This article is published here with the permission of my friend The Revd Dr John Sharp - Church of Scotland Minister in East Kilbride in Scotland. It was delivered by him at the
October Meeting (1993) of the Crieff Fellowship (Brotherhood)(Mr Still). Where [cut] appears it is only the removal of material specific to those of attending the conference. I hope it
will be of interest and a helpful tool in our ongoing quest to understand Genesis within the framework of the 20th century.
So to Dr John Sharp:
Genesis 1-3 - An Overview
I have been asked to set out an overview of Genesis 1-3. [cut] I imagine we are all familiar with the first three chapters of Genesis. The first two chapters set before us the majestic heights of God's creative power and goodness; while chapter 3 brings us to murky depths of man's capacity for deception, delusion and degradation.
[cut]....I am sympathetic to Tertullian who said, "Arguments about scripture achieve nothing but a stomach ache and a headache." [cut] Perhaps few parts of scripture have caused so much debate and controversy as to, how they should be understood. Over the past 150 years there has been a tendency to set science in opposition to the biblical account. Yet just a few years ago Robert Jastrow, one time Director of Nasa wrote a book called, "God and the Astronomers." In it he reviews different theories concerning the origin of the universe and then notes:
"Now we would like to pursue that inquiry farther back in time, but the barrier to further progress seems insurmountable. It is not a matter of another year, another decade of work, another measurement, or another theory; at this moment it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." (Origins Vol 6 No 15 page 13)
Be that as it may this should not make for theological smugness. There are many difficulties in understanding Genesis. James Montgomery Boice reminds us that the ancient Hebrew were
not without wisdom when hey forbade anyone under thirty expounding on the first chapter of Genesis.
[cut] I think it was Kepler who said, "The Bible was written to tell us how to go to heaven,not to tell us how the heavens go." There is a lot of wisdom in that. The Bible was not written to satisfy our curiosity. It seems to me that on many occasions we fall into the trap of trying to read science as we understand it into the biblical text. Should it not be that science is conducted within a biblical framework?
The opening chapters of Scripture are clearly foundational to the Christian faith - and yet devise among Christians. At two extremes we have the Liberal and Fundamental approaches. The former has no firm grasp of the Bible as the Word of God, assumes the scientific veracity of the theory of evolution and proceeds from that as its infallible datum., At the other end of the spectrum there are those who seem to suggest that unless we are anti-evolution then we e are at best questionably Christian.
Even within the broad conservative evangelical position we find division. We see this in the extensive literature that has developed between evangelicals as the pros and cons of Genesis and evolution are debated. It is important for us to accept that people of evangelical belief and a high view of scripture are divided on this matter. [cut] However it seems to me that by concentrating on the evolutionary debate and other problems we often miss the central thrust of Genesis 1-3. These chapters set the scene for the rest of Scripture - dealing with the creation of the universe, man's place in that creation, and man's rebellion against his Maker. These chapters are the springboard to take us into the story of redemption.
Problems of Interpretation: (1) Foundational Issues (a) literary criticism (b) the Bible and Science (c) what language is used (2) Structural issues (3) Particular issues
1. Foundational Issues
1.1 Literary Criticism Do we read Genesis 1-3 in a literal or figurative manner? And let us bear in mind that if it is literal then it also contains figurative language! "e.g. "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food" Gen 3v19.
(a) The Patchwork Theory
Some see these chapters as the realm of myth and legend. Indeed academics have created an industry out of constructing the mythical authors of JEDP and their various sub editors
LBHSO J1 & J2. This is partly done on the supposition that different names for God imply different authors. This, to me, seems extraordinary.
On that basis most of our sermons and prayers could be broken down to reveal a multiplicity of authors as we call God - Lord, Gracious Father Almighty God, Saviour etc. [cut] E.J. Young puts the matter simply: "The Bible is either a revelation of God or it is simply the gropings of the Hebrew nation and the presentation of the best that they could find" Young goes on to state that if it is a revelation from God then "God has told us about the creation and we (should) believe that it is historical, that is, that it actually took place, because God has spoken.
1.2 Bible and Science
What is the relationship of the Bible and Science? God has revealed Himself in various ways - in Scripture, in Christ, and in His creation. We have the so called book of Nature and the Book of Scripture. A common idea is that the scientist deals with the Book of Nature and the theologian with the Book of Scripture- and never the twain shall meet. The late Prof. Donald MacKay did much to popularise a complementary view of these two disciplines.
