It’s not easy to stick God on a poster board and label him Exhibit A. But I can actually do that with the many good people at my church. If I’m going to defend my faith to someone else, I ought to be able to do that with myself.
I ought to be able to say to an unbeliever: If you don’t believe me, come see my brothers and sisters at my home church. This is Exhibit A. This is irrefutable evidence. God is alive, present, and active in their lives.
This may sound silly, even absurd to some, but in reality, this is how most converts are made. We invite friends to church, Bible class, or small group. They find something there they like, and they eventually come to believe — without a word about evolution and creation — because they see the power of God alive in the congregation.
Now, it’s entirely fair to object that any church is so far removed from the ideal — the image of Christ — that offering that church as Exhibit A is a losing argument. Far better to argue abstractions from books than lives lived by the people of God.
Well, if we’re not a good Exhibit A, what’s the point of converting the lost? To become like us? Why bother?
We are indeed far from perfect. We sin — quite a lot, actually. And yet we really are Christians and help form one of God’s churches. And — by the way — they’re all messed up. All of them.
You see, one of the most powerful arguments that can be made for the presence of God among us is our humility — the very fact that we see and are ashamed of our sinfulness shows that we want to do better because we know that Jesus calls us to be better.
This is real. This is authenticity. It’s not about pretending to be Ozzie & Harriet and having life all figured out and knowing the solutions for every problem that there is. It’s really about trying hard, messing up, and being loved enough by your friends to be picked back up and try again.
We measure ourselves by an impossible standard, but if we don’t look something like Jesus to the lost, then we’re wasting our time here, aren’t we?
And so each one of us is a Christian evidence. Each one of us represents Christ to the world. And each one of us is bad at it — and we know it — and yet we can be amazingly convincing by being honest about our failings and our impossible aspirations. The young people call this “authenticity.” It can be far more persuasive than 20 books on science and the Bible.
Now, there’s another level at which we’re all Christian evidences. Most of us have had a personal experience with God. We’ve heard his voice or seen an angel or had a prayer answered contrary to all logic or otherwise experienced God’s hand in our lives in astonishing ways.
In many Churches of Christ, it’s not considered proper to discuss such things because some of our members deny that such things happen. And yet they do. And in my experience, when the class is given a feeling of safety and acceptance, several members will share — often for the first — their experiences with God. And it can be an amazingly uplifting experience for all there.
I have the pleasure and honor of knowing former Alabama head coach Gene Stallings and his late son, John Mark. John Mark was born with Down’s Syndrome, and Coach Stallings admits how difficult it was for him to adjust when John Mark was born. After all, Coach Stallings had already had two girls and was looking forward to having a son — an athlete to follow in his footsteps.
In Surprised by the Voice of God, by Jack Deere, Coach Stallings recounts how his attitude was changed. One night he heard a noise coming from Johnny’s room.
I immediately went to check on him. When I opened the door, I discovered not one, but two boys sitting in Johnny’s crib. They were playing a game known only to them and squealing with laughter. The other baby turned to me, looked into my eyes with a piercing glance, and then suddenly disappeared.
To this day, I believe with all my heart that God allowed me to momentarily see Johnny’s guardian angel to encourage me for the years that lay ahead.
Coach Stallings was cut to the heart, seeing in the eyes of the second baby such disappointment in himself. Since that day, Coach Stallings came to accept and adore his son, and out that adoration grew a tremendous ministry of support for children with Down’s syndrome and for their parents. The good that Coach Stallings and John Mark have done is incalculable.
Now, Coach Stallings is as tough as they come, having coached Alabama to a national championship in 1992 and coached the Dallas Cowboys’ secondary for many years. A man’s man — hardly given to sentimentality and emotionalism.
And he and I have discussed this story in person in his kitchen. It happened.
Does this prove the existence of God — a God who loves the weakest among us and who can turn weakness into power, with whom the last become first? Well, yes it does.
