Answers In Genesis - Sunday School - Week 27

Good. OK. I wonder how the other classes are looking right now. What now, what's your name again?

You're Daniel. OK, cool. Oh, nice. And so was it, is it Eric and his family that that, or OK.

Yeah, OK. Oh, cool. Nice. Well, good to have you.

I think we'll go ahead and pray. We'll jump into things that I might delay just a little bit so everybody can get in on the video, but, but let's go ahead and pray. Lord, we thank you so much for your kindness and goodness to us today. this special day that you have set aside that we might come and worship you and set aside all of our other concerns.

we thank you that in our culture we're still, for the most part, many people are able to get Sundays off and, and so we can come and worship you and give our attention to your word and your people. We pray, Father, that you'd use us in each other's lives this day. both in the Sunday school hour, our time of worship. And, as many of us meet in our small groups.

But we just thank you, Lord, that we can, we have for the freedom of religion that we have. We ask you continue to protect that. we ask that you guide our discussion this morning. As we, As we look at some important matters in Christ's name we pray.

Amen. All right. So just a reminder that next week is when we have Matthew McLean coming and geologists. getting his doctorate in Loma Linda, even though he hasn't officially received his doctorate yet, he is, A growing name in science, for some of the things that he's already accomplished.

One, putting together this website called Teraterra where other geologists and people that are studying dinosaurs can put all of their research in one location and, and then also he's doing this research that's gotten national, actually international acclaim on cannibalism. and dinosaurs. And so he's gonna be talking about he's, what's he titled the message, it's like protecting the dinosaur reputation is what he's gonna be talking about next week. And so, really encourage you guys to come out.

We'll have the junior high and high school are also gonna join us. this would be a good, we always encourage you guys to invite friends to church, but If any friends that are have questions about creation, about science, about what the Bible says about science. This would be a really good Sunday to invite somebody. so he'll be here with us for the 9 o'clock hour and then he'll be preaching at 10:30, so it's gonna be a lot of fun.

So, that's Matthew McLean. I've got it spelled correctly there. Yeah, and, and this is the last Sunday of this particular. class, God is Creator and redeemer.

when we come back after Easter, we're gonna jump into our next quarter where we're gonna start talking about the flood. So, we'll be moving through Genesis flood, 6 to 10, and then on into the Tower of Babel, and, and then finishing up the year, we'll be done at the end of May. So, today is a review. what we're gonna do is we're gonna show a video.

And then we're gonna ask some questions. What have I, what have I learned from this class? That's me, and then what have you learned from this class that I'd like to hear from you guys. The reason that I picked this particular video, And some of you may have, may remember I showed a clip of it last year.

is what we have on in the video is several godly men. Who are discussing the basic question, should we divide over the age of the earth is the basic question. And, and I, I think what you guys are gonna see is I, I appreciate the fact that we have Christians that are up talking about this in a way that demonstrates that they're brothers in the Lord. And so there's a demonstration of unity.

At the same time, we disagree and so we need to talk through the matters. And so, so one of the lessons I'm hoping that we're gonna see is, is just that Christians need to talk about things that we, that we don't agree on. so often, you guys have probably experienced this in various circles. I know in my circle, sometimes you're in groups where people don't talk about things they disagree with because to bring it up is, is to already create disunity by bringing up things we disagree with.

And so that can be a problem. but then also, sometimes people just choose not to associate with brothers and sisters in Christ that differ with them on issues that we might consider more minor issues and just not even be a part of, of them. And so does that really demonstrate to unity, true unity. I wanna suggest that we should be able to speak the truth and love.

Now, as you go to, any particular organization, there is wisdom in joining an organization that if, if, like if you were to join Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church, we all understand that there's disagreements on various pieces of doctrine. I'll just give you one example. Cornerstone is a is a dispensational pre-millennial church. And so if you joined the Cornerstone, you would know that coming in.

And while we do fellowship with all kinds of people that are not dispensational, not pre-millennial, when we go out and do an outreach and this and that. we encourage people, if you're gonna join Cornerstone, come in as a learner. But realize this is our doctrinal statement and so we would ask that if you have a teaching forum that you're not trying to turn us into a covenantal church or reject dispensationalism. And so there is wisdom in how you discuss issues, given the organization that you're choosing to join.