However this tends to work out such that if the theologian happens to find Scripture saying something at variance with what the scientist says then he must rethink his position in the light of the scientific word. Charles Hodge claimed: "The Church has been forced more than once to alter her interpretation of the Bible to accommodate the discoveries of science. But this has been done without doing any violence tot he Scriptures or in any degree impairing their authority."
However E.J. Young notes: "Whenever "science" and the Bible are in conflict, it is always the Bible that, in one manner or another must give way. We re not told that "science" should correct its answers in the light of scripture. Always it is the other way round. Yet this is rally surprising, for the answers which scientists have provided have frequently changed with the passing of time. The authoritative answers of pre-Copernican scientists are no longer acceptable; nor for that matter are many views of 25 years ago"
Karl Popper is one of the most distinguished philosophers of science this century. His central argument as to the nature of science is that tit is the fate of all scientific theories to be disproved. Thus Ptolemy was overthrown by Copernicus. In turn Copernicus was overthrown by Newton. The Newton was overthrown by Einstein - and then we sent a man to the moon on the basis of Newtonian calculations, even if the theoretical framework had been disproved!
It seems to me that we need to make certain distinctions. We need to distinguish 1:- What scripture says and 2:- what we think it says or would like it to say. The two are not always in agreement and we acknowledge that if we have ever changed our mind about some part of scripture.
Then we need to distinguish 3:- what creation says, and 4:- our interpretation of creation, which we call our sciences.
It is scripture that is absolute - not our interpretations - though clearly we desire to conform our minds to God's Word. I like the sentiment of Robert Boyle, the father of modern chemistry when he said: "if we lay aside all the irrational opinions, that are unreasonably fathered on the Christian religion, and all erroneous conceits repugnant to Christianity, which have been groundlessly fathered upon Philosophy, the seeming contradictions betwixt Divinity and true Philosophy will be but few and the real ones none at all (1715)".
When we find an apparent clash between science and scripture it may by that our interpretation of Scripture is incorrect. After all just because e regard Genesis 1-3 as historical does
not mechanically lock us into one exegesis of the detailed content. On the he other hand it may be that our scientific understanding is erroneous.
What is scripture?
Is it a scientific textbook, a religious textbook or something else>? Henry Morris clearly defends the Bible as a scientific textbook. This seems to me to lead to all sorts of strained
exegesis - which I will return to in moment.
However to say that the Bible is on not a scientific textbook is not to say that never speaks concerning science. The Bible is not a history book - but it contains a lot of history. It is not a
textbook on angelology or politics - but it speaks in these areas.
Scripture is primarily that special revelation of God which tells of the human predicament and God's plan of salvation. Yet as Special revelation Scripture is interpretative of general revelation and not vice verse. I always remember attending a lecture by Prof Van Reissen, professor of philosophy at he Free University of Amsterdam. He noted that theology is a unique discipline, for in all other areas of study man has the final control over the field of study but in theology the field of study has an absolute control over the researcher. To put it
another was min science man sets the4 agenda - in theology God sets the agenda!
God does not speak in scriptures[ to scientists, theologian and philosophers per se but to sinners who lost in themselves can in Christ be made into His children. Scripture is God's
revelation to man - to show the way of salvation - and it needs to be read within a normal historical-grammatical framework.
What is Science?
But what is science? This where I think a lot of debate goes astray. Even conservative evangelicals often seem to have an objective view of science that owes more to the positivism of
earlier centuries than to a biblically orientated philosophy of science. Perhaps the greatest realisation of contemporary science is that science is never absolute, always provisional.
Having said that we need to be careful that we do not denigrate science - an increasing problem today! Science is a valid activity of mankind, a godly calling.
What is nature?
It would often appear that nature with a capital "N" stands in the place of God. Whether it be a Disney or Attenborough film, the strange metaphysical concept we call "nature" is attributed divinity. Could I suggest that every time we come across the word "nature", in this sense we can replace it with either "God" or "creation". There is no such thing as "Mother Nature". In this light it is interesting to note that Koch claims "There is no modern semantic equivalent in biblical Hebrew for the modern concept of nature...."(p47).
1.3 What kind of language is used in Genesis 1-3?
Henry Morris appeals to the scientific validity of Scripture as a demonstration of its divine origin. One of his favourite illustrations is the correct hydrological cycle as found in Ecclesiastes 1v6-7 (1977 p84, 218) "The wind blows to the south and returns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course. All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again."
