We, Christians, take the Bible too much as a matter of course. We ought to cultivate the faculty of wonder, and would surely do so if we thought a little more deeply.
Take Genesis chapter 1, its story of creation and reconstruction, and compare it with the ancient writings bearing on the same subject. The heathen accounts are puerile and childish, a mixture of fact and fancy, very little fact and nearly all fancy, and they carry no weight.
Genesis 1 is dignified, and as true science comes to light little by little, found to be in exact agreement with its findings.
Think of Moses with his style engraving with infinite patience on tablets of clay, the books which bear his name. Somewhere on the sun-scorched deserts of Sinai he must have performed his task.
Was Moses inspired, or was he not? There can be no question as to the answer. The communications of Genesis 1 are so remarkable that they are clearly beyond the knowledge of any mortal man. They must have been communicated by God alone. Only the Creator could communicate the facts there laid out. Of course when creation took place there could be no witness to give evidence. God in His transcendental supremacy brought out of nothing all the wonderful creation we see around us.
The late Professor Huxley, who was an agnostic, and no friend of the Bible said that five things were necessary in connection with creation:(1) Time, (2) Space, (3) Matter, (4) Force, (5) Motion.
The Bible furnishes us with all five.
(1) Time—“In the beginning.”
(2) Space—Expanse.
(3) Mattter—Earth.
(4) Force—God.
(5) Motion—“The Spirit of God moved.”
We have nothing approaching is in the ancient writings of the world. How was it that Moses made no mistake? He was inspired. God held the style that Moses wielded.
Genesis 1 refutes Unitarianism
Unitarianism fifty years ago was confined to Unitarian Chapels. Christians would pass these buildings with a shudder. Unitarians believe in one God and refuse to believe in Father, Son and Holy Spirit—One God. They affirm that the Lord Jesus was only a Man—a good Man, who is our Example, but not our Saviour. They affirm that He died a martyr’s deaths but deny that it was sacrificial. They deny the very foundations of the Christian Faith. Today Unitarian belief has permeated nearly all sections of Christendom Therefore the testimony against these beliefs, or rather disbeliefs, needs to be explicit and insistent.
We may ask why did Moses put the name of God, in Genesis 1, and throughout the chapter, in the plural? We may not all know that there are three numbers in the Hebrew language, singular, dual and plural. Plural must be at least three. In the light of the whole of Scripture is not the Trinity enshrined in Genesis 1, in the Word of God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit, yet one God. Is this not remarkable? How came it that Moses put the word God in the plural? He was clearly inspired.
And further, the verb following the word God is in the singular, thus showing that even if the word God is in the plural, yet there is only one God. We, Christians, believe in one God, not three Gods. We believe in God—Father, Son and Spirit—one God, the triune God. Triune meaning a trinity in unity.
So we see how Unitarianism is refuted in the very first verse of the Bible, for there can be no other meaning than that of the Trinity put into this verse, and the thought is gradually unfolded in the Scriptures.
Genesis 1 refutes Pantheism
The writer has lately been in India and heard it argued for the eternity of matter, that matter is simply an extension of God, that God is in each flaming bush, in mankind, in animals, in trees, in streams, in fact in everything. Pantheism is the doctrine that God and the universe are identical.
But clearly Genesis 1 refutes Pantheism. We read, “In the beginning God created.” If God created He existed before He created. The carpenter must exist before he can make a table. God is transcendental, that is, He exists before and outside the universe, which is the result of Divine mental conception, so that through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that “things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Heb. 11:3). The writer of Hebrews 11:3 is in accord with the writer of Genesis 1:1.
Pantheism in its essence denies the fall. Romans 8:20 tells us, “the creature was made subject to vanity” (v. 20) and that “the whole creation groans and travails in pain together till now” (v. 22). Now if God and the creation are identical how could these words be penned describing the results of the fall of man? Impossible!
Nay further because men do not see that God’s “eternal power and Godhead” (Rom. 1:20) are manifested in creation they turn to worshipping an image made like to corruptible man, to birds, four-footed beasts and creeping things. And this surely leads to vile affections, the abuse of what is of God. Is this not seen in lands where pantheism reigns? Have we not seen with our eyes the degradation of heathenism. The ibis (a bird), a bull (a four-footed creature) the image of Buddha, of Ram, or some other images made like to corruptible man are seen on every hand in heathen lands, and is there not gross immorality practised, not as condemned by their religion, but enforced by it? How true to life is Romans 1.
Genesis 1 refutes Evolution
Time is refuting the unproved theory of Evolution and forcing scientific assertions into correspondence with Genesis 1. When travelling to India recently a series of talks on different religions was organized on the upper deck in the evenings. When Christianity was presented by a missionary I was specially invited to attend. This missionary talked only of love and the Sermon on the Mount, and said not a word about sin in its real character, the cross, the atoning sacrifice, but followed to some extent the modernistic trend that has degraded Christianity to a Unitarian level of following Christ as an example and refusing Him as Saviour. We took occasion to bring forward those vital truths of Christianity that centre round Christ as God and Man who atoned for sin on the cross.
Among other things this missionary spoke of evolution complacently as if it were an assumed fact proved beyond contradiction. I told the motley audience made up of Europeans and Indians, professed Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Mohammedans and Parsees, that scientists in the very first rank frankly admitted that evolution was a theory that had not been remotely proved, that evolution, as we understand the term, is a theory, a figment of fancy, something they would dearly like to prove, for if proved it would deny the fall and make the atonement unnecessary.
Now in Genesis 1 you can count seven times where the expression, “after his kind,” occurs (vv. 11, 12, 21, 24, 25), and twice, “after their kind” (vv. 21 and 25); that is nine times in all. Now that puts an impossible gulf between the species. For evolution to be true that gulf must be removed. But that gulf remains and has never been bridged yet, and never will. Never in nature or in fossil remains is there the slightest indication of one species rising to a higher species, and that is absolutely necessary if evolution is to be true. But nine times over Moses gives the lie to evolution in Genesis 1.
Paul supports Genesis 1 when he wrote, “All flesh is not the same flesh; but there is one kind of flesh of men, another of beasts, another of fishes and another of birds” (1 Cor. 15:39) There is no transition from the lower order to the higher any more than there can be transition from the inorganic to the organic.
There is a striking table of the proportion of brain to spinal cord:
In fish — 2 to l.
In reptile — 2½ to 1.
In bird — 3 to 1.
In mammals — 4 to 1.
In man — 33 to 1.
Note the easy gradation from fish to reptile, from reptile to bird, from bird to mammal, including the ape. But please note the extraordinary jump, the unmistakable saltation, from mammal to man. The jump from 4 to l to 33 to 1 is more than eight times multiplied increase, as if God would emphasise the great gulf fixed between man with his brain power, conscience, intuitive knowledge of God, moral qualities, which stand in sharp contrast to the lower creation. Genesis 1 refutes evolution.
We may well ask, How is it that Moses was able to write in advance a chapter that refutes so ably these operations of the human mind, these terrible deceits of Satan, that are damning the souls of multitudes? We can only say he was inspired, and if God held the style in His power that Moses wielded, we know every word in that chapter is unassailable truth.
“THE WORD OF GOD SHALL STAND FOR EVER” (Isa. 40:8).