OK, so with that, We're gonna go ahead and start the video. And. Oh, the final thing I want to mention is I want you guys to try to identify, the various, worldview or like. what would you call it?

hermeneutical issues that come out of the various answers that each one of the speakers gives. We've presented a certain hermeneutical approach in this class. And so I want you to try to identify who seems to be following the hermeneutical approach that we're recommending. And what are the the hermeneutical undergirdings of each person's viewpoint?

Do, do you have the ability to shut the lights down back there? OK. All right, we'll go ahead and start. And this is about 25 minutes, I believe, so we'll take notes.

See one more? Nope. Hope you guys enjoyed that. Yeah Steven Meyer.

I'm not sure. I know, up there, Archie Sproll, Archie Sproll Junior, and Horton are all covenant lists. but I don't know about Meyer and I don't know about Tackett. So, that's a good question.

I don't know, obviously, that, that wouldn't really hinge upon their creation views because, you've got Sproul and Sproul Junior, who are both Kevin Ellis who are on the complete polar opposite on their creation views. But yeah, that's a good question. Let me make a couple of general observations and then we'll ask, see what you guys think. So the, the 3, the 5 panelists obviously were Archie Sproul.

And his view is basically what? Yeah, I don't know. There's just not enough evidence. What's that?

Yeah, all the data is not in. And he brings up this argument that I, I do wanna address about the Copernican revolution. this is a very common argument against, what we would call the normal approach to scripture, and the, the idea is like you said, that, is that the church, based upon scripture had been teaching a geocentric view for hundreds of years. Copernicus comes along and demonstrates scientifically that that view is wrong.

even have Calvin Luther calling him a, a heretic, but eventually people realize the heliocentric view is correct and so we need to alter our view of how we interpret the Bible. Let me, let me give a response to that. Did, by asking a question, did heliocentrism originate in the church or in the scientific realm? Who is the, who is the inventor scientifically of heliocentrism?

Ptolemy, right? It's a Ptolemaic view. It's a, he's a, he's a Roman, he's Roman or Greek, I forget, scientist. the helios, I'm sorry, the geocentric view had been established by science, BC.

And so what the church had been doing for hundreds of years is basically conforming their view of the Bible to the accepted scientific theory of the time. And so I actually argue that the Copernican revolution is more of an argument for what we're dealing with now than an argument against a young Earth creation viewpoint, and, and here's why I say that. Is that, in my view, a number of our friends, even on this platform. are bending over backwards to conform their understanding of scripture to the current accepted scientific model of today, which is basically Darwinian evolution.

what were Christians doing for centuries up until Copernicus? They were bending over backwards to make scripture say to agree with a geocentric view. and yes, you can find, metaphors in the Psalms and things like that to give some appearance of geocentrism. And so, I don't think the Copernicus argument, it, it doesn't really side one way or the other, although it's been used to try to, to, to make people in the church look foolish.

We've been following the Bible, it's been obviously disproven. Not only that, maybe these guys know better now, but if you do any research on geocentrism versus heliocentrism, Even amongst secularists, heliocentrism is by far the most dominant view, but there are recent scientists that are questioning heliocentrism, believe it or not. Go online and look it up. There are some secular scientists who are not completely convinced of heliocentrism because we're dealing with a perspective of where we're at in the universe.

You might think that's ridiculous. But I don't understand the science part of it, but there's this, how like sometimes there's theories in various disciplines where there's the dominant view, but if you research, if you really get into that particular discipline, you'll find out that there's actually more complex debates on a, on a, a much higher level where people are debating things. That's the same thing here with heliocentrism, geocentrism. yeah, Joe.

Yeah, Yeah, I think, basically, I think Copernicus, what he argued from what my understanding is, is, based upon the shadows that he saw cast upon the moon and, and his research on like What do you call it when the shadows cross over and completely cover Eclipses and things like that. and his various calculations, he was able to work up a model that seemed to explain things better. And when he looked at the scriptures, he observed what we would say today that places that would had traditionally been interpreted as geocentric, he said, these are, this is poetry, so this is metaphoric language.

and there really isn't anything, from a scientific standpoint or a biblical standpoint that we could say that argues for a geocentric or just demands a geocentric system.

no, I think he's arguing more from silence, silence, that the, that the Bible really doesn't say a whole lot about it and the places where it's traditionally been argued, he would argue that those were metaphors and a lot of, a lot of the traditional passages and poet. portions of poetry and whatnot. So, so anyway, that's my response to that. So, and then you see this debate between general revelation and special revelation, all truth is God's truth.

personally, I, I really like Tackett's argument that it is true that if interpreted properly, everything that we have in general revelation and special revelation is from God. But if you leave the fallout, if you leave certain things that we can only know by faith, there's certain data that can only be known by faith. And one of those important pieces of data is the fall and its effect upon the universe, then your interpretation of the universe is gonna be marred. And I love his analogy of trying to hit a fish through the water.

so, that's, that's Del Tackett. And let's see. And then Horton, what was, what was Horton's view? he's the 2nd to last guy, Michael Horton.

