In
the Beginning
By Stephen
Terry
Sabbath
School Lesson Commentary for January 7 – 13, 2012
“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
genealogic 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 of 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.
This Commentary is a Service of Still
Waters Ministry
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