-31. Who is speaking these words?
Could Jesus be any more clear in indicating that Genesis creation is about Him?
How can this be used to counter those who consider Genesis creation not directly related to the Gospel?
4.What does it mean for our salvation if Jesus was wrong, either by ignorance or on purpose, about what He is saying here?
5.What else do we learn about God here?
If we understand Genesis 1 to be a historical narrative of actual events reported in real time, we see the picture of a God Who carefully and deliberately created matter and energy and then, according to careful plan, formed that matter and energy into the completed creation over a period of five additional days. Each creature was finished in completed and perfect form (“God saw all that He had made and behold, it was very good.”) How does his statement counter those who say that God just created the basic forms and then used evolution to perfect them?
6.More detail on the personal care which God invested in His creation is offered in Job 38 and he following chapters.
God describes His creation of the human mind in such a way that it can have wisdom (38:36-37). He describes in detail how He specially designed each creature with the special physical features that it needs, as well as with its special temperament (chapter 39), and how He sees to it that each creature is fed (38:39-41). Is it sufficient to simply say that the Bible’s message is that God is Creator?
What do these examples from Job tell us about God and His attitude toward the creation?
7. In Matthew 10:29-30 Jesus informs us that God is even aware of the personal tragedies of each of the billions of sparrows in the world. In Psalm 148:8 we see that even the breeze is given instruction by God as to speed and direction. What other examples are suggested by these which would be helpful in answering the claim that God does not bother Himself with all the busy little details of the world?
8. Ephesians 1:3-12 goes into detail on the nature and extent of God’s personal knowledge of us as individuals even before the creation of the world itself! Though a billion people may pray to Him at once, He hears each prayer, even the prayer of the smallest child, as though that prayer were the only prayer being prayed. The God of the Bible is so big that He can give His undivided attention to countless details all at once. In this respect the viewpoint of theistic evolution limits God in the creation by attributing the same limitations we humans have to our great and loving God.
Try to summarize, in two or three sentences, a statement which shows the intimate relationship between the creation and the Good News of Salvation in Jesus Christ. This will provide a good response to those views common in much of the Church today.
Footnotes:
1987 Bible Science Newsletter.
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