He's older, he says he gets there for exegetical reasons. He starts to say from the Bible, but then he says, well, not completely from the Bible alone, which I'm glad he added that cause that's an honest answer that you cannot come to his position from the scriptures alone. But if you take his particular presuppositions and then start to look at the scriptures, you can, you can get there. and so his ultimate bottom line is, is we ought to just let the scientists interpret the rocks.

We need to stay away from the rocks. RJ Sproul Junior says that he is pitching his tent on what? Yo And what, and so when he was in seminary, what was his view? He's an old earth guy in seminary, but when, when one of his professors said, if you're gonna understand the text now, you must understood how the text then.

That is an excellent hermeneutical principle. How would the Jews who are sitting on the other side of the Jordan, about ready to come over and take Canaan, when they received the Book of Genesis from Moses, how would they have read it and how would they have understood it? When Moses is riding out underneath the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, on the 1st day, God said, Let there be light, in the morning and evening, that was the 1st day. And here's the 2nd day, in morning and evening, that was the 2nd day, and then so on and so forth.

Morning and evening, this is the 3rd day. And then you, we've talked about this in the past, you get to Exodus, and in the book of Exodus, it says, You shall keep the Sabbath, for in 6 days, God created the heavens and the earth, and on the 7th day he rested. Therefore, you should rest on the 7th day. Anybody who's trying to do a straightforward reading of the text, how did the original audience understand 6 days and 7th day?

has to admit, and these guys do admit that the most natural way to understand the passage is a literal day. Most, most of these guys that are scholars and they're just being straightforward and honest, they're gonna say, yeah, we admit a straightforward reading of the text would lead to just such a view as we have given by the young earthers. even RC Sproll says from the, on the front end that when you're just reading the scriptures, it would, there seems to be hints towards a younger view.

but what they say is, but because we know science contradicts that, we must find another explanation of the text.

That's ultimately what it seems to be coming down. Any, any comments you guys have, on this? Yeah, Larry, what they, what they didn't mention was the flood. Yes, Yeah, yeah.

It Yeah, totally. Yeah, so it's not just creation, it's the fall, it's the flood, it's even the Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel biblically gives a, a An amazing explanation of anthropology, that is rejected by most secular anthropologists today. Yeah, Jeannie.

Yeah, so those, the question is, how do these guys, they're more on the older side gonna handle Romans 5. They're gonna, they're gonna start with the two book theory and basically say, because we know that the earth is X number of years old and the fossils indicate that, that are, however we're defining death, it must be something different than what we're thinking about. And so for them, death. is, so you can still, you can have animals dying, you can have, and they'll use an analogy.

Here's one of their analogies. They would say, do you think Adam and Eve, if Adam stepped on an ant, did it die before the fall? And they'll say, obviously an aunt died. Was that death?

And so they would reason from there that if an ant could die before the fall, then therefore there must have been. The animals and things could die, and yet that not be technically death in the spiritual sense. So, which we've talked about that in the past, I would argue that no, there was no death. Nothing categorized as death or disease or dying.

Or they'd say, if you take a piece of fruit, And you eat it Did you just kill that fruit? Well, biblically, death is, is something that has to do with breathing animals, right? It's like, the, the, even the both the Greek and the Hebrew root, it's the idea of breath coming into a person and breath leaving a person. So when you're talking specifically about death, you're talking about living, breathing animals.

So, no, a plant wasn't dying when you cut off its branches. Well if, if Adam and Eve were pruning trees, they weren't killing trees. but see, the, in my opinion, these are the lengths that people need to go to, to explain their worldview. I do appreciate, for the most part, I appreciate the fact that they're saying we do need to have dialogue.

