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PS 33:6
By the word of the
LORD the heavens were made, And by the breath of His mouth
all their host.
PS
148:5
Let them praise the name of the
LORD,
For He commanded and they were
created.
Isa
48:12
“…I am he; I am the first and I am the last.
Isa
48:13
My own hand laid the foundations of the earth,
and my right hand spread out the heavens...
What is interesting is that
current scientific theories are also based on the
idea that all of creation came from nothing.
-
“According to the standard
theory, the universe sprang into existence as a
‘singularity’ around 13.7 billion years ago. What is
a ‘singularity’ and where does it come from? Well,
to be honest, we don’t know for sure. Singularities
are zones which defy our current understanding of
physics” (17)
-
Merriam-Webster defines
singularity as, “a point or region of
infinite mass density at which space and
time are infinitely distorted by
gravitational forces and which is held to be
the final state of matter falling into a
black hole” (16)
-
“…space
didn't exist prior to the Big Bang. The singularity
didn't appear in space; rather, space began inside
of the singularity. Prior to the singularity,
nothing existed, not space, time, matter, or energy
- nothing. So where and in what did the singularity
appear if not in space? We don't know. We don't know
where it came from, why it's here, or even where it
is. All we really know is that we are inside of it
and at one time it didn't exist and neither did we.”
(17)
When comparing the evolution
model and the creation model what takes more faith,
that the universe spontaneously popped into
existence, or that God spoke it into existence?
 God
Created the Universe Out of Nothing
The Bible clearly states that
God created the universe out of nothing.
-
The Latin phrase ex nihilo,
"out of nothing" is frequently used.
-
This means that before God
began to create the universe; nothing else existed
except God himself. God did not use any previously
existing materials when he created the universe.
-
The word nothing does not
imply some kind of existence, as some scientists
have taken it to mean. MIT physics Professor Alan
Guth makes the following statements,
-
“To the average person it
might seem obvious that nothing can happen in
nothing. But to a quantum physicist, nothing is, in
fact, something.” (10, pg. 35)
-
“All matter plus all
gravity in the observable universe equals zero. So
the universe could come from nothing because it is,
fundamentally, nothing.” (10, pg. 36)
-
This what Scripture says:
GE 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth.
Genesis
1:1 (NASB)
PS 90:2
Before the mountains were born Or You gave birth
to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to
everlasting, You are God.
Psalm
90:2 (NASB)
ISA
45:18
For thus says the
LORD,
who created the heavens (He is the God who formed
the earth and made it, He established it and did not
create it a waste place, But formed it to be
inhabited), “I am the
LORD,
and there is none else.
Isaiah
45:18 (NASB)
JN 1:3
All things came into being
through Him, and apart from Him nothing came
into being that has come into being.
John
1:3 (NASB)
AC 4:24
And when they heard this, they lifted their
voices to God with one accord and said, “O Lord, it
is You who
MADE THE
HEAVEN
AND THE EARTH
AND THE SEA, AND ALL THAT IS IN THEM,
Acts
4:24 (NASB)
AC
17:24
“ The God who made the world and all things
in it…
Acts
17:24 (NASB)
COL
1:16
For by Him all things were created,
both in the heavens and on earth, visible and
invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or
authorities— all things have been
created through Him and for Him.
Colossians 1:16 (NASB)
HEB
11:3
By faith we understand that the worlds were
prepared by the word of God, so that what is
seen was not made out of things which are visible.
Hebrews
11:3 (NASB)
REV
4:11
“ Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to
receive glory and honor and power; for You created
all things, and because of Your will
they existed, and were created.”
Revelation 4:11 (NASB)
-
This reminds us that God
rules over the entire universe and that nothing in
creation is to be worshiped instead of God, or in
addition to him.
-
The fact that God created the
universe out of nothing is that it has meaning and
purpose. God, in his wisdom, created it for
something. We should try to understand that purpose
and use creation in ways to fit that purpose,
namely, to bring glory to God Himself.
The Creation of the
Spiritual Universe
-
The creation of the entire
universe includes the creation of an unseen,
spiritual realm of existence.
-
God created the angels and
other kinds of heavenly beings as well as animals
and man.
-
The creation of the spiritual
realm is in all the verses above that speak of God
creating not only the earth but also
"heaven and what is in it"
(Rev 10:6; Acts
4:24; Col 1:16).
-
The prayer of Ezra states
very clearly,
NE 9:6
“ You alone are the
LORD.
You have made the heavens, The heaven of
heavens with all their host, The earth and
all that is on it, The seas and all that is in them.
You give life to all of them And the heavenly host
bows down before You.
Nehemiah 9:6 (NASB)
PS
148:2
Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His
hosts!
PS
148:3
Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all stars
of light!
PS
148:4
Praise Him, highest heavens, And the waters that
are above the heavens!