I’m a lawyer, and evidence given by eyewitnesses is perfectly good evidence. On the other hand, juries don’t have to believe the witnesses. And not all witnesses speak the truth.
And this brings us to a critical point. I majored in mathematics, and often times skeptics insist on proof of God at the level of mathematical certainty. But only math produces mathematical certainty — and even math requires a surprisingly large number of unprovable assumptions to work. We call them “axioms.”
In the ancient world — from Constantine until the Enlightenment — God was axiomatic. No proof was required, because his existence was taken as obvious. Today, we turn science into an axiom, and God has to be proven scientifically.
Well, amateurs and pretenders do this. Serious philosophers know that science describes only a small part of our existence. It gives no answers to some of the biggest questions such as the purpose of the creation and the purpose of man. Why does the universe exist? What is man here for?
And in philosophy, it’s well understood that you can’t prove anything to someone who doesn’t want to believe. We can always find a reason to doubt. I can tell you that water boils at 100 degrees Centigrade, and you can question my intelligence and trustworthiness. I can pull out water, a beaker, a Bunsen burner, and a thermometer, and you can question the precision with which the thermometer was manufactured. You can question whether I put some alcohol or benzene in the water to change its boiling point. You can even question whether the boiling point is constant from day to day. And how do I prove that the boiling point of water will be the same tomorrow as today?
And so you can’t persuade anyone who doesn’t want to be persuaded. But you can demonstrate what the Christian philosophers call “warrant” or good reason to believe — that belief is not unreasonable.
I’ve never been to Paris, but I have warrant to believe that Paris exists because I have friends who’ve been there and told me about it — with pictures. This is hardly proof. It could be an elaborate practical joke. But I have warrant — based on their integrity as believable witnesses — and the fact that there are all sorts of other evidences that Paris exists.
And so the presence and behavior of the church gives warrant to believe in God. So does the fact that so many people have heard his voice and seen his angels. It’s not mathematical proof but it is warrant.
But we are a scientific people, and many will want more evidence. And more evidence there is.
What hurts Christian influence is when church members believe that learning all the details of so-called “Creation Science” allows them to stand toe to toe with scientist, philosophers and other critical thinkers; that is when they usually get sliced to ribbons.
However, Christians who, in humility, use their reasoning powers well, yet accept that reason takes them only so far until faith takes over, gain the respect of most thinking people. And respect is part of being the city on the hill; it is not the sell-out that unreasonable religious people like to claim it is.
A Christian who is always learning, always using the mind, yet approaches each day and each person in love and humility, has something to give to any individual he or she encounters; whether it is the person bagging their groceries, the school teacher meeting with them regarding their child, or the doctor who is discussing their health.
No, these meetings may not seem to be great “Road to Damascus” moments for the ones encountered; but if the heart and mind are shaping and guiding one another, the other person will be touched with an imprint that no other individual in this universe could leave.
I became a Christian in 1974 precisely because I saw the joy, peace, and love in the members of the church. They welcomed me, loved me, and showed much grace. I knew God was in their midst and I wanted to be a part of it.
Science and religion do not have to clash. I have heard a few clergy actually say that. Too many force a clash.
I have seen 450+ year old prayers work too when some others wouldn’t. Perhaps I was asking for the wrong things.
Jay, the stories one hears when the floor is opened up for experiential “God Moments” is incredible.. but as you say it must be in a “safe” environment.. Isn’t that sad.. The Apostles all died martyr deaths telling about supernatural events of Jesus.. and today we have to have “safe rooms.” SMH… Love the Gene Stallings story from Deere’s book.. Jealous.. Would have loved to have been in that kitchen listening to him tell that story.
Excellent Jay!
Jay said.
“This may sound silly, even absurd to some, but in reality, this is how most converts are made. We invite friends to church, ”
I believe we should know more about someone, than how they act “at church”, before we strive to be like them.
Laymond, Generally hypocrites are easy to smoke out. A hypocrite at church won’t be bearing the fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, …)
Skip, I beg to differ. The hypocrites I knew showed the fruits of the spirit to some select people but not to others.
