God’s Creation 12/6/42
Scripture: Genesis 1: 1-27a
Text: Genesis 1: 4,10,12,18,21,25,31; “And God saw that it was good.”
While listening last October to an address delivered by Dr. George M. Gibson of Chicago at our last State Conference, held in October at Mineral Point, an idea came to me for a series of three sermons of which the one this morning is first. This morning, I will discuss “God’s Creation.” Next Sunday, I shall speak on “Man’s Corruption.” And the following Sunday (the Sunday before Christmas) I shall preach on “God’s Redemption.”
I have just re-read in your hearing the first 27 verses of the Bible - the opening verses of the Book of Genesis. These, and the other portions of that book, are well worth reading, and re-reading, are worth study and meditation. For eternal truths have been caught and partially revealed through these words. As one watches patiently in his studying, the truths begin to come out like a photographic print in a developer solution.
There have been stages in the lives of many people, when Genesis became hard reading; when it has been thrown aside in impatience. After all, what meaning does this “childish” story of the creation of our earth in six days have after one has read the careful, scientifically gathered evidence that the earth as we now know it was millions of years in developing?
Well, lest some of us be tormented by that difficulty, let me say first (with the most careful and reliable scholars who have given their lives to this study of the Old Testament) that the Book of Genesis is not a textbook on modern science, nor is its opening chapter an historical document. If anyone is looking for accurate information regarding the age of the earth, the process of its creation, the time elapsed during its development, its relation to sun, moon and stars and other kindred matters of information, he had better turn to recent text books on geology, astronomy and kindred subjects. No serious student of these matters should be referred to the Bible as a source of the information for which he seeks. It is not the purpose of the writers and translators of the Scripture to impart scientific knowledge. The book of Genesis is not the place to look for a factual history of the development of mankind or of the earth which he inhabits.
But, when anyone wishes to know what connection this world has with God, when he seeks to discover some unifying principle, some purpose in the history of this earth, then we can safely refer him to the Scripture, beginning with Genesis, as the guide to what he seeks. Indeed one must not ignore the book of Genesis.
A writing must be judged by what the writer has in view. What is the author’s purpose? The writer and translators of the book of Genesis evidently intended to give the reader an intelligible interpretation of the relation of God to the world and to man. In the light of this object, they were successful in high degree.
It is only in relatively recent times that the mind of man has been greatly concerned with scientific knowledge. The Scriptures are not addressed to that mind at all. They are addressed to the mind that inquires about the purpose of its being.
Now I do not believe in trying to explain away a lot of the statements in the Bible, or in trying to show that they harmonize with modern science. For instance, people for whom I have high personal regard, take the position that when a “day” is mentioned in Genesis, it really means a certain period of years. The “second day” is another geological age, and so on. I think that such attempts merely get us into trouble of our own making.
It seems to me that the book of Genesis ought to be read just as it is, for what it is. There is a good deal of the Bible that should be read not as one reads science; not as one reads history; but as one would read poetry.
One can learn a great deal of truth from a scientific text
book. He can add immeasurably to his
store of knowledge, and to the tools of his judgment, by studying history. But there is a great deal of truth revealed
in poetry, too - glimpses and insights that could never be discovered in cold
logic. The writer of the splendid line
“Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul” is not suggesting a hammer nails
and trowel in the hands of a ghost. You
and I know that the aspiration of that line has nothing to do with mansions or
castles except as figures of speech.
Even if the creation story were a myth, it would still be true.
Can any great truth about life be put in words which will define it with exactness? One of the greatest truths ever taught to man is to be found in our Lord’s teaching of the Fatherhood of God. And yet to say that God is like one’s father is a woefully inadequate, inaccurate, sometimes terrible thing to say. Here and there we can think of some unfortunate lass who could rightly say, “Well, if God is like my father, I don’t want anything to do with Him, and I don’t want Him to have anything to do with me.” Consider the children who are beaten by a drunkard father; what of the children whose father has simply deserted his family? Will they surely get the glow that lives in the opening words of the Lord’s prayer? Even so, it is a mighty truth, despite the difficulties and risks of putting it into words.
What are the truths that are taught us in these opening verses of our Bible? (1) One is this: there has been a creation. Things now existing have not just sprung into being of themselves. Not even Nature can pull herself up by her own bootstraps. “We have been called into being by a presiding intelligence and an originating will.” [Marcus Dodds] This is the only attempt to account for the existence of the world that has been satisfactory or successful.
There is majestic truth in the first four words of the Bible: “In the beginning, God.” Not just in the beginning of time, but in the beginning of cause. “In the beginning, God created.” To say that the world came into being through a “curious concatenation of circumstances” is to mouth a lot of words and come out where one began and to get nowhere. There is purpose and direction to it, and a will back of it. It is a creation! I believe that our world is a Creation; that the Creator used law, order and the evolutionary processes to develop the creation - and still uses them.
2) A second truth taught in these verses from Genesis is that man is a chief work of God, for whose sake all else was brought into being. The work of creation did not reach its climax until man appeared.
Do you know that we are locked in deadly struggle with those who don’t believe that? (As a matter of fact, some of our allies have said they don’t believe it either.) But a powerful force has arisen which attempts to build a new order on the theory that man just is; that some men are superior and as a race ought to rule. It is “manifest destiny.” Others must be the slaves of those who rule. That is their destiny. And the mighty arm of man maintains what man has decreed is right.
It isn’t so! Through ages of men and women who have come to, and gone from the earth, the Presiding Purpose of the universe has shown man to be a creature of God, made in the image of something holy! And that creation is good. That is a third truth that shines from the first pages of Genesis.
3) God saw that the light and the land and the waters he had created were good. God saw that the plant life he had created was good. God saw that the sun, moon, and stars were good. God saw that the animal life of the sea, the land and the air were good. Then God brought man into the creation, blessed him with dominion and power over its life and fruitage, and God looked upon “everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. Seven times in one chapter, it is repeated. A good God created a good earth.
Now not all is well with this earth, and the people in it. And I propose to discuss that a bit next Sunday. But it seems to me that the beginning of everything that puts worth into your life and mine, the basis of hope and beauty and love and faith and encouragement is in recognition that (1) God, created the earth and all that is therein; (2) that he made man a crowning act of his creation with divine possibilities; (3) and that the creation is good.
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dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, December 6, 1942
W.F.H.R., Wisconsin Rapids, February 4, 1943