Stephen
Terry, Director
Creation: Genesis as Foundation--Part 1
Commentary
for the May 23, 2020 Sabbath School Lesson
In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1, NIV
In
the 17th century, James Ussher, Archbishop of Armaagh,
in what is now known as Northern Ireland, calculated that creation began at
sunset on Saturday night, October 22, 4004 BC. He recorded this calculation in
his book Annales Veteris Testamenti.
How could he be so sure of the date? He felt that by calculating based on the
genealogy from Adam to Solomon and tacking on the years of the reigns of the
early and late kings of Israel, he could come up with a year of creation for
the earth of 4000 BC. However, because there was an error of four years in the
numbering of the years under the BC/AD year numbering system developed by Dionysius
Exiguus, Ussher adjusted the date to 4004 BC. Since
the Jewish calendar begins in the fall each year, Ussher chose the Saturday
nearest the Autumnal Equinox.
Since
Archbishop Ussher's contribution to the Christian understanding of creation,
many Christians have chosen to commit themselves to his ideas about the age of
the Earth. While some of those Christians may challenge his accuracy, they
nonetheless remain steadfast that the age of the Earth is to be measured in a
few thousand years and no more. Among Christians, these individuals are known
as Young Earth Creationists (YECs). Among non-Christians, they are known by
several other names, none of them flattering.
The
controversy over the age of the Earth is often made out to be a conflict over
Creationism versus Evolution. However, the YECs run into some serious
difficulties even without considering the Evolutionary debate. For instance,
the cities of Damascus and Jericho have been determined to have had inhabitants
as far back as 9000 BC. This is not based on any Evolutionary calculations but
simply the commonly recognized and accepted dating methods for archeological
discoveries. Christians themselves also use these dating methods for many other
ancient sites, not just these two cities.
So
how could Ussher have been so wrong? Simply this: the genealogical record in
the Bible is not complete. You see, with all due apologies to James Ussher, the
Bible never claimed to be a source for determining the age of the Earth. Even
the Genesis record does not make a claim for YEC chronology. Bible students
infer such a claim from the fact that the genealogy is there. However, it was never
intended to date the Earth but rather to establish the lineage for the Messiah.
This is demonstrated by the fact that after Christ, the Bible no longer tracks
genealogy. Once the Messiah was incarnate and then resurrected, the spiritual
importance of genealogies passed away just as the
sacrificial system did.
Perhaps
because of this, the Bible does not say "Six thousand years ago, God created
the heavens and the earth." The chronology is not important. The point of
origin is. The Bible's point is that no matter where you place it, the
beginning originates with God. Everyone, whether evolutionist, creationist, or
geologist, agrees on one main point, that everything had a beginning. The Bible
simply says that given that understanding, consider the source of that
beginning.
Whether
nomadic, desert tribesmen of the late second millennium BC, or scientists of
the present day, everyone can look around them and see that nothing ever
produces anything greater than itself. Rather from the greater comes the lesser
because matter is converted to energy to fuel the creation process. Energy is
always lost in that process. To put it in simple terms, one cannot make refried
beans without heating the pan. Once the energy has been consumed in making the refritos, it cannot all be recovered. This principle
is why perpetual motion machines, those that can function indefinitely without
eventually depleting their energy source, have never been created.
No
matter how you calculate the ratios of mass and energy in the universe, let
alone our little planet Earth, eventually you come face to face with the
ultimate question: where did the energy come from? Those desert nomads asked
the same question only in a different manner. They asked where did the objects
or matter in the world come from? Simply stated mass at rest is nothing more
than potential energy. Therefore, they were in a way asking, "Where does the
energy come from?" as well. Their explanation was an all-powerful,
inexhaustible source of energy. They ascribed sentience to that source and
named it God.
Ultimately,
we all are faced with the same question. Some may choose to ignore it, but the
physics do not change simply because we bury our heads in the sand. The
question that will not go away is, "Where did all the energy around us come
from?" When we confront that issue, we are brought to the ground of all being.
Life cannot exist without energy. Perhaps this is why
the ancient Hebrews wrote God's name as a form of the verb "to be." Whether
consciously or not, they recognized the importance of an underived energy
source for life. Modern science still struggles with the idea. The universe,
which was once thought to be infinite and therefore a possible source for
unlimited energy, was found instead to be finite and perhaps only appeared
infinite because it curved back on itself. At any rate, the universe also
appears to need an outside underived energy source to explain its existence.
Why
is all this important? Perhaps because almost two thousand years ago, John the
Apostle wrote in his book, The Revelation, that the issue of a Creator God
would be a defining identification of who were and who were not to be spared in
the Apocalypse. He wrote of a call to be given by three messengers (Greek: aggelloi) prior to final events. The first of these called
people to worship God as Creator of "the heavens, the earth, the sea and the
springs of water." Revelation 14:7, NIV
This
call to worship God as Creator carries with it the implication that mankind was
not doing so, thus necessitating the call. We get a hint of mankind's
propensity throughout the Old Testament where mankind had continually
substituted the worship of the Underived Energy that had no physical form or
mass with the worship of the inanimate, preferring the potential energy of mass
to the Underived Energy of the Creator. Perhaps this was innate in man's
nature. Eventually even God took corporeal form in Jesus to accomplish what
could not be accomplished otherwise.
Even
such a step on the part of God was not completely understood or accepted. Jesus
claimed He was a union of humanity and divinity. His humanity brought Him close
so men could relate to Him, could communicate with Him. Yet, His divinity
presented men with an unsearchable depth that many stumbled over. (See Isaiah
8:14)
He
was an enigma. Men had chosen the inanimate in their search for understanding
for so long that they could not well understand the language of divinity that
spoke to their being. Their hearts were drawn by the commonality of being, but
they had grown so accustomed to ignoring that spark of life within them. That
energized spark seeks to return to its Source, but they could hardly understand
the presence of that Source on the dusty streets of a Galilean village. After
such a very long time, the memories of its presence
had faded and hardly informed their minds at all anymore.
This
was not a new problem. God had called them to return to that understanding of
the energy Wellspring of all life before. In Moses' book, Exodus, we find that
call. "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." Exodus 20:8-11, NIV
The
key word here is "remember." The Sabbath has become a ritual without meaning
for many. For some it is a burdensome requirement that is best escaped from
through machinations of strained theologies about grace and the law. But Jesus
made a very provocative statement about the Sabbath. He said
"The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Mark 2:27, NIV
Why?
Why was the Sabbath made for man? Many say it was to provide rest as a memorial
of grace. However, there must be more to the Sabbath than merely enforcing
rest. Perhaps the reason the Sabbath was made for man was not to give him a
holiday but to enable him to "remember." God understood that man was forgetful
and would forget the source of his being. The Sabbath would provide him time
and opportunity to remember that relationship. Perhaps we would do well to
remember.
If
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