Creation Sunday School Series

Introduction
by Pastor C. W. Powell

Psalm 19. The Psalm is divided into three parts. The subject is knowledge, the knowledge of God. The first part has to do with natural revelation; the second part with special revelation; the third is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart to enable us to understand our errors.

Creation lies under the curse; so does the mind and heart of man. Only the Scripture is pure.

Last night, Bill Moyers had a program on public television about religion. I saw only small segments of it, as I kept switching away to watch the basketball games. But one segment fascinated me; showing a screen full of masks, Moyers said something like this: "the names we have for God are all masks for infinity-for reality beyond words, art, reality." Then his guest told a little story about someone who had a desire for religion. He bought himself a bible and begin to read it, but was disappointed: there was "no religion" in it.

Moyers thought that the story was excellent and perceptive. The modern man has a very old view of religion-an old view of religion that is rooted in the rejection of reality as really real, and that we can explore the realm of religion only by getting beyond the masks.

Probably the most developed form of this religion of mankind is Hinduism. Hinduism as some six million gods, because the gods are just ways of piercing the bubble and getting to infinity. The world of creation is at best illusion; at worst deception and evil. There is a desire in the modern man to have religion, but he does not want a religion that is rooted in reality. The modern man lives in a stinking world, a world inhabited by conspiracies and darkness.

The result of these forms of humanism is a Gnostic or Manichean worldview. Reality was essentially unknowable, but it certainly was not something that could be expressed in words. At the best, words simply became vehicles by which a certain religious elite could "pierce the bubble of reality" and gain some glimpses of a light beyond. Words did not convey truth, but could be used along with art, chanting, religious rites, and asceticism to get to the "beyond." "Meaning" was not in the words themselves, but in the experience of the soul. The "Word of God" was found within, in the soul-and could not really be reduced to writing, or words on a page of a book.

The result of all this is an inversion of Biblical faith, and that was the reason it was so deadly, and remains deadly and deceptive to this day. It produced an elitism in the church. The enlightened ones knew better than others. They had "pure" churches. They lived "pure" lives. This "purity" was not a purity of heart, for no one can achieve that until the resurrection from the dead, but the "purity" existed in outward and external things. The outward and external things, of course, changed from year to year and from age to age and from country to country. By these external things people "separated" themselves from others who were bound to the words of a book, for these "holy" ones walked by the Spirit of God, and had an extra enlightening that the common run of God’s people did not have.

Written and spoken words could have use, of course. Much use could be made of stories and parables, for they would convey a hidden light and truth unavailable to "ordinary men." They forgot that parables as used by Christ were used to hide the truth and harden the hearts of unbelievers, for Christ explained to His disciples what the parables meant, and did not leave it for them to figure out for themselves. He also ordained his apostles and prophets to explain His life and work for us, for what they had heard in darkness they would proclaim in the light. Acts and the Epistles do this for us exactly, and those who look on the Bible as myth and conundrum either reject the epistles as spurious or they think the epistles---and especially Paul-messed everything up-that truth must be found in the subjective and mythical understanding of the stories that Christ told.

If you do not believe that truth can be explained in words, then you must read the bible differently than if you believe that words can exactly reveal the truth. The whole bible will become parable and a conundrum to be figured out-that it does not convey truth and light.

Therefore we must not really believe that Balaam spoke to a donkey, or certainly not that a donkey spoke to him. There could have been no flood over the whole earth-it must have been a local flood of some sort-and flood myths are found in all the religions of the world. Certainly the idea of judgment is a good thing to consider, but it must not be thought of as a breaking into our world of the "other" world.

The sun didn’t really stand still in Joshua’s time, but we can learn that time is relative, and we can find eternity in a moment and time can drag when you are not having fun. Certainly a dead man did not come to life when let down into the grave of Samuel-but the words of dead men can certainly profit us today. Naaman wasn’t healed of leprosy when he dipped seven times in the Jordan river, but our obedience will heal us, even if we find the obedience unpleasant. A floating axehead is ridiculous-for God is the author of the laws of our world. But the story, though mythical, certainly teaches us that we must have God’s favor and empowering. These and many others-like Paul shaking a viper off into the fire and not being hurt by its bite-though mythical and not literally true-are true on a higher and more spiritual plane. They are "true myths."

We do not expect to insist upon historical and literal truth in the parables of Christ-there was no man named Lazarus who sat at a rich man’s gate-he wasn’t carried by literal angels into Abraham’s bosom, and Abraham didn’t have a conversation with the rich man in hell. Only a madman-or a common Christian-a fundamentalist [may that devil be kept away]-advocate such a thing. But what a wonderful story it is. It’s real meaning is that the rich nations of the world should feel very guilty about enjoying their wealth and should learn to share. How mundane and blind to think that Christ was teaching about future rewards and punishments-anyone but a fundamentalist could see that Jesus is teaching social responsibility. You should share with the poor, not because there is a heaven and a hell-but because it is nice and good to do it.

What does that have to do with the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2. Everything. It has to do with the way you read the Bible, and the way that you view the Bible.

There are three elements to true knowledge, according to Psalm 19. Creation, the law of God, the Holy Spirit delivering from error in my soul. Two of these three are blasted and under the curse of God.

Because creation lies under the curse, and man’s soul lies under the curse, and God’s word has been preserved pure and holy in all ages, we must never interpret the Bible by what we find in creation or in our own persons.

This is the reason that the Psalmist prays: "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults." "Let the words of my mouth..."

Proverbs 30:5: "Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him."

Psalm 119:140-142: "Thy word is very pure: therefore thy servant loveth it. I am small and despised: yet do not I forget thy precepts. Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law is the truth."

Exodus 31:18: "And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God."

Psalms 78:5: "For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children."

Isaiah 8:13-16: "Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples."

John 3:12: "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?"

John 5:47: "But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?"

I Corinthians 2:12-14: "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

John 5:32: "There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true."

1 John 5:9-10: "If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son."

Why is Genesis 1 important-because the way you read it will reveal a great many things about you and your religion. The worship of God is a beautiful symphony, where every instrument plays its own part in harmony with the whole. Don’t play off tune. Don’t introduce counterpoint and disharmony that the author did not write into the score.