PS
148:5
Let them praise the name of the
LORD,
For He commanded and they were created.
Psalm
148:2-5 (NASB)
Note what the
Bible does NOT state about the creation process
-
Nowhere in the Bible is it
stated or implied that God used evolution.
-
Nowhere in the Bible is it
stated that it took God long periods of time for His
creation.
-
When discussing God’s
creation the Bible always uses the words, “God
created,” “God spoke,” or “God made,”
nowhere does it imply or say that “God let it
evolve.”
-
Stating that God used
evolution as part of His creative process would be
an example of adding information into the Bible.
 Argument
From Silence
Even if the Bible did not say
how God created, which it does say how He created,
it is a logical fallacy to say that He could have
used evolution.
-
John Clayton is making an
argument from silence when he states, “It (The
Bible) does not tell us how God did it (creation).
It does not tell us when God did it (creation).”
John Clayton - (6, pg. 4)
This logical fallacy is a
well-known principle called making an “Argument from
Silence.”
-
“The argument from silence
is that the silence of a speaker or writer about X
proves or suggests that the speaker or writer is
ignorant of X. Whether reasonable or not, it would
be a logical fallacy to say that you have proven the
premise to be false solely on the basis of argument
from silence.” (8)
What can we conclude
about the process for creation, about how God
created?
1.
Is it possible to combine the
Bible and evolution?
2.
Did God use evolution as part
of His creative process?
Not according to what the Bible says. The Bible says
that God spoke the universe into existence out of
nothing.
God is still very much involved
in creation, for it is continually dependent on him
for its existence and functioning.
The Bible is the story of God's
involvement with his creation, and particularly the
people in it.
-
Job affirms that even the
animals and plants depend on God…
JOB
12:10
In whose hand is the life of every living thing,
And the breath of all mankind?
Job
12:10 (NASB)
-
In the New Testament, Paul
affirms that God…
AC
17:25
…He Himself gives to all people life and breath
and all things;
AC
17:28
for in Him we live and move and exist…
Acts
17:25, 28 (NASB)
-
In Christ…
COL
1:17
He is before all things, and in Him all things
hold together.
Colossians 1:17 (NASB)
-
He continually…
HEB 1:3
…upholds all things by the word of His power…
Hebrews
1:3 (NASB)
-
God's transcendence and
immanence are both affirmed in a single verse when
Paul speaks of
EPH 4:6
one God and Father of all who is over all and
through all and in all.
Ephesians 4:6 (NASB)
GE 1:1
In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth.
GE 1:2
The earth was formless and void, and darkness was
over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God
was moving over the surface of the waters.
GE 1:3
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there
was light.
GE 1:4
God saw that the light was good; and God
separated the light from the darkness.
GE 1:5
God called the light day, and the darkness He
called night. And there was evening and there was
morning, one day.
Genesis
1:1-5 (NASB)
Day 1 saw the creation of
earth, space, time, and light.
-
The creation of time is
implied by the words “In
the beginning...” Before this, there was
no measurement of time and no passage of time. God
Himself existed outside of time, in a realm we
cannot imagine. This is a difficult concept to
grasp, but this is exactly what Scripture teaches.
2PE 3:8
…with the Lord one day is like a thousand years,
and a thousand years like one day.
2 Peter
3:8 (NASB)
-
What this verse is saying is
that God is not limited by time; he is the Creator
of time.
PS 90:2
Before the mountains were born Or You gave birth
to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to
everlasting, You are God.
PS 90:4
For a thousand years in Your sight Are like
yesterday when it passes by, Or as a watch in the
night.
Psalm
90:2, 4 (NASB)
JOB
36:26
“Behold, God is exalted, and we do not know Him; The
number of His years is unsearchable.
Job
36:26 (NASB)
REV 1:8
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord
God, “ who is and who was and who is to come, the
Almighty.”
REV 4:8
“HOLY,
HOLY, HOLY is
THE LORD GOD,
THE ALMIGHTY,
WHO WAS
AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME.”
Revelation 1:8, 4:8 (NASB)
HEB
13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and
forever.
Hebrews
13:8 (NASB)
-
Verse 1 continues
“…God created the heavens
and the earth.”
-
Note that the plural word
“heavens” is used.
-
The Hebrew for heaven from
the Goodrick/Kohlenberger Number Definition is
shaw-meh, (µyIm&'v:),
meaning: region above the earth: the heavens:
place of the stars, sky, air; heaven: the invisible
realm of God.
-
The Hebrew word for heaven
could refer to one of three different heavens: the
sky, space, or the spiritual heaven. In fact the
same Hebrew word is used in Genesis 1:8 when God
created the expanse on day 2 and called it heaven.
-
Keeping things in context and
looking at surrounding scripture, and since the word
is plural referring to more than one heaven; God
must be referring to the heaven of space and the
spiritual heaven. The third possibility for heaven,
the sky (atmosphere), is not created until day 2.