Genuine fruits of the spirit can’t be faked. Works of the flesh are different.
It was good to read the testimony of Skip, who seems to be a Christian in truth. He wrote: Skip on May 1, 2014 at 7:21 am — I became a Christian in 1974 precisely because I saw the joy, peace, and love in the members of the church. They welcomed me, loved me, and showed much grace. I knew God was in their midst and I wanted to be a part of it.
And how good it is to read the testimony of Jay Guin and his teaching. One thing I wish were different in the final scripture quoted by Jay is that the translator capitalized “spirit” when the contrast is between our flesh and OUR spirits. God didn’t create spiritual weaklings. The apostles urge us to ADD TO our faith and this implies that we are able to do so!
I have mentioned the church I attend during winters in Florida. I find it to be a remarkable church that has an “Alive” spirit that can be sensed almost as soon as you walk into the meeting place. I mentioned the frequent use during the assembly of video of members discussing their lives, before and after accepting Jesus. It is remarkably effective and moving to hear others talk about their lives and the changes that knowing Jesus have brought to their lives. I had attended this church before this “aliveness” was there and it was a totally different church. It was a church that I was not drawn to and wasn’t anxious to be a part of. I went back to this church later and found it to be a totally different church. It was so different, I went to the senior pastor and asked him what had changed? He struggled to answer that question but eventually told me that people began to see that lives were being changed as a result of this church and it was exciting and drove the members to desire more changed lives. Today it is a rapidly growing church… last weeks email told me that 16 people were baptized that Sunday. When was the last time you saw 16 people being baptized at one time? I am now convinced that church growth and its ability to save people is a product of the spirit of the church which is to say the spirit of the people within the church. So yes, the right church is important. It is important to be involved in each others lives and to include others to be a part of your life. And this must be true for all of the church, not just a portion of the church. It is too easy for those deeply involved in the church administration and operation to be involved in each others lives but not know anything about those who are unable to penetrate that level of the church.
Ask yourself this question: How would the typical member of your church respond to you if instead of responding “fine” to their question of “How are you?”, you responded with “Not so good. My son/daughter was arrested for DUI last night and I have a lot of sin in my life right now”. Would they ride to the sound of spiritual battle of run in the opposite direction?
I wholeheartedly agree with Jay that the church ought to be powerful evidence that God exists. I was converted in 1996 when I was 26. Before then I had a very negative view of religions, especially Christianity. I thought Christians were all a bunch of hypocrites and the Bible was written by men to keep you from having fun. I’m not sure where that negative view came from because I didn’t have any religious experience at all growing up. The funny thing was I believed in God; I just didn’t understand or want to have a relationship with him. But I can remember praying regularly before exams in high school and college and saying something like “God, I’ve studied all I can. I’ve done my part, now it’s up to you.” I’m not sure I was even asking God to help. I think I just expected him to do what I asked.
While I was at the University of Washington, on active duty in the Navy, I had a friend named James who was in the ICOC (Boston Movement) who kept inviting me out to every possible Christian event from church to Bible studies to singles events to volleyball games. I wouldn’t go to any of them if I knew they had anything to do with church. James never did get me out to anything, and I graduated with my degree in Mechanical Engineering and went off to Florida for nuclear power training. But I had a really close friend named Kim who was also in the Navy who went to Providence, Rhode Island after graduating. James kept in touch with her and kept bugging her to go to the church in Providence, and she finally did and became a Christian. I went up to visit her, and she drug me out to church at an elementary school. I have to say it rocked my world. It had all the intensity of a superbowl game or a rock concert. I didn’t know what was going on, but I’d never experienced anything like it.
