Did you ever hear someone reflect on the vast wealth of another and say, “If I had his money, I could throw mine away”? Sadly, much of the church has thrown away the authority of Scripture on the assumption that the “wealth” of scientific evidence disproves the human need of God as Creator.
However, if your belief in God is founded on a literal acceptance of the Genesis record, you already have a solid background for understanding in both science and theology. You will have no need for the ongoing, ever changing, guessing games of evolutionary debate. What God accomplished in creation provides compelling evidence for the very person and character of God (thus for theology).
The first lesson in Genesis theology for today’s church is that God is powerful. How powerful? “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
When my wife bakes a cake, she doesn’t say “Let there be cake.” What she does do is put together the right basic ingredients and slip the mix into the oven for the right amount of time.
But God didn’t do it that way. For example, He didn’t come up with basic raw ingredients for light. What He did do was say, “Let there be light.” The basis for creation was the power of God’s Word. Nine times in chapter one, we find “And God said …” usually followed with, “and it was so.” If you are about to laugh at my naivete, let me remind you of one thing, and then ask you a question.
This is the reminder. We know that all matter consists of molecules, and that molecules consist of energy—electrons, protons, and neutrons. Trees are not made of sawdust bonded with resin, but of energy. Water is not some liquid dropped upon us from some other place in the cosmos. Everything in the universe is packed tight with energy.
Now the question. What source could there possibly be for such power short of Almighty God?
But, we have another problem without God. The reverting of matter into power is not a problem. It is as easy as a lightning strike in a dry forest, or lighting a match at a gasoline spill. In fact, we deliberately convert millions of gallons of gasoline into many millions of highway miles daily. In warfare, bombs are turned into horribly destructive forms of energy. But neither time, nor chance (the evolutionist’s god), nor human intelligence, is able to convert energy back into matter. The factory smokestack never produces a gallon of paint. The burning inferno of a forest never leaves a new house in its wake. The energy expended on highway miles never produce a single shiny new automobile. The bomb that is dropped never produces a new city.
By the way, a process that would compress energy into planets, stars, dogs, cats, trees, mice, kangaroos, apes, and people would not be a “big bang” at all. It would be the exact opposite, a colossal compression of energy. That is why the “big bang” must forever remain an adult fairy tale, only useful to people who have closed their minds against God. God is not merely the only sufficient answer. He is the only answer that doesn’t make a fool out of me.
Do you fear the power of lightning, of the tornado, or of the hurricane? If we find the release of energy fearsome, how much more should we fear God, the power behind it all. The cause is indeed far greater than the effect And the cause is God.
The second lesson in theology for the church is that God has purposeful order to everything. He divided light from darkness, and arranged our solar system with days and nights and with season following season, always in the same predictable order.
In the world of living things, God ordered that everything would reproduce after its kind. We wish men would cease trying to claim otherwise. The fossil “evidences” that would trace slime into simple forms of life and apes into man have come from vivid imaginations and cruel hoaxes. Know this, that true science can not be separated from Biblical theology for the God of Scripture is also the God of nature. Science is nothing more or less than the accurate assessment of created things. It is knowledge derived from repetition of the same consistent results. Thus science is science only in being true to what exists in nature, where dogs remain dogs and babies are human from conception. Science is established in certainty, not in guessing games. But where individuals and churches reject Genesis, guessing is the only game in town.
We live every day in a world of absolutes, a fact that evolution cannot embrace, but one that defines the nature of God.
The third lesson in theology is the revelation of the majesty and glory of God. The Genesis description of Creation is that “it was good.” In fact, “it was very good.” Who could argue the point? Even though creation has been in the “growing-old” mode ever since sin entered into the world, it is at once both functional and beautiful. God obviously made it for us to enjoy. No superlatives are sufficient to describe the wonder and beauty of birds, trees, flowers, or starry heavens. How can anyone study science and biology and fail to see the glory of these things on every hand? Truly, creation is the grand display of the goodness and glory of God.
The fourth lesson revolves around the questions of human and animal order. We are not our own. The Creator is the owner and director of what He created. People and even churches may deny God, and refuse His instructions, but the absolute nature of what He has made is ongoing testimony of His authority. And how does Genesis spell this out? God made man in His own image and appointed Adam as the superintendent of the animal kingdom. Animals are directed by instinct and training. Humanity, on the other hand, is responsible to be true to the commandments of God.
The fifth lesson has the greatest impact on the human family. When Jesus was asked about divorce and remarriage, He referred right back to Genesis and His original intent. God made them male and female. One male and one female are joined together in marriage. They are one flesh. They furnish the context of family. They replenish the earth. “What God hath joined together let not man put asunder.” Only death is the legitimate end to marriage.
Pastors, are you listening? Do you cast your lot with Jesus, or do you sanction the putting away, and taking another while the first partner lives? Do you sanction what the Bible calls adultery? In the zeal to save marriage from the same-sex perversion, it is also time to save the marriages from divorce.
We need one more consideration from Genesis theology. After sin came into the world, and death by sin, Adam and Eve sought to cover their shame with fig leaves. However, God deemed that to be insufficient. He clothed them with animal skins. Our culture today (and sadly, most churches) has cast off both the shame and the protection of modesty in clothing. Tragically this departure, with its sensual display, is a tool of Satan against God’s imperative of sexual purity and of fidelity in marriage. If this were not sin enough, millions of the unborn are slain on the altar of lust.
If we would return to the theology of Genesis, we would restore the standard of God. Otherwise, we rush blindly toward God’s judgment and the final severing of wickedness from righteousness. The God of Creation reigns.
-by Lester Troyer