But this ignores the simple point that v5 states, "The sun rises and the sun sets and hurries back to where it rises." That clearly is scientifically inaccurate. Not that there is any problem with it. The scientist who cannot appreciate the beauty of the sunset has become diminished in his humanity. In most of life our language is phenomenological - not concerned with scientific exactitude.
What of Genesis? Calvin presented a rigorous statement of the accommodation of language to the limitations of men. He notes that the sun and moon are presented as the two great
heavenly bodies but that in fact Saturn is much larger - hence his famous remark "He who would learn astronomy and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere."
James Montgomery Boice suggests three ways in which the account of creation might have been written:- 1. in scientific language 2. in straightforward historical prose; or 3. as poetry
To say it is poetry seems to me an opt out to avoid difficult questions. What then is scientific language? But the language of science is largely in symbols. Indeed it takes pages of symbols to discuss the nature of a single atom of hydrogen. Boice quotes F.A. Filby, a professor of chemistry as noting, "It has been estimated that to give a complete account of the position of the groups and bonds in single virus...would take a 200 page book".
Filby argues that if Genesis 1 were written in scientific language it would incomprehensible to virtually everybody. Further it would have to be rewritten every generation to conform to
the new views of science - and no earlier generation would grasp the current presentation! But Genesis was written for all - not some!
Filby then goes on.
"What then would be the best method for the Creator to use for (1) making a beginning to his book and (2) establishing that the God of the Bible is also the God of creation - in language
simple enough for all men in all time.?
The answer is Genesis 1.... It provides the perfect opening to God's book and establishes all that men really need to know of the facts of creation.... I It is God's handiwork, sufficient for Hebrew children or Greek thinkers or Latin Christians; for medieval knights or modern scientists o little children; for cottage dwellers or cattle ranchers or deep sea fishermen; for Laplanders or Ethiopians, East or West, rich or poor, old or young, simple or learned..sufficient for all! Only God could write such a chapter... and he did." (JMB p22-23)
Ultimately our views about the nature of Scripture will determine how we understand it. But it seems to me that there is an essential historical framework to these chapters. If it is not
historical then there is no actual literal fall. And then there would have been no previous state of innocence, and no guilt from having fallen from it.
The simpler reading of the rest of Scripture indicates an assumption of the historicity of its opening chapters - such as the comparison between Adam and Christ in Romans.
2. STRUCTURAL ISSUES. So far what we have considered is external to Genesis, yet bearing upon it, what follows is internal to our understanding of Genesis 1-3. I merely raise points without discussing them.
2.1 THE RELATION OF GENESIS 1 & 2
Liberal thought has firmly located these two chapter as different accounts of creation from two separate sources - determined by E and J. I have enough problems with Q in relation tot
he NT to be happy with this division!
Perhaps the easiest way of resolving the problem is to see Genesis 1;1-2;3 as the account of creation; and Genesis 2;4f as a detail within the larger framework - like an enlarged detail of
part of a map. Chapter 1 deals with creation. Chapter 2 deals with God's relation with man.
2.2 THE GAP THEORY
There has been the suggestion that there is a gap between 1v1 and 1v2 or between 1v2 and 1v3. This is an area of debate though I am unhappy with the suggestion and would probably give my vote to EJ Young who says: "The first verse serves as a broad, comprehensive statement of the fact of creation. Verse 2 describes the earth as it came from the hands of the Creator and it existed at the time when God commanded the light to shine forth." (p14 -c.f. Bavinck p170f).
2.3 THE FRAMEWORK HYPOTHESIS
This views the creation week as a figurative week, though accepting an historical core. The days can thus be seen as non chronological. It notes that days 1v23 and 3 find their counterpart in days 4,5 and 6. The former give a framework of realms - light and dark, sky and water, and land. The latter of the rulers of the various realms - stars and planets, bird s and fish, animals and man (DA Young p87f)
2.4 The DAY-PEAK THEORY
This claims that Genesis is a generalised account of major events. Thus while day 5 records the creation of birds - that does not mean that no birds were created before that day, simply
that the day was the major period of bird-creation. (DA Young p117)
2.5 GENESIS - REVELATION
It is an interesting factor that much of Genesis 1-3 finds an echo in Revelation 21-22. This is particularly so in terms of the cursed creation and the new heaven and earth. In Genesis 3 we have curse, sorrow, pain and sweat. In Revelation 21 we have no more curse, no more sorrow, no more pain, no more tears. In Genesis 3 we have banishment from he tree of life, in Revelation 22v14 we have access to the tree of life.
