When I took high school biology, my biology teacher whom I considered very intelligent, started teaching us the theory of evolution as fact. This view totally contradicted what my pastor had preached and taught from God’s Word. My biology teacher was very convincing, and I began to doubt if God was who my pastor declared him to be. I was very confused.
What I was struggling with was a huge worldview question: Where did I come from? Some of the big questions of life are
1) Am I the result of a materialistic process of evolution? Am I an advanced animal with no soul and when I die, I die like an animal? Or did I come from God who supernaturally made me in his image so I can fellowship with him?
2) Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life? If I am the product of atheistic evolution, then I have no eternal purpose with eternal consequences. If I came from God, then I have the greatest purpose in the world: to please my Creator and Redeemer.
3) Where am I going? What is my future? What is my future not just for the next ten years but what is my eternal destiny? If I am the product of evolution, then the grave is my future. But if God is my Creator, and I accomplish my purpose of living for him and not myself, then my future is eternity with God, worshipping and glorifying him forever and ever. These questions are important and life-changing.
This post is based on Jesus’ statements and how He viewed the Old Testament. In Luke 24:27, to remedy the lack of understanding of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus who did not recognize Jesus as he walked with them, Luke tells us what Jesus preached: “beginning with Moses [the Pentateuch] and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” The method Jesus used was to survey the entire Old Testament and the subject of the survey was himself in the Old Testament. When the two disciples understood Jesus’ message, Luke records that “their eyes were opened, and they knew him.” Their verbal response to Jesus’ sermon was “he opened to us the scripture.” Suddenly, they made a U-turn and went back to Jerusalem and started proclaiming the gospel saying, “The Lord is risen.” They reclaimed their purpose for living. Their worldview drastically changed!
In another Scripture, Jesus made a similar statement not to his disciples but to his enemies in John 5:46. To those religious Jews who knew the Old Testament and especially the writings of Moses or the Pentateuch, Jesus stated, “For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me: For he wrote of me.” Again, Moses wrote of Jesus in the Old Testament.
It took Jesus about two hours to walk seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus with the two disciples. In those two hours on the road to Emmaus, Jesus’ reviewed the complete Old Testament canon which contains 37 books and 900 chapters. Obviously, Jesus did not find himself in every text or even in every chapter in only two hours. Jesus only pointed out the chapters and verses that spoke of him. Jesus highlighted doctrines (beginning with the doctrine of creation in Genesis one and two), prophecies such as Genesis 3:15, stories (Moses’ narratives), and types (the serpent lifted up on a pole) found in the Old Testament.
The Old Testament opens in Genesis one and two with God’s creation of the universe and mankind. Genesis 1:1 declares “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” John 1:1-3 connects Jesus with Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning was the Word.” Both Genesis and John open with “In the beginning.” But then John adds that “all things were made by him [Jesus] and without him was not anything made that was made” (1:3).
Jesus in surveying the Old Testament and pointing to himself very likely started with the creation of the universe and mankind. Moses wrote the Pentateuch called the “book of Moses” (Mark 12:26) to remind God’s Old Testament people
Where they came from (God chose them from among all the nations)
Why they existed (to be a light to the unconverted Gentile nations)
Where they were going (The Promised Land where they are at this time were poised to enter). Moses began with the doctrine of creation which enables us to answer those same questions.
Where did we come from?
There are two major options to choose from
The first option is creation by God
The second option is evolution by chance.
There is a third option that tries to conflate the two options of creation by God or evolution by chance. This is called theistic evolution which attempts to fold the millions of years of evolution into the biblical account of creation. In other words, God used evolution to bring his creation into being. Charles Ryrie noted, “that the theistic evolutionist tries to ride two horses (evolution and Creation), which are going in opposite directions.”[1] Of course, this is impossible with horses and theistic evolution.
The first option for answering the question, where did I come from Is the biblical answer. We came from God according to Genesis 1:1.
Moses first recorded God’s creation of the universe in Genesis 1:1-2:4.
Then Moses recorded God’s creation of mankind in Genesis 2:5-25 (see 2:7). Moses declared that “God created” and used the word for creating which means to create [בָּרָ֣א bara] something special in 1:1 (the universe), 21 (marine life), and 27 (man). God is always the subject of this word for creation.
The other option is atheistic evolution which advocates that we came into existence without God. It is very possible that Moses presented the creation account positively and negatively.
Positively, God created the universe in six twenty-four days and as the crown of his creation, God created man.
Negatively, Moses was refuting the false beliefs of nations who believed that they had created their gods in their image and consequentially their gods were immoral. Kenneth Mathews writes:
1) “For instance, procreation among the family, herd, and crop was dependent upon sexual relations among the deities.”[2]
2) The pagans invented gods who procreate as we do.