Kim tried to get me to check out the church in Orlando where I was stationed, but I never would. I figured what I saw in Providence was a fluke. When I graduated from nuclear power school I flew up to Seattle to see my family. Kim just happened to be stationed in Seattle, and she drug me out to the church there. It rocked my world again. When I got to my next duty station in Charleston SC, Kim had set me up with contact info for the church there. But I still wouldn’t go. What finally made me change my mind? I was lonely, and I was tired of trying to meet girls in bars. I thought maybe I could find a nice girl in church. I tried the number Kim had given me, but I never got a hold of the guy. I kept getting his answering machine, and back then I wouldn’t leave a message on an answering machine to save my life.
So finally I looked in the phone book and found a church of Christ right near where I lived. Kim had mentioned something to me about the International Churches of Christ vs. the mainline churches of Christ, but that all meant nothing to me. But the church I’d looked up was a mainline church, and I knew it as soon as I got there for Wednesday night service. I could feel it in the parking lot just getting out of my car. It felt wrong. I went in the building and was met by the official greeter and then went and sat in a pew. The building could hold several hundred people, but there was probably less than twenty people there. After about 5 min I just got up and left.
So I finally got in touch with the person whose number Kim had given me, and I went out to church on Sunday at the College of Charleston. I could feel the power coming from the room where the church was from the parking garage. There was a sense of excitement and passion that I could feel even before entering the room. When I entered the room I was literally mobbed by people wanting to talk to me. All the single guys were there talking to me, giving me their phone numbers, and inviting me out to lunch. There was even a Navy Commander in the church who gave me his number, which really freaked me out because I was just an Ensign, and senior officers don’t fraternize with junior officers.
Needless to say I was absolutely blown away again. I started studying the Bible intensely with the single brothers, and I was baptized a few weeks later. It was obvious that God was alive, present, and active in their lives. They were devoted to God, devoted to each other, and devoted to saving the world. They were on a mission, and I wanted to be a part of it. I can honestly say that I don’t think I would have ever become a Christian if I had gone to most churches be they mainline church of Christ, Baptist, or whatever. I’m not in the ICOC anymore (that’s a whole other story), and I’ve been to a few churches of Christ, a Calvary Chapel, and a few others, and I know for sure that I never would have been converted in any of them. The church I’m at now would probably be considered a progressive church of Christ, and I really like it, but it’s nowhere near the same level as what I experienced when I was converted.
I really appreciate Jay’s posts when he teaches about how the church is supposed to be. If we could ever come close to being the church Jesus died to build, then imagine how radically different this world would be. But at the same time I think that the creation vs. evolution debate is critical. More to come in another post.
So I became a Christian at 26, and for 15 years I never even really questioned evolution or millions of years. I was very into science growing up and as an adult (Mechanical Engineering and Naval Nuclear Power Program), and I had been indoctrinated into believing in evolution and millions of years. Not only did I not question it, but it wouldn’t have even occurred to me to question it because, after all, evolution and millions of years are “proven” facts. Don’t believe me? Try even suggesting that there are problems with the theory of evolution and see if you can get (or hold onto) a teaching position at any public school or university. Anyway, I was by default a theistic evolutionist because I believed evolution was true and therefore God must have used evolution as part of his creative process. Somewhere along the way I read a book about the literary or “framework” interpretation of Genesis 1, and that allowed me to be intellectually fulfilled and not worry that Genesis 1 doesn’t jibe with evolution and millions of years in the slightest. A few years ago I read The Genesis Flood by Morris and Whitcomb, and I’ve been a young earth creationist ever since. But that’s another story.
Jay said:
This may sound silly, even absurd to some, but in reality, this is how most converts are made. We invite friends to church, Bible class, or small group. They find something there they like, and they eventually come to believe — without a word about evolution and creation — because they see the power of God alive in the congregation.
I get that because in the ICOC we were not only inviting people out to church but were having Bible studies, small groups, and any other event we could think of to invite people out to. The “you’ve got to come see my amazing church” approach worked; we baptized a lot of people. Of course that was Charleston SC. Try that in Seattle, and you’ll get a very different response. If you even mention church people look at you like you just grew a third eye. And I know from personal experience how hard it was to get me out to any church event. God had to chase me from one side of the country to the other. The problem with the church being Exhibit A for the existence of God is getting people to the church. How do we do that?
