The Bible and History
By
Stephen Terry
Sabbath
School Lesson Commentary for February 25 – March 2, 2012
“I
am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
Revelation 22:13, NIV
Whether we take the books attributed to Moses as having been
written during the second millennium B.C., or we argue a much later date and
other unknown authors for their writing, we find a commonality regarding
origins apart from the dating of the text. That commonality is the uniqueness
of the statement, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis
1:1, NIV Young Earth Creationists (YEC)
maintain that statement is a fixed point in time found approximately six
thousand years ago. The text does not say that though. It tells us that no
matter where you place it, the beginning is an act of creation. Its origin is
divine. The exact time of that event was irrelevant. It was so irrelevant that
the author did not consider it an issue worth dealing with. If Moses had
written the narrative, he could easily have stated, “2,500 years ago, God
created the heavens and the earth.” If a later writer had written it, he could
have made a similar statement. It is telling that no one did.
In reading the Bible, it often appears that God is
purposely vague in His revelation regarding issues that He does not want us to
make non-negotiable. But on those issues of great import, He is very clear.
Some, like Archbishop Ussher of Armagh in the mid-17th century, have
maintained that we can use the genealogical records and the kings’ chronologies
from the Old Testament to determine accurately the age of the earth. The
problem is that the records conflict and have gaps, so this is not the simple and
exact exercise that it at first appears to be. This might certainly be one of
those areas of haziness that reflects a lack of salvific import. Yet, the
Genesis 1:1 statement makes very clear the position on origins, no matter where
we place that beginning.
In fact, the Bible not only does that for the beginning.
It does it for the ending of history as well. As in our text from Revelation
22:13 above, the same history that begins with God in Genesis also ends with
God in Revelation. So what is the exact date of the ending? The Bible responds
to that question with, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels
in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Matthew 24:36, NIV It seems that God purposely kept that date
obscure. Would it be too much of a stretch to think that He did the same with
the date of the beginning? Jesus pointed out that we have a gift for making
salvific our own understandings of Biblical truth rather than limiting
ourselves to what the Bible explicitly says. He said, quoting from Isaiah
29:13, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from
me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.” Matthew
15:8-9, NIV Is the teaching of YEC
adding human based clarity to God purposed murkiness? Did God intend to focus
on Himself as Creator as opposed to the age of the Earth? Was Ussher divinely
inspired in his calculations or simply wandering down an unenlightened rabbit
trail?
Laying aside this issue does not resolve all conflicts.
Some also have issues even with this simple statement of God being the
derivative source and the final end of human history. They like to argue that
time, like the face of a clock, is circular, constantly returning to midnight
and resuming the cycle infinitely. While this bears some resemblance to the
teachings of Buddhism regarding the cycles of reincarnation, Buddhist belief has
an ultimate goal of Nirvana. The parallel is more in line with the concept of
the cyclical understanding of history by some historians, who maintain that all
history repeats, and those who fail to learn from it the first time will
continue to be victimized by the cycles as they repeat. The problem with the
viewpoint of time itself as circular is that we live in a linear relation to
time. While we may be able to transcend that linearity through extra-dimensional
mathematics, we cannot escape its linearity in everyday life. Some might argue
that time itself is an artificial construct imposed by man upon himself, but
one might also ask “To what end?” The end would appear to be because man must
establish truth base upon his perspective and man’s perspective is singularly
linear, whether he is dealing with an upcoming doctor’s appointment or simply
walking to the corner pub.
Once we can accept man’s daily perspective of time as
linear, then we can ask ourselves the question, “How does God interact with
that linearity that runs between the Alpha and Omega of
current history?” There appear to be only two alternatives for God. He
may be either interventionist regarding human history or non-interventionist. Both
are problematic.
If God is non-interventionist, and the Bible clearly
indicates that everything originates with Him per Genesis 1:1, then Deism is
the natural understanding of God and His involvement with creation. He set the
ball rolling, but after he put everything in order and established the rules of
operation, He stepped back and let it go, guided by those morally indifferent yet
deterministic guides. God could even be seen as the ultimate Determinist who
has set up the original controls that might have the appearance of freewill but
in more Calvinistic understanding would assure only one ultimate outcome to history.
Because of the utopian goal of many sects of Christianity, this understanding
has considerable appeal. But it creates a paradox, for if God is truly
non-interventionist, He could not be Determinist as that is certainly an
ultimate intervention. Instead Determinism would require an interventionist God,
even if that intervention was planted in history like the seed in the ground.
Even though the sower was no longer around, the seed would continue to grow and
yield fruit as long as provision had been made for it to do so. Therefore, even
in the act of creation, we see God the Interventionist having a causal relationship
throughout history, culminating in an omega act of intervention.
Since an acknowledgment of God as Creator establishes
Him as interventionist, the only question remaining is to what extent that
intervention manifests itself actively on a day-to-day basis. Certainly we can
accept that the act of creation with its foundational rules of existence acts
to some degree in the general sustaining and perpetuating of what has been
created. Failure to acknowledge this would be tantamount to declaring that our
world was created only to be cast aside without any intent for continued existence.
That we can see sustaining order and means for perpetuation argues against that.
Even the Bible recognizes the presence of these things. In Genesis we read, “So
God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male
and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and
increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea
and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the
ground.” Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the
whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours
for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and
all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of
life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.” Genesis 1:27-30,
NIV
The Bible makes an ample case for an understanding that
goes beyond a primal Deistic shove. Repeatedly there are examples of
intervention. We can read of the Noahic flood, the Tower of Babel, and the
exodus from Egypt. While these accounts are limited to the Pentateuch, they are
not singular. We have the Major Prophets proclaiming an interventionist God. We
also have the examples from the book of Daniel that argue for a God that intervenes
in lion’s dens and brick kilns. To some extent we can see the same interventionism
in modern Christianity. Many modern Christians continue to believe in a greater
controversy between good and evil that is guided by a God who operates as a
cosmic general strategically moving His human and angelic pawns in battle
formations across a galactic battlefield in counterpoint to the conscious efforts
of evil to prevail.
In these understandings, there are also further
questions regarding the understanding of the interactions between human and
divine will. For instance, how much does divine intervention negate human free
will? Does a divine veto mean that human will is not free? How much
predetermination is involved in salvation? Would different divine actions
result in different individuals being saved? If so, then while we may make the
choice to accept Jesus as our personal Savior, how much was that determined by
our free will and how much by what God set in motion to obtain that result.
While we may find ourselves uncomfortable with these questions, don’t we all
pray that God will somehow bring about the salvation of our loved ones? Isn’t
that a request for divine intervention without regard to the will of the
individual? At what point is the line between Calvinistic determination and
Arminian free will crossed? That is a point that continues to be debated and
has for centuries. Maybe we once again have wandered into an area that God has
purposely left hazy as not being salvific.
This Commentary is a Service of Still
Waters Ministry
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