Creation can be a bit of a hot button issue. There are so many different views that attempt to explain how the earth and humanity came into existence. We believe that Scripture is clear that God created, that He created out of nothing, and that He created in six, literal 24-hour days.
God created the entire universe out of nothing; it was originally very good; and he created it to glorify himself (Grudem). We will be spending the majority of our time working through these three key areas.
Scripture is clear that God created out of nothing (ex nihilo). God did not create using some pre-existing material (Romans 4:17; Ps. 33:6, 9). Scripture also makes it clear that God created Adam and Eve in a special, personal way (Gen. 2:7, 21-23). We are created in God’s own image and we are the pinnacle of his creation.
God explicitly states in Isaiah 43:7, “whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” God has created all things, especially mankind, for his glory. Creation shows God’s great power and his wisdom (Jer. 10:12, 16). We give glory to God when we observe his creation. God had no need to create the earth or anything in it. Yet, he desired to create everything to show his excellence and glorify himself.
At the end of each stage of creation we see that God took the time to admire it and call it “good” (Gen. 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). Then at the conclusion of his creation “He saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). God delighted in his creation and it brought him glory.
We will also discuss some of the different views that people hold for explaining creation. We will only discuss views in which God is the one doing the creating.
We will briefly discuss: Theistic Evolution, The Gap Theory, Day-Age Theory, and Mature Creationism. I will present the ideas that they hold and I will BRIEFLY explain some of their challenges. I will make myself available to you and to the students if they have any further questions regarding these views.
Theistic Evolution proposes that living organisms came about by the process of evolution, which Darwin proposed, but that God guided the process so that the result was just how he wanted it. Theistic evolutionists would mostly say that God intervened at crucial moments, usually: the creation of matter in the beginning, the creation of the simplest life form, and the creation of man. This view has many inconsistencies with Scripture.
The Gap Theory holds that there is a gap of millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. According to this view, God made an earlier creation, but there was eventually a rebellion against God, and God judged the earth so that “it became formless and void” (an alternative and doubtful translation of Genesis 1:2). There are many arguments against this view.
The Day-Age Theory states that each day of creation was a long (millions of years) period of time. The words in the Hebrew text do allow for the days to be long periods of time. The advantage of this view is that it allows for the Bible to be consistent with the estimation of the earth being around 4.5 million years old. This is what we call an “Old-Earth” view. I believe there are many true believers who hold this view. This view does have its problems however.
Mature Creationism seems to be the view that remains most faithful to Scripture. This view holds to the idea that God created the earth and everything in it ex nihilo in six, literal, twenty-four hour days. Mature Creationism is a “young earth” view and claims that the earth is somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 years old, rather than millions of years. In this view, God created the earth and everything in it with an appearance of age. So, from day one, creation appeared mature.
There are some obvious examples of maturity in God’s creation. First of all, it is highly unlikely, almost absurd, to believe that God created Adam and Eve as infants to survive without anyone to watch over them. More plausible, is the idea that God created them as young adults. Also, God probably created most of the vegetation on the earth in a mature state. He didn’t place seeds in the ground and wait for all of the plants and trees to grow. Adam and Eve would have needed food from the first day they were created and if there was no vegetation because it had not grown yet, they would have died.
This view has no objections in Scripture. It affirms the creation account in Genesis 1-3. This view translates the word “day” as a literal 24-hour day. It continues with the same translation in Exodus 20:11. God’s nature is clearly seen in His work of creation and we see a deliberate design in our world that affirms Romans 1:20, 25. I think that this view holds true to Scripture very well and I see no apparent contradictions.
and by our doing His will in His way in everything (Matt. 6:16).