While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[b] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[c]
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.
Acts 17:16-34
When Paul went to the Jews he reasoned with them from the Scriptures to prove Jesus was the Messiah. He could do that because they had the foundation of the OT. But when it came to the Gentiles, they had no foundation, and Paul had to overcome their incorrect worldview. To the Gentiles to promote only one God instead of the pantheon of gods made you an atheist, and to claim that a god became human and was crucified was abhorrent. Paul could not just preach Jesus crucified because it was nonsense to them. He had to lay the foundation first by showing them the error of their worldview and showing them the correct worldview. Then he could preach Jesus crucified and resurrected. And the result was that some sneered, but others wanted to hear more from him.
In the same way, we live in a world that increasingly mocks God and the Bible. A world where “science” is now the supreme authority by which all things are judged. Evolution and millions of years are “facts” so you either have to reinterpret the Bible to fit with what finite fallible men tell us is the truth, or you’re considered a fundamentalist wacko. The issue is one of authority. Is the Bible the ultimate authority as it was for Newton, Kepler, Faraday, etc. or are the opinions of men with letters after their names the authority? If the Bible is no longer the authority on origins, then it’s no longer the authority when it comes to abortion, homosexuality, gay marriage, euthanasia, genocide, etc. If evolution is true then we’re just evolved animals and the Bible is just a collection of old stories that, thanks to science, we now know aren’t true. So the message of the cross is foolishness in this generation, and Christianity is being more and more marginalized.
So we either stand firm on what the Bible says, which I contend fits the actual evidence much better than evolution and millions of years, or we reinterpret the Bible to try to appease the non-believers. The tragedy is that when Christians compromise on the Bible to appease the atheists they end up bringing contempt on themselves and on God. See http://creation.com/dawkins-on-compromising-churchians.
The atheists understand that evolution and the God of the Bible are absolutely incompatible, see http://creation.com/god-of-evolution-diabolical, so how foolish do Christians look when they try to sit on the fence and accept both the God of the Bible and evolution and millions of years.
Thanks for your post Jim.
Jim,
God could of made the earth to be any age he wat nted it to be. Look at Adam , he was created as a grown man. Maybe 20-30. To any scientist, he would check out at the age God made him. Eve too.
If that can be done with a human, the earth would be a snap.
In the long run and on Judgment day, what difference will it make how God did it. thousands of years or in an instant? I don’t think how we see it will be on the test.
Alabama John,
It absolutely does matter how God did it because if the earth is billions of years old then God’s goodness and truthfulness are called into question.
Regardless of how you interpret the six creation days – literal days, long ages, six days of progressive revelation, or a literary framework – there are certain truths that are conveyed by the story. For example, God is perfect, so He created things perfect, and anything imperfect is due to sin, not to the way God made it originally. Indeed, God calls His creation “good” seven times in Genesis 1, and seven is the biblical number of perfection. Furthermore, the seventh time, after God finished His creative work, He declared the finished product “very good” (Genesis 1:31).
What does “very good” mean? It can only be measured against God’s nature and character and purpose. So what would a world be like that reflected God’s goodness? Certainly nothing like a world full of death, mutations, disease, suffering, bloodshed and violence that we see today for we live in a cursed, fallen world, in bondage to decay.
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. (Romans 8:20-22)
The original creation was very different. For example, there would have been no bloodshed and violence because both mankind and all the animals were created vegetarian.
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. (Genesis 1:29-30)
Likewise there would have been no thorns and thistles in the original creation because they were a result of the curse.
“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.” (Genesis 3:18-19)
The bible paints a vivid picture of a perfect “very good” creation that was ruined because of Adam and Eve’s sin. Not only did their rebellion bring both physical and spiritual death on themselves, but they brought death, suffering, and decay into the creation. These things were not part of the original creation, but were the results of God’s curse.
