In the Beginning...

This past Sunday we began our series with the first 5 verses of Genesis 1. This is part of a very familiar account that is impossible to do justice in a sermon. There’s simply too much material, and too much controversy, about whether, how and when God created everything. As a way of entering the controversy, I offer these quotes from biblical scholar John Stott:

Science (or at least natural science) is a body of knowledge painstakingly acquired by observation, experiment and induction. The purpose of God through Scripture, however, has been to disclose truths which could not be discovered by this method (called by scientists the ‘empirical’ method), but would have remained unknown and undiscovered if he had not revealed them.

…the Bible is primarily a book neither of science, nor of literature, nor of philosophy, but of salvation. In saying this we must give the word ‘salvation’ its broadest possible meaning. Salvation is far more than merely the forgiveness of sins. It includes the whole sweep of God’s purpose to redeem and restore humankind, and indeed all creation. What we claim for the Bible is that unfolds God’s total plan. It begins with the creation, so that we may know the divine likeness in which we were made, the obligations which we have repudiated and the heights from which we have fallen. We can understand neither what we are in sin nor what we may be by grace until we know what we once were by creation.

When discussing Gen. 1, we get hung up because we focus on what these verses tell us about the universe we live in. Whereas the Creation account of Genesis tells us certain essential details about the Creation itself, these are not its focus. The Book of Genesis is designed to tell us about the Creator. Instead of beating each other up about details we’ll never agree on, we should focus on that which we can: the nature of the God introduced in the first book of our Scriptures.

A literalistic approach to reading Genesis insists that God created the world in six 24-hour days. This in turn places many Christians at odds with those working in the fields of biology, geology, and paleontology whose careful study suggests the development of living species and geological formations over periods of millions, even billions, of years. In holding to a literal, 24-hour day reading of Genesis, Christians are faced with having to choose between the “two books of God” identified in the Belgic Confession: The Scriptures and Creation itself. Is there a way to reconcile the two, or do we have to choose one at the exclusion of the other?

There is a way, but it requires a shift in thinking for many Christians who have held to a literalist reading of Genesis 1. The shift takes place in our understanding of God’s revelation. Bible-believing Christians hold to the conviction that our Bible, in its entirety, is the inspired word of God. The books of the Bible were recorded at different times by different authors. Each reflects both the divine insight God gave these human authors, but also their individual voices and perspectives. This is evidenced by the unique grammar, turn of phrase, literary style and dramatic flair of each book. God chose to record his word not directly, but through human vessels who best represented the people to whom God had called them to speak.

Needless to say, this approach to revelation creates some dilemmas. For instance, even though the Bible has a timeless message, each of its constituent books was initially recorded for a specific audience. As such, we are reading over the shoulders of the original audiences of each of the books. So, for example, when we read in Paul’s first letter to Timothy, “Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine…”, we understand that this part of the letter is specifically for Timothy the recipient, even though the book itself is a letter intended for the edification of the entire church.

This brings us back to Genesis 1. I believe that the format of the Creation account itself serves an important literary function. It is widely believed that the written version of the Creation account is a final recording of an oral account that was passed down through many generations of the Hebrew people. The repetitive and rhythmic nature of the account speaks to this: when uttered out loud in Hebrew, the account is very aesthetically pleasing, as though it was meant to be spoken, not read; it is also fairly simple to memorize and pass on because of this format. As for the strong perceived discrepancy between the Genesis account and the account of creation defended by today’s natural scientists (many of whom are Bible-believing Christians), I offer the following thoughts:

• We must bear in mind that God inspired this creation account to be told and retold by an ancient people – people who were no less sophisticated than us, but whose understanding of the minute inner-workings of Creation were very rudimentary. God offered them an explanation in terms they could understand. The forebears of the Hebrew people didn’t have the basic informational building blocks to assimilate the composition of matter and energy, sub-atomic or molecular structures, or genetic code. The version of the Creation story they received was one that incorporated their worldview.
• That being said, this is an account of the beginning that also had the potential to be told and retold in countless cultures through countless ages, with enough left out for certain gaps to be filled in as our knowledge of God’s Creation grew. It is my assumption that in another two centuries there are details about the history and workings of Creation that would render a 21^st century variation of the Creation account scientifically outdated, or even obsolete.
• Every human culture throughout history has produced theories about the origin of the universe that either eliminates the divine or introduces false deities. Genesis stands an ageless polemic against atheism on one hand, pantheism and panantheism on the other. The universe did not create itself; it did not take shape by chance; it is not the byproduct of struggle between divine entities; nor is it comprised of divine forces. All of heaven and earth is the handiwork of one Almighty God, who with forethought and love called it into being. This we hold to without doubt.

What faith-directed study of our Creation brings to bear are the possible mechanisms by which God created. As we study nuclear physics and molecular biology we can ask, “Are these the building blocks God himself designed as the basic components of all we know?” As we examine theories on evolution, can we contemplate, “Did God design animals and plants to adapt to new and changing environments?” or perhaps the bigger question, “Did God design a world that is itself always changing and growing? Was God’s creative work limited to the period described in Genesis, or is God’s creativity displayed in a world where new living, geological, and intellectual forms continually come to expression?”

There is little likelihood that all of Christendom will ever fully agree on how to reconcile the testimonies of our Scriptures and the Creation regarding what happened in the beginning. However, we are unified by the fundamental conviction that everything in our universe is the handiwork of the God self-revealed in the Bible. Our responsibility as we read Genesis, and every other book of the Bible, is therefore to approach it with this question: What does this passage reveal about God?