3) Also, some of their gods had come from murky waters and therefore were not eternal. Mathews provides another example of what Moses is combating: “In Enuma Elish [The Babylonian creation myth], e.g. the gods are the offspring of the primeval waters Apsu and Tiamat.”[3] Moses corrects these views by stating God created humans in his image (not vice versa). Also, He did not evolve from materials on earth, He is eternal and preceded the material universe he created.
Evolution teaches that the material universe happened by chance when a big bang resulted in rotating protons and neutrons which have ever since been expanding. Where did the material originate that exploded in the big bang? We have two choices; either God is eternal and created matter or evolution is true and the matter is eternal. Believers have the historical record of Genesis 1:1 that God is eternal and created the first matter. The other view has no such support.
Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 compares the creation of the universe by Christ to the new creation of every believing sinner.
The universe was in darkness (Gen. 1:2)
The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep. Then God spoke, “Let there be light and there was light.” Every unbeliever is not in literal darkness like the early universe was but is in spiritual darkness and does not understand “the light of the glorious gospel of Christ.” But then the Spirit of God uses the glorious Gospel to open Satanically blinded eyes. In the next chapter, Paul will affirm, “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away and behold, all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). Correctly answering the first question, where did I come from, helps us answer the second question.
Why are we here?
The theme of Genesis is “Blessed to be a blessing.” Moses developed this theme in the two-fold division of Genesis.
In Genesis 1-11, Moses recorded the beginning of God’s blessings on mankind.
In Genesis 1:28-29, God blessed mankind and said to them, in essence, be a blessing by having babies. Man sinned and God had to judge sinful man by confusing their languages which produced the beginning of the nations.
The next division is in Genesis 12-50, where God chose one nation from all the wicked nations through whom he will redeem sinful man. God blessed one man and his family in Genesis 12:1-3 and commanded him to “be a blessing” (Gen 12:3) to all families of the earth. Paul informs us in Galatians 3:8, that this blessing to all families came through Jesus Christ, whom Paul identifies in 3:16. Perhaps Jesus referred to the command of God to Abraham to be a blessing in his Christological sermon in Luke 24:27.
It is true that even atheists can adopt a purpose in life to be a blessing to others. Bart Ehrman is one of the most influential agnostic/atheists of our generation. Yet, on Bart Ehrman’s blog, he invites others to join him in helping the needy:
“All blog membership fees go directly to charities dealing with poverty by providing medicine, food, shelter, clothing, and other basic essentials to those basic essentials to those in need.”[4]
Obviously, Ehrman is not trying to glorify God with his assistance to the needy. Believers have the highest motivation for ministering to the needy with food and clothing in order that we might tell them the good news of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection which is their greatest need and which also Ehrman denies. God has blessed us to be a blessing not just to be blessed. God has blessed us with time, and opportunities to be a blessing or a light to the Gentiles or our community.
This week we attempted to be a blessing to our community. Sunday evening some from our church went to Archdale Elementary School and joined others in praying for the new students returning on Monday. On Monday, I met with two pastors who are helping us with the soccer clinic on the field of AES on September 17 and 24. On Tuesday I delivered the supplies and snacks to AES that our church has collected for the past month. This week I also left flyers for our Soccer clinic at local businesses. I will stop there. Why are we here? We are here, just like Israel was in the Old Testament, to be a light to the Gentiles. Answering the first two questions equips us to answer the next big life-altering question.
Where are we going?
“In the beginning” in Genesis 1:1 anticipates the “end” or eternity. There is this pattern throughout Scripture: Isaiah 46:10 “I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning.” Job 42:12 “The Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.” The “end” in heaven for all believers will be far better than our beginning here on earth.
There are many allusions to Genesis 1-2 in Revelation 21-22.
In Genesis 1:1 in the beginning God created heaven and the earth. In Revelation 21:1, God creates the new heaven and new earth.
In the first earth, there is “night” (Gen 1:5) but in the last or new earth there will be no night because Christ will be light (Rev 21:25).
In the first earth there is death (Gen 3:19) but in heaven, there is no more death (Rev 21:4).
In the first earth there is sorrow and pain (Rev 3:17) but in the new earth and heaven there is no more crying or pain (Rev 21:4).
In his Luke 24:27 sermon, Jesus could have alluded to himself as he does in Revelation 1:7-8, as the “beginning and the ending” or the one who will bring to completion all that God began in Genesis 1:1. Jesus told his disciples “Let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God believe also in me .... I go to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come and again and receive you unto myself that where I am there you may be also.” This is where believers are going. We know we came from God. We are here to glorify him and be a witness to the unsaved. We will spend eternity with those we win honoring and praising our Savior.
[1] Charles C. Ryrie, Basic Theology (Chicago: Moody Press, 1999), 196.
[2] Kenneth A. Mathews, “Genesis 1-11:26” in The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Homan Publisher, 1996), 118).
[3] Ibid., 117.