Now the problem with any old earth view, is where do we fit the fossil record into the history of the universe? The fossil record shows death, disease, suffering, thorns, animals eating one another, mass extinctions, etc. We see all the evils of this sin-cursed world in the fossil record but at a much greater scale than we see today. So where does the fossil record fit into the history of the universe? If we accept Genesis as a historical narrative, i.e. a six-day creation and a global flood, then the fossil record is no problem. God created a perfect creation, man’s sin ruined it, the earth became more and more “corrupt” and “full of violence” until God destroyed it in a global flood, and the fossil record is a record of a wicked world buried in the flood.
But if we accept that the fossil record represents millions of years of history then we have a problem – when did all that death and suffering happen? The genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11 make it impossible to fit millions of years into biblical history after the creation of Adam and Eve, so that means that the fossil record must have been formed before the creation of Adam and Eve. But that means that all that death, disease, and suffering must be part of God’s “very good” creation, and NOT the result of man’s sin! In any old earth interpretation, death, disease, violence, and suffering were part of God’s creative process! And what exactly did the curse do? If the fossil record really represents millions of years, then the curse simply returned the universe to its “normal” state since the fossil record shows the same conditions that exist on earth today.
If the earth is billions of years old and life evolved over millions of years then what does that say about God’s goodness? The non-Christian Philosopher of Science, Professor David Hull said this:
“The problem that biological evolution poses for natural theologians is the sort of God that a darwinian version of evolution implies … The evolutionary process is rife with happenstance, contingency, incredible waste, death, pain and horror … Whatever the God implied by evolutionary theory and the data of natural history may be like, He is not the Protestant God of waste not, want not. He is also not a loving God who cares about His productions. He is not even the awful God portrayed in the book of Job. The God of the Galápagos is careless, wasteful, indifferent, almost diabolical. He is certainly not the sort of God to whom anyone would be inclined to pray.”
—David Hull, The God of the Galápagos, Nature 352:485–86, 8 August 1991.
My contention is that if a person truly understands the death and suffering the fossil record shows and believes that God used millions of years of evolution as part of his creative process, that person has a warped view of our good and loving Father.
Alabama John,
Not only does millions of years of evolution call God’s goodness into question, it also makes God into a liar and undermines even the resurrection story. For example, consider Exodus 20:8-11.
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
The six days of creation are the basis of the command to obey the Sabbath in the Ten Commandments. The Israelites were commanded to observe the Sabbath in imitation of God because he worked six days and then rested. In fact verse 11 says that God blessed the Sabbath and made it holy precisely because he rested on that day. If God didn’t really create in six days and then rest, then God commanded the Israelites to imitate something that he didn’t really do. In Leviticus 19:1, God told Moses to tell the Israelites to “Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.” Then in verse 11 God commanded them not to lie or to deceive one another. The Israelites were not to lie or deceive one another because God doesn’t lie or deceive, but if God didn’t really create in six days, then didn’t he lie to the Israelites?
Consider that God could have established the Sabbath without telling a “story” about creating the universe in six days. He could have just said, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. I’m the Lord and that’s what I’ve decreed.” He also didn’t need to tell a six day creation “story” to create a polemic against pagan religions. If you read Genesis 1 but strip out all the references to the six days, then all those truths/arguments are still there, just without the claim of creation in six days. Also, ancient Hebrew had words for long ages, so if that’s what God wanted to convey he certainly could have done so without using days. But God chose to include the days in the creation account, so the question is, did God choose to create in six literal days (even though he could have done it instantaneously or over billions of years) to provide a historical basis and an example for the Israelites to follow in observing the Sabbath, or did he just create a nice story to use as justification for observing the Sabbath even though it has no basis in reality? If God didn’t actually create in six days, e.g. he created instantaneously or he created over 15 billion years, then saying that he created in six days would be deceitful.
