“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
(John 1:1-3)
Years ago I took a course at the Canadian Mennonite University called “Evolution, Creation, and the Bible.” How disappointed I was to learn that both of our professors were theistic evolutionists. They believed that God created the world by merely setting the evolutionary process in motion and then sat back and watched it unfold. According to them, Genesis chapters 1-11 was “fiction.” These men, secularized in their thought, also denied the doctrine of the physical resurrection of the believer. Today’s passage reminds us that the pre-incarnate Christ was the actual Agent of creation; God made the world through Him (Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 1:1-3). It makes good sense, therefore, to look to Him as the source of information regarding origins and early earth history rather than fallen, unbelieving men. Moses wrote Genesis as straightforward, historical narrative. Intending His word to be understood, God commanded that it be written “very plainly” (Deuteronomy 27:8). We can understand why a secularized person with an antisupernaturalistic bias would find the Genesis record hard to believe. Taken straightforwardly, the record claims that God created the entire universe in a week. Furthermore, the text documents how God created suddenly, supernaturally, and instantaneously everything from stars and planets to plants, animals and people. The natural man scoffs at this, insisting that the emergence of these things required millions of years of slow process. Christ the Creator is also Christ the Corrector of such errant thinking! In the days of His earthly ministry the Lord performed many creation miracles that gave things the appearance of a history they didn’t have. The One Who changed water into wine could have certainly created plants instantaneously on Day Three (John 2; Genesis 1:11-13). He Who commanded the water to hold Him up could have easily commanded water to form an ocean above the sky (John 6:16-21; Genesis 1:6-8). The Lord Who multiplied fish for thousands of hungry people would have had no problem filling the oceans with these creatures on Day Five of Creation Week (John 6:1-13; Genesis 1:20-23). The Son of God who gave a cripple the power to walk (John 5), the blind to see (John 9), and the dead restoration to life (John 11), could certainly have created original man from the dust of the earth (Genesis 1:26-27; 2:7). “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me,” said Jesus, “for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” (John 5:46-47). May this be our encouragement to believe all that the prophets have spoken (Luke 24:45), and this to our patience, comfort, and hope (Romans 15:4).
God bless, dear saints,
pastor john
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