While I was away, a question was asked during one of our 1Stone Noonday events.  The question had to do with murder, killing, war, etc.  In essence, it seems that the question had to do with why killing/war seemed to be okay in the Old Testament but bad in the New Testament.  Actually, the question seemed to be asked from the perspective of assuming that killing and war are always fundamentally wrong.  I’m not really sure how the question was answered at the time, but let me reflect on it a bit here.  Enjoy!

     God is consistent when it comes to punishing sin.  He uses various means, but the wages of sin has always been death (Gen. 2:17, Rom. 6:23).  Sometimes those means are what we might consider supernatural, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 20:23-29), Egypt (Ex. 7-12), or Herod (Acts 12:20-23).  But at many other times, God uses human agents to carry out His punishment of sin.  Examples of this abound in the Bible, including the entire book of Judges, scripture recounting the downfall and exile of the Israelites, and the execution of the two thieves who were crucified on either side of Jesus.  In each of these cases, God used human agents to mete out the punishment that the sins of other humans deserved (Lk. 23:41).  Of course, the ultimate example of this is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  In this case, God punished the only truly innocent person for the sin of humanity.  And God used human agents (e.g. Roman soldiers, Jewish leaders, etc.) to carry out that punishment.

     When people object to the conquest of the promised land, they usually do so without seriously reflecting on the entire Biblical narrative.  First, they fail to see that most of the suffering and death recorded in the Bible is against the people of God.  When various enemies attacked and oppressed the twelve tribes during the Judges period, when the Assyrians wiped out the northern kingdom, and when the Babylonians conquered Judea, they did so as agents of God’s wrath (Jer. 25:9).  I’ve never heard a skeptic complain about this fact, but the reality is that God brought about the death of more Israelites than perhaps any other ethnic group in the Old Testament.  Does this make God anti-Semitic?  Of course not.  But it does make clear that God takes sin very seriously and is committed to obliterating it. 

     Thus the conquest of Canaan must be understood as a case of God using the Israelites as his agents to carry out the punishment of the sin of the Canaanite people.  This is exactly what the Scripture teaches.  Note that in the Abrahamic covenant, God promises that Abraham’s descendents will inherit the land of Canaan.  But God also says that they cannot inherit the land right away.  They would have to wait for many years (over 400) for “the iniquity of the Amorites” was not yet “complete” (Gen. 15:16).  That is, God made his chosen people wait hundreds of years (even in great suffering and exploitation), before finally punishing the inhabitants of Canaan (generally referred to as Amorites).  To put it another way, the Canaanites had more than 400 years to repent from the time Abraham was living among them as a witness to the day Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan river.

     Some people, of course, have a problem with God commanding the Israelites to conquer cities and regions, killing the inhabitants.  But the only real difference between this and the Babylonian conquest of Judea is that the Israelites knew they were God’s instruments of punishment.  And knowing this was simply a product of their covenant relationship with God -- the very relationship that the Canaanites had consistently rejected since the days of Abraham.  To be sure, there were some Canaanites who repented of their sin.  These were spared (e.g. Jos. 6:25). 

     Others may object to the fact that children were included among those who were killed during the conquest of Canaan.  But this simply reflects the more collectivist worldview of the Bible versus a more Western, individualistic worldview.  There are cases in the Bible when children were to be punished along with adults if the punishment was against an entire family or society.  This could happen just as easily to the Israelites as to non-Israelites (e.g. Josh. 8:22-26).

     It is important to state outright that these Biblical events should not be seen as a justification for genocide or for “holy war.”  There is no standing command in the Bible that instructs the people of God to wage war against the unfaithful.  The standing commands we have are to love our neighbor and to proclaim the way of salvation to all peoples and nations.  At the same time, Jesus doesn’t represent a philosophical break with the God of the Old Testament.  While it is tempting for us to view Jesus as a ultra-pacifist hippie that wants to “make love, not war," we must remember that Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament.  He specifically said that he came not to bring peace but a sword (Mat. 10:34), he was more commonly mistaken to be a radical revolutionary that would overthrow the Romans than an ascetic hermit that wanted everyone to just get along, and he was not above using violence to get his point across (Jn. 2:15).  Jesus Christ hated sin and came into the world to destroy it.

     Finally, let’s keep in mind that there is a difference between murder and killing.  This is most clearly seen in Genesis 6 when we see that anyone who sheds the blood of another human will have his blood shed by a human.  Surely this doesn’t mean that then the executioner will have to be executed and on and on until the human race is wiped out.  No, in the law of Moses, regulations are established for the punishment of sin which include the death penalty.  Jesus didn’t forbid the death penalty during his earthly ministry, but rather submitted willingly to it.  Moreover, the apostolic witness indicates that governing officials should continue to “bear the sword” as instruments of God’s wrath against sin (Rom. 13:4).