Consider also Exodus 31:12-17:
And the LORD said to Moses, “You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the LORD, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’”
(Exodus 31:12-17 ESV)
The Sabbath was to be a covenant and a sign. A sign of what, and why is it important? Well the pagan nations not only had their pagan gods, but also their pagan worship of different aspects of the creation, and their pagan creation myths. But God’s people were sanctified by God and by the truth. They had the true account of the creation of the universe and of man’s place in that creation, and the Sabbath was a reminder of that truth. If God didn’t really create in six days, then God was lying to them. If he didn’t really create in six days, then he established a covenant with them based on a made up story. This is a huge issue because the bible is full of covenants and signs between God and his people. For example, in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, Paul discusses Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper. In verse 26 he says, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” You see, the Lord’s Supper was rooted in a real historical event – Jesus’ death and resurrection. If the event didn’t really happen, i.e. wasn’t historical, then our faith is worthless. If Jesus didn’t really die on the cross and rise from the dead, then we are still dead in our sins. And the Lord’s Supper as a “proclamation of Jesus’ death” would be a lie.
Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper on the Passover, and he is our Passover Lamb. The Passover itself is rooted in a real historic event, and God commanded the Israelites to observe the Passover in the same month and at the same time of day when God led them out of Egypt. God told them, “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. (Exodus 12:14 ESV). He also told them, “And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the LORD’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” (Exodus 12:26-27 ESV). It was to be a proclamation to the children of Israel of the wonders God performed when he brought the Israelites out of Egypt. It was to remind them that Jehovah is the one true God. But if it never happened, i.e. it’s just a nice story that Moses told the people, then it’s a lie! These signs and covenants only have meaning because they commemorate real historical events. If they were just stories, then they have no power at all.
So the Lord’s Supper commemorates Jesus’ death, the Passover commemorates God’s protection of the Israelites when he destroyed Egypt’s firstborn, and according to Exodus 31:17 the Sabbath was to commemorate the fact that God created in six days and then rested. If the Sabbath covenant is based on a made up story, then why should we believe that the Passover was real or that the resurrection was real? How do we know that they aren’t just stories as well? Or to put it a different way, if we believe that the Passover and the Lord’s Supper are real, why don’t we believe the Sabbath covenant was real? Therefore, our interpretation of Genesis 1 impacts our view of Exodus 11 and 31 and of God’s truthfulness. If we accept billions of years for the age of the universe, then we have to reconcile that interpretation with these Scriptures.
Also, consider the words of Jesus and Paul. In Matthew 19:4-5 Jesus said, “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? “ Jesus quotes Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:24 and combines them together to uphold the sanctity of marriage. Notice that he says that “at the beginning” the Creator made them. Jesus says that God created Adam and Eve at the beginning of creation. Now this would be a reasonable statement if creation occurred over six days about 4000 years before Jesus made the statement. But if the universe is billions of years old then Adam and Eve weren’t created anywhere near the beginning of creation. In fact, all of human history is just a drop in the bucket compared to the age of the universe.
In Romans 1:20 Paul said, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” Here Paul is saying no one has an excuse to deny God because his power and divine nature have been seen since the beginning of the creation. But if they’ve been seen since the beginning of creation then there must have been people there to see them. Again, this would be reasonable if the world is young, but is not at all compatible with an old earth. Now you might think I’m splitting hairs here, but consider that Jesus made his argument for the resurrection in Matthew 22:32 based on verb tense when God told Moses that he IS the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not he WAS their God. Paul made his argument in Galatians 3:16 about Jesus being the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham based on the plurality of the word “seed” in God’s promise to Abraham.
So if the earth is billions of years old then God is either a liar or a really bad communicator. Or maybe God meant exactly what he said, and the earth is only a few thousand years old.
One final reason why it matters how God did it is that when you try to fit millions of years of evolution into the Bible you end up having to throw out parts of the Bible and even deny the inerrancy of Scripture. For example, here’s a quote from one theistic evolutionist:
“If Jesus as a finite human being erred from time to time, there is no reason at all to suppose that Moses, Paul, John wrote Scripture without error. Rather, we are wise to assume that the biblical authors expressed themselves as human beings writing from the perspectives of their own finite, broken horizons.”