Dialogue needs to be carried on in a, in a, In a way where we're discovering truth. The one thing I am critical of about some of the people on the platform here, and I, and I say critical, not, in the best sense of the term, Is the elephant in the room is, is they're all talking about People who are younger as creationists who think this is an important issue because it threatens the authority of the Word of God. And, and so they are amped up about it because they feel like while it does not directly affect the doctrine of salvation, when you're denying what seems to be the straightforward reading of scripture, that does hinge upon our view of the authority of, of the word.

more, moreover, historically speaking, I think what's befuddling to a lot of people that are more on the older side is that this was a dead issue until the 1970s.

And since the 1970s, there's been this resurrection of creationism and young Earth creationism. That is somewhat befuddling. not just a Christian scientists, but also to the secular world. I, I don't know if we've, I, I can't remember if we've done the history lesson here in this class, but basically, Up until around the, the mid 1800s, the dominant view all throughout church history was a young Earth, literal 7-day creation or 6-day creation viewpoint.

but with the rise of Darwin and even some of the geologists before him, the church begins to mold its viewpoints to what was the accepted, what had seemed to have been proven scientifically. And so once you get to around the 1920s, 1910s, 1920s, all of your favorite theologians and my favorite theologians had almost entirely given up on the creation. George Machan, you think about BB Warfield and some of these guys that maybe you've read or not, they were all basically theistic evolutionists by that point because the over, if you were gonna be an academic, the overwhelming viewpoint was that creation, a literal approach to creation was dead.

And so that's pretty much the way it was, at least in academic circles, all the way up until the 1970s when Henry Morris began, began his research and wrote his book on the Genesis record.

So, Henry Morris is the George Washington of, of modern creationism. With his book, And then other scientists who read his material and said, we've been having the same types of questions. There has been this resurrection, so to speak, of creationism. Not all young Earth creationism, but people questioning Darwinism, people questioning the, the modern approach to evolution.

In fact, it's, it's, it's secular questionings of Darwin's viewpoint that led to the doctrine or the teaching of punctuated equilibrium. I don't know if you guys are familiar with that, but basically, Darwin, when he wrote his stuff on, on, evolution, he said the geological strata should have evidence everywhere if my theory be true. But when they began to look at the geological strata, they don't see the evidence everywhere. In fact, they're having trouble finding it anywhere.

what you have is certain species, you don't see this progression of one species to another. You have one species, and then you have a completely other species, and that's what they call the missing link. It's actually missing links. there's no links between the species.

And so then they postulated the theory called punctuated equilibrium, which basically says that the transition between various life forms happened very rapidly. When they say rapidly, they mean thousands of years rather than millions of years. So there are different pockets in history where species would just something happened with the DNA and species would just rapidly move, and that's why we don't see the transitional forms in the geological strata. It's a very convenient explanation of the geological strata.

So, most, most people I've talked to, they don't even realize that the Darwinianism that we're talking about today is a completely different form. from what Darwin had postulated. back in the 1800 late 1800s. Anyway, any, any final comments?

We didn't really get to the other review. Yeah. They Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we have the same Holy Spirit, same Bible, and we're coming to different conclusions. Yeah, that, and that can be, that can be frustrating. I, I think What we have to, what we do have to remember is on the on the vast majority of, of core issues, Christians are unified, but we still, on this side of heaven, we still are dealing with this thing called indwelling sin, which does affect our interpretive process.

And so I think what Sproul said is actually true. We do need to be careful, because I'm reading and interpreting still on this side of the fall or this side of heaven. my interpretations could be wrong. And so, it's one of the reasons why my interpret all of our interpretations need to be subjected to the church and to one another.

we're not just interpreting an island, an island by myself. if I come up with some view that nobody's ever come up with before, that could be bad news. But, the hope that we have is that we're gonna be, once we hit heaven, God's gonna, we'll all have the same view. In my view, we'll all be young earthers by the time we get there, so.

Somebody else, I think, Dave. Yeah. Yeah, I like what Sproul Junior says at the end when he said, he says, honestly, I think people are embarrassed to speak. What seems to be the straightforward conclusions in front of the heathen.

And I, I, a lot of times I, I, I think that is the bottom line is. is it's, it's, it's difficult to say publicly what the Bible really says and realizing that you will be rejected from academic circles if you say so. And then at the same time, what he said about the young earthers, I've seen that as well, is when you read some of the Young Earth articles, it's almost like if the science moved a different direction, then they would move right with them. and so, there is a temptation on that side as well.