     The truth is, as human beings, we delight in the punishment and eradication of evil.  I just watched the movie Valkyrie last week which is the story of a failed attempt to assassinate Adolph Hitler.  Now, I would venture to say that nearly everyone in that theater was cheering for the people who were trying to assassinate Hitler.  Why? Because we hate evil.  There is something in us (perhaps the image of God) that cries out to God for sin to be eliminated.  We hate injustice, oppression, deceit, greed, abuse, etc.  Even now, if a pedophile or a terrorist is punished, we are glad.  So why do we cringe when God punishes sin in the Bible?  In particular, when God uses the Israelites as his agents to punish the Canaanites, why do we feel upset?  My guess is that we have tended to misunderstand sin.  In particular, our culture has taught us that certain sins such as sexual immorality, murder, and racism are especially heinous while others aren’t particularly bad.  But the first and greatest command is to love God.  So it would follow that the first and greatest sin is to not love God.  Now if that is true, we understand that the person who rejects God is engaging in sin that is more severe than the Holocaust or 9/11. 

     Well, I’m going to stop now.  Need to move on to other things.  Think this over, I look forward to your feedback.

     The last two points of the doctrine of creation are as follows:

3.  God directly created human beings in his own image and thus radically different from the rest of creation (cf. Gen. 1:26-27, 5:1, 9:6; Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 11:7, 15:49; Eph. 4:24; Jam. 3:9).

4. God created Adam and Eve as the first humans.  They are the real ancestors of the entire human race (Gen. 2:7-8, 21-25, 3:20; Rom. 5:12-21).

     It is here, I think, that Biblical theology comes most in conflict with macro-evolutionary ideas.  There is such a concept as “Theistic Evolution” which essentially claims that there is no necessary contradiction between Biblical theology and Darwinian-type evolution.  And, I suppose that if Darwinism is communicated in a way that doesn’t assume atheism or deism (that is, that it doesn’t contradict either of the first two points of the doctrine of Creation), then, up to that point, theistic evolutionists are correct.  One may hold to the principles of macroevolution and still believe that God not only started the process of creation but has remained involved in it throughout history.  However, points 3 and 4 are just much more difficult to reconcile with a Darwinian worldview.

     First, to be faithful to Scripture, one must believe that a radical distinction exists between humans and other forms of biological life.  There is the imago dei (the image of God) concept to contend with in the Bible.  I find it difficult to conceive of a view of humanity that preserves both the belief that humans alone are made in the image of God and that they the biological descendants of other species of primates.  Things get trickier when we move fully into point 4.  According to Scripture, Adam and Eve were made directly by God in his image.  It was an event – this creation, this bestowing of life, this depositing of the imago dei.  If you are an adherent to theistic evolutionary views, I would really like to hear your theologizing on this issue.  If humans are the product of a slow and gradual process of transmutation, when does the image of God come into play?  At what point is a human being a bearer of imago dei and thereby radically distinct from all creation?  I suppose a theistic version of punctuated equilibrium could lend a hand – which could also help us to get two real ancestors of the human race (i.e. Adam and Eve).  But I think that is really stretching credulity.

      A final word here on the importance of point 4.  You may be wondering why is it necessary to affirm that Adam and Eve really were the first humans – our real ancestors.  I know that there are some that read the first several chapters of Genesis metaphorically.  Others try to read it as a science text book.  I don’t think either approach is exegetically honest.  For example, it seems to me that reading chapter one as being about a sequence of 6 literal 24-hour periods is forcing a modern, Western, monochronic view of time upon the ancient, Middle-Eastern, and polychronic audience to which Moses was writing.  Not to mention God’s limitless ability to make what is a “day” to him seem like billions of years to everyone else (2 Pet. 3:8).  But on the other hand, metephorizing the entire contents of the early chapters of Genesis not only reduces the contents to fairytales in the worst way but also ignores the tenor with which the chapters were written.  The person who reads Genesis 1-11 can’t help but confess that the contents were meant to be believed – they were written as history.  There are ages and genealogies, measurements and boring details.  One might take the position that Genesis 1-11 isn’t true, but that it was written to be believed as actual fact seems self-evident.  Moreover, it seems clear that the New Testament authors, and Jesus himself, believed these early chapters to be genuine historical records (e.g. Mt. 23:35, 24:37, Mk. 10:6, Lk. 3:38, Rom. 5:14, 1 Cor. 15:22, 1 Tim. 2:13-14, Heb. 11:7, 1 Pet. 3:20, 1 Jn. 3:12, Jude 14).