– Sparks, K., “After Inerrancy, Evangelicals and the Bible in the Postmodern Age, part 4” Biologos Forum, 26 June 2010.
Here’s another quote from an evolutionist Anglican priest:
“ … Fossils are the remains of creatures that lived and died for over a billion years before Homo Sapiens evolved. Death is as old as life itself by all but a split second. Can it therefore be God’s punishment for Sin? The fossil record demonstrates that some form of evil has existed throughout time. On the large scale it is evident in natural disasters. … On the individual scale there is ample evidence of painful, crippling disease and the activity of parasites. We see that living things have suffered in dying, with arthritis, a tumor, or simply being eaten by other creatures. From the dawn of time, the possibility of life and death, good and evil, have always existed. At no point is there any discontinuity; there was never a time when death appeared, or a moment when the evil [sic] changed the nature of the universe. God made the world as it is … evolution as the instrument of change and diversity. People try to tell us that Adam had a perfect relationship with God until he sinned, and all we need to do is repent and accept Jesus in order to restore that original relationship. But perfection like this never existed. There never was such a world. Trying to return to it, either in reality or spiritually, is a delusion. Unfortunately it is still central to much evangelical preaching.”
– Tom Ambrose, ‘Just a pile of old bones’, The Church of England Newspaper, A Current Affairs section, 21 October 1994.
Here’s a quote from Bishop John Shelby Spong:
‘I live on the other side of Charles Darwin. And Charles Darwin not only made us Christians face the fact that the literal creation story cannot be quite so literal, but he also destroyed the primary myth by which we had told the Jesus story for centuries. That myth suggested that there was a finished creation from which we human beings had fallen into sin, and therefore needed a rescuing divine presence to lift us back to what God had originally created us to be. But Charles Darwin says that there was no perfect creation because it is not yet finished. It is still unfolding. And there was no perfect human life which then corrupted itself and fell into sin, there was rather a single cell that emerged slowly over 4½ to 5 billion years, into increasing complexity, into increasing consciousness.
‘And so the story of Jesus who comes to rescue us from the Fall becomes a nonsensical story. So how can we tell the Jesus story with integrity and with power, against the background of a humanity that is not fallen but is simply unfinished?’
– Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV Compass interview with Bishop John Shelby Spong, by Geraldine Doogue, in front of a live audience at the Eugene Groosen Hall, ABC Studios, Ultimo, Sydney, Australia, 8 July 2000. Copied from transcript at , 6 August 2001.
Here’s one more quote from Hugh Ross, a progressive creationist who believes in a literal Adam and Eve who all humans have descended from but also believes in an old earth and accepts the scientific dating methods:
‘In time, all these bipedal primates went extinct. Then, about 10 to 60 thousand years ago, God replaced them with Adam and Eve. From Adam and Eve came all the people that live on the earth today.’
– Ross, H., Genesis One, Dinosaurs and Cavemen, Reasons to Believe, accessed 15 March 2003.
To try and make the bible and the old-earth story fit together, Hugh Ross has to assume that Neanderthals were not true humans but soulless hominids that God wiped out and replaced with Adam and Eve. Where does he get that from in the bible?
The bottom line is that when we try to combine the bible with evolution and/or an ancient earth, it is ALWAYS the bible that ends up having to be explained away. What this shows is that “science” is the ultimate authority and the bible must be interpreted according to it. So man’s opinions are the authority over God’s word. Up until around 1700 A.D. the almost universal view of both the church and orthodox Judaism was a six day creation and a global flood. Up until then the church held to a simple straightforward historical view of Genesis, but now we’re told we can’t take Genesis as history because we know better – we have the scientific intellect and insight that those “simple” people didn’t have. So we’re told that we have to interpret Genesis in some sort of non-historical framework, and we’re given a whole plethora of choices to choose from. Just interpret Genesis however you want to; it doesn’t matter. After all, did God really say … ?