Who Explains the Beginning the Way it Was?

[Originally published as Jesus and Genesis]

If one wants to criticize and discount the Bible, there is no better place to start than at the beginning with Genesis.

Science

Those who reject God find it easier to believe the absurdity that nothing expanded and resulted in everything. They claim to believe the “science.” However, scientific proof requires the implementation of the “scientific method.”

As an elementary school teacher just 12 years ago, we still taught the “scientific method” which included observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and falsification.

God deniers profess science without employing the scientific method to support their hypothesis. No one observed the Big Bang. No one can experiment to reproduce the Big Bang. (It would be scary if they could!) And no one can falsify the Big Bang, yet they claim to be “scientific.”

The same can said for Creation. Creation cannot be proven by the scientific method. It was a unique, miraculous, one-time event.

Creation differs from the Big Bang in that it started with Someone; it did not come from nothing: “In the beginning, God” and God recorded His work in the first chapter of the Book of Beginnings—Genesis.

The thinking person only needs to consider the creation account for what it says, recognizing the implied characteristics of the omnipotent Creator’s ability to do what He said He did, and compare that to the order out of chaos suggested by the Big Bang proponents. Because of the vast complexity of the universe and life on earth, logic supports creation by an intelligent Creator over life by luck.

Of course, some God deniers reject the Big Bang for this very reason and opt to believe that life on earth was “seeded” by extraterrestrials from other worlds, but that raises another question. How did the extraterrestrials originate? This question cannot be answered.

God the Evolutionist?

God deniers will not be convinced with logic. They reject God by choice. I am more surprised by those who say they believe the Bible but reject the Genesis account. They have been taught that the Big Bang is a fact and that life on earth arose through the process of evolution.

In order to keep their faith in God intact, they rationalize that God somehow used the Big Bang and evolution to create. That makes sense. God can do anything He wants to do and use whatever means He chooses to do it. He is God!

However, in reading the straightforward creation account in Genesis 1, one cannot find the logical steps of evolution.

• God created the universe by His spoken word, not with a bang.
• He created plant life before He created the sun.
• He created the sun and moon before creating the rest of the stars as sort of an afterthought.
• He created marine and avian life before creating the dinosaurs (land creatures). Secular scientists claim that birds evolved from dinosaurs, but Genesis says that birds came first.
• Furthermore, the Genesis account of creation records that each day of creation was a 24-hour day; that amount of time does not allow for evolution to take place.

Poetry?

Some theologians dismiss the Genesis account of creation as poetry or allegory. Somehow in all of their education, they missed the fact that Hebrew poetry is distinct by its use of parallelism [repeated phrases using synonyms or antonyms]. There is none of that in the Genesis account.

Any Hebrew language student understands that the first three chapters in Genesis, which take the brunt of the criticism, are written in narrative form like any other historical portion of Scripture. Genesis is not poetry. It presents a factual account, or at least it is factual to the author.

Jesus’ Opinion on the Matter

Jesus, who the New Testament credits as Creator (John 1:1–3; Colossians 1:16–17), affirmed the validity of Genesis.

Creation

When the Pharisees challenged Him on the question of divorce, Jesus referred them back to Genesis. “But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.” (Mark 10:6).

The making of the first human pair is recorded in the first chapter of Genesis. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27, emphasis mine).

For the sake of this confused world today, it should be noted that God made one pair of opposite, yet complementary sexes. They were not androgynous with the option to choose their sex. God did not create two males to mate with each other or two females to cohabitate. God designed the sexes for reproduction. Two males cannot reproduce, nor can two females reproduce. The union is not about “feeling” but about “function.” Male and female “fit” together. The way God designed it works. The way modern man has perverted it often ends in tragedy.

Genesis records that Adam’s first son was Cain and the second was Abel. Cain murdered Abel in a fit of jealous rage, and Jesus referred to that as a factual account.

As Jesus excoriated the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, He said,

Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar (Matthew 23:33-35).

Jesus again affirmed the veracity of Genesis in citing Abel as a real person. As an aside, I find it interesting that Jesus takes credit for sending the prophets: “I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes.” That is what God does. Therefore, Jesus claims to be God.

The Flood

The Global Flood account in Genesis 6–9 is also a major point of contention with Bible critics, even those claiming to be Christian. However, Jesus vouched for its authenticity.

In speaking on the last days, Jesus said,

But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be (Matthew 24:37–39).

Can we Trust Jesus?

So, to those who claim to be Christian yet reject Genesis, do you reject Jesus’ words as well? If you doubt the first eleven chapters of Genesis, how can you believe the words of Jesus? He spoke of the Genesis account as fact.

Jesus created man in His image knowing the kind of body He would one day inhabit. Jesus accepted Abel’s sacrifice over that of Cain’s, and when Cain murdered Abel, He demonstrated mercy toward Cain by setting a mark on him to spare his life.

God had Noah build an ark with only one entrance. The ark was large enough to accommodate thousands of more people than Noah and his family, but only those eight that believed God and entered through the only door were saved from the Flood.

Jesus is our Ark of salvation. He said, “I AM the door.” (John 10:9). He is the only entrance to eternal life; there is no other way. “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6).

I understand God deniers rejecting the Genesis account of creation. They are lost and hell-bound. But there is no excuse for Christians rejecting the Genesis account if indeed they believe Jesus’ words.

Reader, if you are questioning the veracity of Scripture, particularly where it comes to creation, perhaps the first thing you need to consider your eternal standing before God.