     Of course, the biggest problem with denying our literal descent from Adam and Eve is that doing so wreaks havoc to the essential doctrine of original sin.  The doctrine teaches that Adam and Eve were made sinless, bearing the untainted image of God.  They then sinned by rebelling against God’s command, thus corrupting the nature within them.  Original sin* refers to the fact that since we are all descended from Adam, we have all inherited a sinful nature.  We are, like David, sinful from birth and conceived in iniquity (Ps. 51:5).  We are not sinners because we sin.  Rather, we sin because we are sinners by nature.  Sin and death, and with it our just condemnation, have spread to all humanity (Rom. 5:12-21).  The doctrine of original sin highlights our inherent and emphatic need of a savior.  We cannot please God, seek Him, or become justified in God’s sight apart from the free and sovereign work of His grace in our lives – without the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:9-20, Eph. 2:1-10).

     So, how can theistic evolutionists reconcile macroevolution with the doctrine of original sin?  If there wasn’t a literal Fall, if there is no literal descent from Adam, where does our sinful nature come from?  I think this is a huge problem for the concept of theistic evolution, and I cannot conceive of a way around it.  One thing is certain, that from birth human beings have an innate proclivity to sin is far more observable than the transmutation of species.   And, at the end of the day, I reject macroevolutionary principles because I don’t find the weight of evidence in favor of Darwinism so compelling as to warrant the kind of theological gymnastics that would be required for reconciling those principles with what I already know to be true – God’s infallible word.

     So that’s where I end my review of the four principles of the Biblical doctrine of creation.  This is where the apologetic battle must be fought for Christ’s sake.  Active creative theism, the imminence and transcendence of God, the imago dei, and the doctrine of original sin are pillars and essentials of the faith one for all delivered to the saints.  And it is the responsibility of every follower of Jesus to earnestly contend for and proclaim these transforming and life-giving truths (1 Pet. 3:15, Jude  3). 

     In a few weeks, we’ll examine the concept of the image of God and attempt to answer the question, “What does it mean that we are made in God’s image?”  But now for something completely different . . . .

[*For more on the doctrine of original sin, read “What is the Biblical Evidence for Original Sin” a brief article by John Piper.]

     The second point of the doctrine of creation is as follows:

2.  After creating the universe, God continued to be actively and intimately related to his creation.  That is to say that God is present and active in the whole universe and in our particular lives (cf. Gen. 1:4, 7-11, 14, 16-18, 20-22, 24-31, 2:1-3, 5-9, Isa. 41:17-20, 43:6-7; 45:7; 65:17; Eph. 2:10; Heb. 1:3).

     And when it really comes down to it, I think this is the main reason why many people are so adamantly opposed to the idea of intelligent design or the possibility that there could be a supreme being ruling over the universe.  Really, there must be some explanation for the astoundingly virulent attitudes of many of atheism’s greatest proponents.  Just take atheistic figurehead Richard Dawkin’s comments for example:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”   (Quoted on Dawkins sycophant Steve Wells’ blog from The God Delusion)

     So what’s the cause of all this outright hostility towards the idea of God and towards Christians in particular?  Natural selection? 

     No, I really think it has to do with the implications of point 2 of the doctrine of creation.  I’d be willing to bet that most of these guys (and gals) wouldn’t have very much at all to say about belief in an intelligent creator if that’s all there was to it.  After all, it’s not unusual for them to posit that very thing in the form of some kind of extraterrestrial “seeding” theory (here’s Dawkins on this).  If the creator simply “seeded” biological life on earth and then zipped away to some far off galaxy in their flying saucer, then well and good.  The problem is that the Bible teaches (and science really does affirm*) that God not only created at the beginning, but stuck around afterwards.

     This is the idea that sinful people (myself included before I met Christ) have always shuddered at.  The idea that there is an omnipotent God ruling over the entire universe and prying into your personal affairs is just pretty scary when you think about it.  Moreover, when it turns out that this God actually cares about things like right and wrong, holiness and obedience, love and justice – well, YIKES!  There is a sense in which Dawkins is right in calling God unpleasant.  For those who live their lives in enmity towards God, nothing could be more unpleasant than to realize that it all matters.

     It seems to me that atheism is the ultimate crutch for those who don’t want to face the fact that God sees and cares.   Atheists like Dawkins are on a boat to Tarshish, and what they don’t seem to understand is that sleeping in the cabin won’t make the storm go away. 

     We need to be ready and willing to try to persuade such people to believe in God and the salvation that he offers through his son, Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:11).  But we also must persistently pray for our atheistic friends and family that God will mercifully pursue them, granting them faith and repentance that leads to a life-giving knowledge of the truth (2 Tim. 2:25).

[*There is a good scientific discussion of this in The Case for a Creator.]

     In my previous post,  I presented four major principles taught by the Bible with respect to the doctrine of Creation.  I want now to reflect a bit further on these ideas. 