3. PARTICULAR ISSUES
3.1 The Use of BARA
Some including Morris, Shaeffer, Atkinson and Calvin take the use of BARA as absolute and meaning a totally new creation - creation out of nothing. others, such as Kidner, DA Young and
Hoeskma hold that it is not absolute. Interestingly "BARA" occurs at the beginning of creation, at the creation of conscious life and at the creation of man.
I would hold to the absolute sense in these cases. Atkinson notes: "Although the word "BARA" when used elsewhere in the Old Testament does not necessarily mean creation-out-of-
nothing, that is certainly the implication here."(p21).
It seems to me that those who wish to avoid creation out of nothing slide into a discussion not of creation but of providence.
3.2 THE MEANING OF DAY
There are several positions:
- that the days are 24 hour periods - long periods - the first three are long periods and the second three are 24 hour periods. - revelatory periods - and that they are outside time altogether
I started by thinking of them as epochs, moved to 24 hours days and now I am rather agnostic.
Bavinck draws attention to all that has to be crowded into 24 hours (if we accept that construction) for day 6 - the creation of animals, the creation of Adam, the planting of the garden,
the giving of the probationary command, the leading of the animals to Adam and his naming of them and the sleep of Adam and the creation of Eve (Bavinck p173)
We should note the significance of the 7th day which does not have an evening attributed to it. Are we living in day "x" or in the 7th day not yet ended?(c.f. Heb 4). This would tend to support the day period as does Genesis 2v4! The popular idea that a day is as 1,000 years does not aid the "day-period" idea as the very structure of that contrast depends on the shortness of the day!
3.3. The Possibility of Grown-Upness.
It seems to me wrong to think of creation as something that took place "into" time and space as though these were receptacles. Time and space are part of the created order.
If Adam was created as a mature adult that implies grown-upness. This idea was developed by Gosse in the last century and it introduces certain logical paradoxes which need not detain us here. But God is not devious and we should not think this can be extended to saying that God hid fossils to make us think that the earth is older than it really is. It has become fashionable to mock the views of Gosse, but recently I came across the following footnote to an article by Prof Donald MacKay:
"Certainly Gosse seems to have given his contemporaries the impression that "the creation2 was a debatable event a few thousand years ago on our timescale; and in this I have no wish to defend him. BUT, with all his faults, I think he showed more insight into t he logic of the Genesis narrative than opponents such as s Charles Kingsley. who held that on Gosse's theory the Creator had perpetrated a deliberate falsehood by creating rocks complete with fossils. For whatever the peculiarities of Gosse's view, the point apparently missed by Kingsley is that some kind of inferable past in inevitably implicit in any ongoing system whether with fossils or without so that to speak of falsehood here is to suggest a non-existent option. Creation in the biblical sense is willing into reality of the whole of our space-time.;future, present and past. If the Creator in the Genesis narrative were supposed to have made the rocks without fossils, this would not have helped for nothing could have prevented the rocks from having some physically inferable past: their past would simply have been different and moreover inconsistent with the rest of the created natural history. On Kingsley's argument, pressed to its logical conclusion, God ought not to have created any matter at all, since even molecules cannot help having some inferable past history!"
3.4 Death We are told that in the day Adam and Eve sin they will die. This is used to argue that hence there was no death before the Fall. But that is not necessarily so with reference to the animal kingdom. There is a possibility of animal death - not in the sense of chase as Schaeffer puts it but in the quiet surrender of life back to the Creator. Within the 24 hour period of their sin, Adam did not die physically. Is not the more important issue that of spiritual death?
(e) Schaeffer's 7 Freedoms and 2 Limits. I mention these because I find them helpful. Schaeffer gives the following areas as open to debate, as possibilities. He is not saying this is how it was, but that these are areas for discussion. (i) God created a grown up universe (ii) There could be a break between 1v1 and 1v2 or between 1v2 and 1v3. (iii) Day could be a long period (iv) The Flood may have affected the geological data (v) "Kinds" in Genesis do not necessarily equate with the modern idea of species (vi) There could have been animal death before the Fall (vii) There is the possibility of a lot of process in the creation story.
But there are two absolute limits. BARA indicates specific discontinuity with what preceded and Adam and Eve are historical.