-
Also in verse 1 the earth was
created by God’s command, out of nothing.
-
We know from verse 2 that the
earth existed in a formless, barren state, shrouded
in darkness and water. The raw material was there,
but it had not yet been given form.
-
The original water state of
the earth is referred to in Psalm 104:5-6.
PS
104:5
He established the earth upon its foundations, So
that it will not totter forever and ever.
PS
104:6
You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
The waters were standing above the mountains.
Psalm
104:5-6 (NASB)
-
Verse 2 concludes with
”…and the Spirit of God was
moving...”
-
We will explore the Trinity
in creation latter in the course, but for now we can
say that the Hebrew word for “moving” means
to tremble, shake; to hover.
-
This Hebrew word is used only
two other times in Scripture, in Deut 32:11 and Jer
23:9. The word evokes the image of an eagle hovering
over her chicks. The word is indicating that the
Spirit of God was supervising, caring and nurturing
the creation process.
-
Scripture also
testifies to the Spirit of God’s involvement in
creation.
Job
26:13
By his
spirit he hath garnished the heavens…
Job
26:13 (KJV)
PS
104:30
You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And
You renew the face of the ground.
Psalm
104:30 (NASB)
-
God also created light on day
1, “Then God said, ‘Let
there be light.’”
-
What form this light took is
not clear. Was it a glow, or a light that emanated
from a specific source? The Bible doesn’t say.
-
Actual lights, such as the
sun, moon and stars will not be created until the
fourth day. But light itself, the reality of light,
was created on day 1.
-
Perhaps nothing in all of
physics is more fascinating, or more mysterious,
than light. Light is the single most important
source of energy and heat on earth. Without light,
life on earth would be impossible. That’s why light
was the vital starting point in the process of
creation.
-
In verse 4,
“God saw that the light was
good.”
This statement stresses the divine origin and
perfection of God’s creation.
-
The creation of light also
started the measurement of earth’s time by periods
of night and day. The earth was obviously set in
motion revolving on its axis, with light
illuminating one side and darkness the other. In
verse 5 we are told,
”God called the light day, and the darkness He
called night. And there was evening and there was
morning, one day.”
GE 1:6
Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the
midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters
from the waters.”
GE 1:7
God made the expanse, and separated the waters
which were below the expanse from the waters which
were above the expanse; and it was so.
GE 1:8
God called the expanse heaven. And there was
evening and there was morning, a second day.
Genesis
1:6-8 (NASB)
God commanded the water to
separate, and He placed an expanse between the water
that remained on the earth and the water that rose
above the expanse.
-
The work of this day was the
separation of the sea and the sky; of the
terrestrial region from the aerial region, here
called the expanse, or firmament in the King James.
-
The word firmament is not a
good translation because it literally means
something solid.
-
The Hebrew word for expanse
is raw-kee-ah (Strong’s, 7549,
['yqir:)
which means visible arch of the sky.
-
To this expanse above the
surface of the earth God gave the name heaven.
-
According to Genesis 1:1, the
heaven of space had already been created. So the
expanse described in verses 7-8 is the earth’s
atmosphere, the sky.
Verse 6 tells us that God took
the waters and put some above the expanse and some
below the expanse. Where do you think the “waters
above” are located?…In the atmosphere.
-
Clouds cover approximately
40% of the earth’s surface. (14, pg. 28)
-
There are approximately 3,100
cubic miles of water in the atmosphere. A cubic mile
is about 1 trillion gallons. (13)
What does God place in the
expanse on Day 4?
GE 1:20
Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms
of living creatures, and let birds fly above the
earth in the open expanse of the heavens.”
Genesis
1:15, 20 (NASB)
GE 1:9
Then God said, “ Let the waters below the heavens
be gathered into one place, and let the dry land
appear”; and it was so.
GE 1:10
God called the dry land earth, and the gathering
of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it
was good.
GE 1:11
Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation:
plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth
bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”;
and it was so.
GE 1:12
The earth brought forth vegetation, plants
yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing
fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God
saw that it was good.
GE 1:13
There was evening and there was morning, a third
day.
Genesis
1:9-13 (NASB)
The special work of this day
was another separation, this time of land and water.
Up until now the earth was an ocean. But now,
whether by volcanic upheavals or supernatural
forces, the landmass of the earth is shaped and the
waters fall into their basins.
2PE 3:5
…by the word of God the heavens existed long ago
and the earth was formed out of water and by water,
2 Peter
3:3-5 (NASB)
The Psalmist describes the same
thing.
Ps
104:5
He set the earth on its foundations; it can never
be moved.
Ps
104:6
You covered it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
Ps
104:7
But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound
of your thunder they took to flight;
Ps
104:8
they
flowed over the mountains, they went down into the
valleys, to the place you assigned for them.