1.   The source and cause of the created world is an uncreated God who is thus supreme and sovereign over all creation (cf. Gen. 1:1ff; Ps. 89:11, 104:24, 148; Isa. 40:25-26, 42:5; Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2; Rev. 4:11).

     I won’t spend much time on this idea because I feel like I’ve already addressed it to some extent.  The bottom line is that if you push them far enough, Darwinists find it impossible to get around the need for an intelligent designer.  As I said previously, they just can’t get the evolutionary engine running without someone turning the key.  Or, if you prefer, they can’t roll the Yahtzee. 

     Now, what ends up happening, is that the atheist will almost always respond to this dilemma by asking who created God.  The rationale is that if the complexity of a protein molecule requires an intelligent creator, surely the greatly more complex creator needs an even more intelligent source.  It seems that the attempt is to make the teleological argument for the existence of God seem unreasonable. 

     I have heard Christian apologists respond to this, but I haven’t found their responses all that compelling.  To me,  all this question does it require us to assume that the ultimate source of creation must be itself eternal and self-existent.   Maybe I’m missing something, but I do not get why that doesn’t make sense to the atheist.  It is completely reasonable to assume that there is an intelligence that is responsible for the origin of the universe and that this intelligence is eternal and has aseity.  And it just so happens, that the Bible describes God as having those attributes (e.g. Ps. 90:2).

     Have you encountered other arguments that you find difficult to respond to?  Post in the comment section and we’ll talk.

Blessings!

     Before we leave the topic of creation, I want to spend some time talking about where the real battleground is for those who want to be faithful to the Scriptures.  That is, I want to talk about the Biblical doctrine of creation.  As we encounter Darwinists in our attempt to communicate spiritual truth, I think it is critical that we know where exactly we should be focusing our apologetics.  There are certain battles that we simply don’t need to be fighting. 

     It has often been the case in church history that Christians have picked the wrong fights, often claiming that the Bible teaches things that it does not.  For example, when Galileo Galilei supported the Copernican view of a heliocentric universe, he was charged with heresy and forced to recant his claims.  The Roman Inquisition incorrectly believed that the Bible taught that the earth was in the center of the universe.  This exegetical blunder has long been one of the great historical and unnecessary embarrassments of the Church.

     It is absolutely essential that we understand what the Bible actually teaches regarding the doctrine of creation, so we don’t find ourselves fighting silly battles that are at best a waste of time.  In short, I find that the Scripture teaches four key truths regarding creation that we must understand, believe, and vigorously defend.  I have listed these principles below with several scriptural texts that  support them:

1.   The source and cause of the created world is an uncreated God who is thus supreme and sovereign over all creation (cf. Gen. 1:1ff; Ps. 89:11, 104:24, 148; Isa. 40:25-26, 42:5; Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2; Rev. 4:11).

2.  After creating the universe, God continued to be actively and intimately related to his creation.  That is to say that God is present and active in the whole universe and in our particular lives (cf. Gen. 1:4, 7-11, 14, 16-18, 20-22, 24-31, 2:1-3, 5-9, Isa. 41:17-20, 43:6-7; 45:7; 65:17; Eph. 2:10; Heb. 1:3).

3.  God directly created human beings in his own image and thus radically different from the rest of creation (cf. Gen. 1:26-27, 5:1, 9:6; Rom. 8:29; 1 Cor. 11:7, 15:49; Eph. 4:24; Jam. 3:9).

4. God created Adam and Eve as the first humans.  They are the real ancestors of the entire human race (Gen. 2:7-8, 21-25, 3:20; Rom. 5:12-21).

      To the extent that Darwinism challenges any of these principles, Christians who desire to be faithful to the Bible have a serious theological motivation for engaging in debate.  Indeed, we must be willing and ready to give a defense of these essential Biblical truths (1 Pet. 3:15).   The good news is that some really great resources like the Case for a Creator, Expelled, and the Face that Demonstrates the Farce of Evolution are available to help us in this battle.

     Now, beyond these four points, I don’t believe there is a strong Biblical exegetical or theological reason for arguing with non-believers.  No one is being kept out of God’s Kingdom because they believe in an old earth or that dinosaurs weren’t contemporary to humans.  There are plenty of “in-house” debates that Christians can have on these kind of side issues, but it is the essentials that we must proclaim and defend in our various mission contexts. 

     To be sure, Darwinism as it is commonly delineated is clearly heretical, a worldview that is undeniably anti-Biblical.  It certainly fails on theological grounds from a Biblical perspective.  But it is worth remembering that on a completely different level, the scientific, Darwinism falls short of glory.  Darwinism tends to be just bad science that cannot withstand real scrutiny and so does not invite any.

     Over the next few blogs, I plan to reflect a bit more on the four principles of the doctrine of creation mentioned above.  For now, I invite you to let me know in the comment section if you think there are parts of the doctrine that I have overlooked and that you feel should be included among the other four.