Other scriptures confirm the origin of the human race from a single stock. ACTS 17v26 "From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth". The
offence of the one man made sinners of all and subjected them to death (Rom 5v12-19).
DOCTRINAL ISSUES IN GENESIS 1-3
Often the great doctrinal issues of the opening chapters of the Bible are lost amidst the various problems of interpretation and the science/bible debate. But these chapters take us
from the sublime heights of God's creative act to the murky depths of man's sin.
In a sense these chapters are the overture before the symphony. As Kidner notes, "The prologue is over in a page; there are a thousand to follow". The creation story has stood over the years as a bulwark against many fashionable errors - from polytheism to pantheism, the eternity of matter to the evil of matter, astrology to dualism and the tendency to empty life of meaning. Think of the various doctrines these chapters set before us -even if the doctrines are as yet in embryonic form.
1. THE DOCTRINE OF GOD
Simply put these chapters proclaim a God who made the universe. Genesis sets forth the origin of man and of society, of purpose and evil. But God Himself has no origin! The following
delightful letter appeared in the "New Humanist" (Aug 1974)
"Who made all this? said my awed five year old while looking at a breathtaking view of the Algarve. "That's easy" replied an even smaller child, "God did". Could your erudite contributors
please step off their intellectual pedestals and advise a simple rationalistic mum how to answer such questions?
Genesis 1 is dominated not by creation but by GOD. He is the subject of the first sentence of the Bible and the word "GOD" dominates the whole chapter. Kidner argues that to read
these chapters with any other primary interest is to misread them.
It was of course Sartre who stated that the basic philosophical questions is that something is there rather than nothing. We live surrounded by the reality of creation - of stars and atoms, plants and animals, men and angels. This is true for the atheist as for the Christian. How can the reality of what is there be explained? When all is said and done we have few options.
Genesis 1 tells us that God is there. He is the creator. We are his creatures. We are confronted by a Living, Personal God, a God who is Creator and Sovereign over all that is, a God
whose ways are perfect and who is Self-Revealed.
Going further the different names ascribed to God tells us something of His character. The use Elohim in Genesis 1 pointing us to his power; the use of Yahweh in Chapter 2 pointing to
His covenant relation with man.
2. The Doctrine of Creation
Theories of Creation
There are many views concerning creation.
(a) Atheistic Evolution (b) Theistic Evolution (c) The Gap Theory (d) Six Day Creationism (e) Progressive Creationism
Either God created or He did not. Either the universe has a specific beginning in time or it is eternal! Theologians have a nearly infinite capacity to confuse the issue. A few years ago an evangelical article warmly commended a scholarly analysis and exposition of Genesis 1 by Klaus Koch, professor of Old Testament at Hamburg. Yet Koch's conclusion was that, " In the view of the Old Testament, however, creation did not take place; it continues in the process of history."
Now I may be a bit simple - but the statement that, for the Old Testament, creation did not take place is extraordinary. However we understand Genesis 1-3 it surely tells us that God created the heavens and the earth. And throughout the rest of the OT we find the people of God glorifying in this Creator God -for example the Creation Psalms. As the Psalmist summed it up, "For he spoke, and it came to be."(33v9). The universe around is God's. It did not happen by accident.
In this Genesis stands as a timeless account of creation. We readily dismiss the early myths and legends.
Consider a Babylonian account. At he beginning there were two monsters represented as dragons. Aspu the freshwater subterranean ocean and his consort Tiamat, the salt water ocean that surrounded the earth. From these two sprang a generation of deities the last of which became so powerful that Aspu and Tiamat plot to destroy them. The result is a titanic struggle in which Tiamat is slain. Her body is split in two. The upper half is formed into the heavens. The lower half is formed into the earth. Men and women are made from the blood of Qingo, Tiamat's chief minister.
Or take the version from the Younger Edda, a collection of Norse myths compiled around 1220AD. In the beginning says the Edda there was nothing at all. "Earth was not found, nor Heaven above, a yawning gap there was, but grass nowhere." To the north and south of nothing lay regions of frost and fire, Niflheim and Muspelheim. The heat from Muspelheim melted some of the frost from Niflheim and from the liquid drops grew a giant, Ymer. What did Ymer eat? It seems there was also a cow, Audhumla. And what did she eat? Well, there was some salt. And so on.
Stephen Weinberg, a modern physicist working on the origins of the universe uses this Norse account to show how far fetched these early legends are and how easy it is to reject them.
But listen to his account.