Psalm
104:5-8 (NIV)
Modern science tells us that
global tectonic changes occur slowly over millions
of years, through the same natural processes we
observe on earth today. The National Academy of
Sciences makes the following statement in their
National Science Education Standards.
-
“The earth processes we
see today, including erosion, movement of
lithospheric (tectonic) plates, and changes
in atmospheric composition, are similar to those
that occurred in the past.” (19, pg. 160)
-
But Scripture is not talking
about earth processes. Scripture is describing the
creative work of God, with whom all things are
possible.
MT
19:26
…with God all things are possible.
Matthew
19:26 (NASB)
-
If we say that the laws of
nature set limits on the creative power of God, we
might as well rule out miracles altogether. But
since God created the laws of nature there can be no
limits placed on what He can do.
GE
18:14
“ Is anything too difficult for the
LORD?…
Genesis
18:14 (NASB)
Jer
32:27
“I am the
LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too
hard for me?
Jeremiah 32:27 (NIV)
-
Our understanding of science
should never govern whether we take God’s Word
literally or not. Scripture gives a consistent
account of how the land rose from the sea and its
boundaries were set. The action is always attributed
directly to God. There is no reason to try and
explain it in natural terms, it was a creative
miracle.
It is interesting, and ironic,
that scientists are trying to explain the origin of
the earth with scientific principals, which seem
more and more to point to nothing short of a
miracle. According to an article in the Los Angeles
Times:
“The Big Bang
is looking more supernatural all the time. About 20
years ago, the late Carl Sagan famously said that
Big Bang science would eventually show that the
universe was created without any creator. Since
then, the picture has changed quite a bit, one
reason why, in the years before his 1996 death,
Sagan himself began to advocate science-and-religion
studies.
The leading
contemporary development in Big Bang thinking is a
theory called ‘cosmic inflation,’ which holds that
the entire universe popped out of a point with no
content and no dimensions, essentially expanding
instantaneously to cosmological size. Now being
taught at Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and other top schools, this explanation
of the beginning of the universe bears haunting
similarity to the traditional theological notion of
creation ex nihilo, ‘out of nothing.’”
(20)
The article goes on to quote
“ one of the world’s foremost astronomers, Allan
Sandage of the Observatories of the Carnegie
Institution in Pasadena, who recently proposed that
the Big Bang could only be understood as ‘a
miracle,’ in which some higher force must have
played a role.” (20)
In the end, only a miracle can
account for the existence of the universe. As
Christians, we believe in the limitless miracle
working ability of God. Therefore it should not tax
our faith when we read that dry land and plant life
rose up out of the sea in a day’s time at the
command of God.
As He did on day 1 and day 2,
God named what He had made. He called the land
“earth” and the
water “seas.”
There is now earth, sea and sky, an eco-system ready
for life. “And God saw
that it was good.”
-
Plant life appeared because
God commanded it. It was not the result of a long
evolutionary process, it was immediate.
-
Vegetation of every kind
appeared instantly. Notice that when God created
trees, they already had seed and fruit on them. They
didn’t start with a little seed that grew and
developed; they were already producing fruit. He
made them mature, already fully rooted and
developed. As we see consistently throughout the
Genesis account, from the moment He creates
something, it appears as if it has been there for
some time.
The seed contained in the
vegetation was preprogrammed with DNA (genetic
information) to assure that each plant would
reproduce “after their
kind.” The Hebrew word for
“kind” is
meen (Strong’s, 4327,
ˆymi) and
means to portion out; a sort.
-
Man-made classification
systems using terms like species are not necessarily
in harmony with the biblical measure of what
constitutes a biblical
“kind.”
-
The fact that creatures
reproduce according to their kind is a fundamental
rule of genetics.
-
Today a system
developed by Carolus Linnaeus (1707 - 1778) is used
to clasify life. The Linnaeus System works by
placing each organism into a layered hierarchy of
groups. Each group at a given layer is composed of a
set of groups from the layer directly below. The
groupings (taxa) of taxonomy from most general to
most specific are: Kingdom, Phylum, Class,
Order, Family, Genus, Species.
-
The category
“kind” is
probably closer to the taxa of genus, or family.
GE 1:14
Then God said, “Let there be lights in the
expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the
night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and
for days and years;
GE 1:15
and let them be for lights in the expanse of the
heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.
GE 1:16
God made the two great lights, the greater light
to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern
the night; He made the stars also.
GE 1:17
God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to
give light on the earth,
GE 1:18
and to govern the day and the night, and to
separate the light from the darkness; and God saw
that it was good.
GE 1:19
There was evening and there was morning, a fourth
day.
Genesis
1:14-19 (NASB)
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INTRODUCTION
BODY
Day
4 (Sun, Moon & Stars)