By Tin-chee Lo (盧天賜), August 2, 2012
During my devotion-time, I came across the following two Bible passages:
- 2 Chronicles 4:1-22 and 5:1—this passage gives detail descriptions of the specifications of the Temple’s furnishings.
- Romans 14:19-20—“Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.”
After some pondering, I got feelings that, we Christians, oftentimes tend to debate something non-essential and, as a result, blunting our thrust of evangelism. These debates may be well-meant, each side tries to be faithful to the Scripture, but the arguments may be resulted from our poor discernment between what is essential and what is non-essential, and what are clearly said by the Bible and what are human speculations.
God used as many as 23 verses in 2 Chronicles to describe the design of the temple’s furnishing— bronze altar, the Sea, basins, lamp stands, tables, doors, pillars, meat forks, bread of the Presence, and other temple utensils. Also, God used sixteen long chapters in Exodus (25 to 40) to specify the construction of the Tabernacle and all things therein. Yet God, in His marvelous wisdom, chose merely 31 scant verses in Genesis 1 to describe the framework of Creation of the entire magnificent Universe. How much we, in our feeble minds, can extract scientific significance from these few verses to understand the details of the Creation Process considering especially the original audience were not scientists? It is like extracting 5 sentences from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, and ask some one who has never read the book to reconstruct the entire plot of the novel—How much accuracy can one get from such exercise?
I believe the essential messages God wants us to know from the studying the creation part of Genesis 1 are:
- First and foremost, God wants us to know that there is a Creator. The universe does not come about by “material plus chance plus time”.
- God created the universe not all at once, but in stages.
- God created the invisible part of the material world first—light, space, and time (or space-time). I consider this being the intersecting point between the supernatural and the natural.
- The creation process proceeded by stages from simplicity to complexity—inorganic to organic, then plants to fish and birds to the animal world.
- God crowned His creation by making human beings after His image.
- Between each stage, there punctuated with at least one important phrase “And God Said” which signifies the injection of information and hence it suggested that the universe is not a closed system but a system created and sustained by something outside the system—a being who could speak. (See Appendix and Note below)
It is worthwhile to point out that Information Theory states that information is non-material though it may be carried by material mediums and that behind the information, there must be a mind.
The biblical view is starkly different from the world views of the naturalists. Once we grasp these key points, the debates over the certainty of long-day vs. short-day, old-earth vs. young-earth become futile. This does not mean we should not discuss them, it does mean that based on our limited knowledge and comprehension, we should not insist upon certain things beyond what God intends to tell us. We ought to respect God’s privacy.
With this understanding, the verses of Romans (14:19-20) become our life application. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of <arguing over speculations>.
— Appendix: Sequence of creation (Genesis 1:1 to 2:3) —
In the beginning God created (BARA) the heavens and the earth (1:1).
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (1:2).
- Beginning—Creation of time from the state of God’s Timelessness.
- Heaven and Earth—Creation of Space from the state of God’s Spacelessness.
- Space-time, the basic starting point of the physical world, has been created.
And God said,
“Let there be light,” and there was light (1:3).
God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness (1:4).
God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—
the first day (1:5).
• God created the “demarcation of time.” Time is an invisible element of the visible world.
• Verse 1:7 implies also that water had been created on the first day.
And God said,
“Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water.” (1:6)
So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so (1:7).
God called the expanse “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—
the second day (1:8).
• The atmosphere was made by the work of distinction done at the command of God.
And God said,
“Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so (1:9).
God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good (1:10).
• God created the inorganic world.
Then God said,
“Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so (1:11).
The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good (1:12).
And there was evening, and there was morning—
the third day (1:13).
• God created the organic world.
And God said,
“Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years (1:14),
and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so (1:15).
God made (ASAH) two great lights–the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars (1:16).
God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth (1:17).
to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good (1:18).
And there was evening, and there was morning—
the fourth day (1:19).
• God made the sun, the moon, the planets, and the galaxies. Note that the sun was made after the creation of light. The sun is not light, the sun is merely the light-bearer.
And God said,
“Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky” (1:20).
So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good (1:21)
God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth” (1:22).
And there was evening, and there was morning—
the fifth day (1:23).
•God created fish and birds. Fruitfulness was the will of God.
And God said,
“Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so (1:24).
God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good (1:25).
• God created the land animals.
Then God said,
“Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” (1:26)
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (1:27).
• The Muslims consider the concept of being “made in the image of God” blasphemous. Men are slave of God and God is inapproachable by men. But Christian God walks and talks with His people.
• The universe was made to manifest God’s glory. Man is made in the image of God to reflect God’s glory. Thus men has reflected glory of God and intrinsic value imparted by God.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (1:28)
• Men were given responsibilities.
Then God said,
“I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food (1:29).
And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground–everything that has the breath of life in it–I give every green plant for food.” And it was so (1:30).
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—
the sixth day (1:31).
• God gave natural rules to sustain lives. Men cannot conduct science without natural rules. Hence, science and God should not be in conflict with one another.
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array (2:1).
By the seventh day
God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work (2:2).
• The word “rest” means no more new creation. God still works—the work of redemption.
And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done (2:3).
Ref. Blog article published on January 27, 2012: “https://hocl.org/blogs/tincheelo/?p=301”
— Note —
“And God Said” — God spoke the universe into existence. Whatever God spoke forth was the Word of God. The Word of God signifies information. If the Word of God could cause the universe into existence, the Word of God must have the energy of creation.
- God spoke the world into being by the power of His words (Hebrews 11:3).
- For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm (Psalm 33:9).
The universe has mass because it is physical. The universe is orderly because it must have been guided by information of exactitude during its formation. Hence, we see the informational connection between energy and mass. Is it not what the famous Einstein’s equation E = mc2 all about?
Thus “And God Said” has a new dimension of scientific significance that the ancient world could not have comprehended.