"This then in brief is our recipe for the contents of the early universe. Take a charge pr photon equal to zero, a baryon number per photon equal to one part in 1,000 million and a lepton number per photon uncertain but small. Take the temperature at any given time to be greater than the temperature 3'K of the present radiation background by the ratio of the present size of the universe to the size at that time. Stir well, so that the detailed distribution of particles of various types are determined by the requirements of thermal equilibrium. Place in an expanding universe with a rate of expansion governed by the gravitational field produced by this medium. After a long enough wait, this concoction should turn into our present universe." (Weinberg - the first three minutes).
Is that really more understandable? It comes across as a technical presentation. But the framework is that of a cook-book where the recipe might just work!
And what of the4 creation of life? in July this year(1993) 405 researchers gathered in Barcelona for the International Conference on the Origin of Life. Newsweek, reporting the
conference, noted the fundamental problem they faced:
"Bubble or comet, deep-sea vent or volcano, wherever the ingredients of life first evolved, combining them into something fully alive still seems madly improbable ... This is the hitch: life requires both DNA and proteins. DNA cannot pass on genetic information without proteins. And proteins cannot form without DNA... It's the classic chicken-and-egg problem. And it seems so intractable that some leading researchers, notably Francis Crick .... have suggested that life - not the ingredients of life, but something fully alive - arrived from space 3.5 billion years ago. That, of course, merely pushes the question of life's origins to another planet."
(Atkinson: "Creation...does not come within the domain of science: it is not a scientific category. p17)
genesis gives us a simple statement that the things that are - were made by God - the stars and the planets, the plants and animals and man. The sequence of command (eight of) running
through Genesis 1 leave no room for a self existent universe, never mind life! And it tells us that this creation was good. That surely is the thrust we just note running through Genesis 1.
Whatever the problems within creation now - as God made the world it was good.
The Doctrine of Man.
The creation story tells us who we are in relation to God and within the human family. A story is told of Arthur Schopenhauer, the nineteenth century philosopher. Schopenhauer apparently often dressed a bit roughly. One day he was sitting in a park in Berlin when his appearance aroused the suspicions of a policeman. The policeman asked him who he thought he was. Schopenhauer replied, "I wish to God I knew"." The only way he could have learned who he was would have been to find out from God, who reveals this to us in Genesis.
In Genesis 1-3 we find man's constitution - in the image of God (1v26); man as physical-spiritual unity; man created within relationships. We find his calling - in the creational mandate
(1v26b;2v8-17). We find his Fall (3v1-7); and his plight (3v8-24).
(a) Man in the image of God
Of all creation - we are special because we bear the image of God. That gives man and woman a tremendous nobility.
What does it mean to say we are made in the image of God? Dorothy L Sayers noted that up to this point all that we are told about God is that He is creator. Does this perhaps indicate
that man has a sprit of creativity?
Whatever it fully means - that we bear the image of God - this surely gives to each man and woman, boy and girl, a tremendous nobility. As C.S. Lewis has written:
"There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations - these are mortal and their life is to ours, as the life of a gnat. But it is the
immortal who we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendours." (Screwtape Proposes a Toast - p109).
(b) Man a physical-spiritual being
Genesis teaches the unity of our being as physical-spiritual. In 2v7 we are told God breathed into man and he became "a living being" (AV - a living soul). Interestingly the Hebrew word
behind that is translated in the AV also as body - as well as soul!
Man is meant to be a unity of body and soul - hence the curse of death and importance of resurrection.
We need to beware ideas that see the body as the prison-house of the soul.
(c) Man created for relationship
Man is clearly not meant to live in isolation - but in relationship. In relationship with others of his kind - the thrust of Genesis 2. But also of course in relationship with the Lord.
4. The Doctrine of Work
I wish I had a pound for every time I have heard someone proclaim that work is a consequence of the Fall. I have heard it time and again from ministers to politicians to teachers. Work
is certainly changed and becomes drudgery because of the Fall. But man was made to work.
In Genesis 1v28 & 2v15 we have the creational mandate to men. "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over.... The Lord God took the man and put him in the
Garden of Eden to work and take care of it."
This mandate is finely balanced between development and preservation. Man is to rule, to subdue the earth - but not to exploit it. He is to build and to preserver, to till and to keep, to
progress and to conserve.
To limit our calling to preservation alone would imply a choice for stagnation against culture. To confine this calling to building alone would imply a presumptuousness in which we neglect to
consider and weigh what is wise and what is not.
This has a great deal to say to our modern situation. On the one hand there are those who would build and exploit - and so despoil the environment. On the other hand there are those
who would "return to nature" - thus negating the command to subdue, to rule, to build. Remember that if the biblical story begins in a garden it ends in a city!
5 The Doctrine of the Fall
What are the problems we face? Death, disease, broken relationships etc! G.K. Chestrtorton stated that the Fall is the most empirically proved of all Christian Doctrines. How true! He also said, "The Fall is a cheery doctrine." That seems an extraordinary statement at first glance. But Chesterton's point was that the world as we know it is not as God intended it to be. The Fall is a cheery doctrine because it reminds us that God's original creation was good, unblemished - and one day will be unblemished again. The Fall is a cheery doctrine because it tells us that the world around is not what it once was, nor what it one day will be!
Genesis 3 presents the story of the Fall and the consequences of the Fall. This gives us an explanation for the problems and evils in the world. Here we find why things are the way they
are. We live in a fallen world. The world around us is not normal as God intended it to be - but abnormal.
Notice the interesting switch in Chapter 5v1-3. In the beginning man was made in the image of God. But now men and women are born in the likeness of Adam, bearing the marks of his fallenness.
I find Francis Schaeffers' analysis here helpful. He views the consequences of the Fall s a series of separations.
(a) Separation of man from man 3v12
Adam tries to blame Eve for his sin. Here is the breakdown of interpersonal relationships. This rapidly escalates. In Chapter 4 we have the story of Cain and Able - a relationship
breakdown culminating in murder. Before long we find tribe at wear with tribe, naton,with nation. And so it has continued.
(b) Separation of man from creation 3v17-19
Work is no longer a co-operation with the universe but a struggle against the grain of fallen creation. Man has dragged the creation into fallenness - c.f. Romans 8v20-21. Here is the
root of environmental problems.
(c) Separation of man from himself.
We see this in two ways.
(1) Psychologically in fear - Adam and Eve hide from God - they know fear (3v10). In the heart of man dis-ease.
(2) Physically in the unnatural tearing apart of the soul and body in the death (2v17 3v19b). In Chapter 5 the litany of the Fall - "and he died...". The Bible a book about death!
(d) Separation of man from God 3v10 3v23-24
In 2v17 we are told that in the day of Adam and Eve disobey God they would die. But they did not, on that day, die physically even if the seeds of death came upon them. But they did die spiritually. They were cut-off from God. This is at the root of the human predicament. Is it perhaps why throughout the Bible runs the thread of God's redemptive promise to be with us?
(e) Separation of Father and Son
The antidote to sin is the cross. We see the solution to the consequences of the Fall already announced in Genesis 3. T o the woman God's curse contains the first promise of the Gospel
- 3v15.
Further there is a foreshadowing of the way to God as being by sacrifice in the reference to God providing them with clothing. - 3v21. Two things: First, that it was God who provided
the clothing - indicating that salvation comes from Him alone and not from our hand. Second, the clothing involved the death of animals - indicating that sacrifice was necessary.
But the ultimate resolution of all these separations is the separation of Father and Son on the cross - Matthew 27v46 - "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Conclusion.
This has all been rather sketchy. I have dealt with nothing in depth. Perhaps others will pick up particular areas and deal with them. I think that could be most helpful.
I have considered two broad areas - some of the background questions of interpretation; and the numerous doctrines tow which we are introduced. It is sad when he doctrines are lost in
the confusion of interpretation.
God is not only Saviour, He is Creator. Ultimately we are God's creatures and need to bow before him and worship Him as our Creator. We were made as part of God's creation, to take a
pious delight in the work of God and glorify him in all things. Luther has summed up this existential response to creation very well in his Catechism - and with this I finish.
"THE FIRST ARTICLE: OF CREATION I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. What does this mean? Answer: I believe that God has created me and all other creatures, and has given me, and preserves for me, body and soul, eyes and ears and all my limbs, my reason and all my senses; and that daily he bestows on my clothes and shoes, meat and rink, house and home, wife and child, fields and cattle, and all my goods, and supplies in abundance all needs and necessities of my body and life, and protects me from all perils and guards and defends me from all evil. And this he does out of pure Fatherly and Divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthlessness in me; for all of which I am bound to thank him and praise him, and, moreover, to serve and obey him. This is a faithful saying."
(c) Dr John C Sharp 22nd September 1993.