The Biblical Doctrine of Creation
By W. John Cook
W. John Cook, former Bible College lecturer
In seeking to discover how this world came into being we must depend primarily on what God has revealed in the Holy Scriptures, believing that they are true, infallible and sufficient for all believers. The Lord Jesus affirmed this in prayer to the Father, “Thy word is truth,” John 17:17, and it is clearly taught and assumed many times in the Bible. We also receive His testimony to the abiding truths of God’s Word in the Law of Moses, which includes Genesis. “Till heaven and earth pass away one jot or one tittle will no means pass from the Law” Matthew 5:18.
Since God cannot lie or deceive men, we must of necessity believe all that He caused Holy Men of old to write in the Scriptures, for they were moved by the Holy Spirit, 2 Peter 1:21. This is the basis of the Protestant and Evangelical doctrines that we must apply to the doctrine of Creation. Clearly, we must begin in Genesis 1:1 where God is pleased to commence His revelation of fundamental truth about Creation.
This is the basis of all the biblical teaching of God’s relationship to the world and man’s place in it: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This is an accurate translation of the original Hebrew found in the Authorised Version and accepted as valid by Hebrew scholars. We receive the Holy Scriptures as the basis for our total commitment to God in what we believe and how we behave.
We recognise our need of His revelation and submit to its authority, and rejoice in its sufficiency and its perspicuity. Since God’s clear teaching is that His creative work was done in six days, and that He rested on the seventh day, we need not look for an alternative that mere fallible men may suggest. Since each day mentioned in Ch.1 is introduced by the formula, “The evening and the morning were the first … to the sixth day,” it is impossible to claim an alternative length of time extending to millions of years without denying God’s truthfulness.
The six day week of creation is taught also in Ch.2:2,3, “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because he rested from all his work which God created and made.” Allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture we note in Exodus Ch.20 that the reason for keeping the Sabbath Day holy and resting from work is given in verse 11, “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath Day and hallowed it.”
God’s method of creating in Genesis 1:1-7, “God said and it was so,” is repeated in Psalm 33:9 “He spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast”. There is no alternative teaching in the Bible, and since God cannot lie, we are obliged to receive that which he has provided in Genesis, as the authoritative truth. The account of creation is written as history, and the basis for the later history as recorded in Genesis, and also taught as an historical record elsewhere in the whole Bible.
The Lord Jesus Himself in Matthew 19:4, and Mark 10:6, refers to Genesis 1:27, “He who made them at the beginning made them male and female.” This truth that “God created them male and female,” is repeated in Genesis 5:2, clearly given as the basis of the history of mankind.
God’s institution of marriage given in Genesis 2:24 is also endorsed by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 19:5,6. The account of God’s making woman out of man in Genesis 2:21,22, is referred to by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:8 “Man is not of the woman but woman of the man.” The preposition “of” is used here to translate the Greek preposition ek that more precisely means “out of,” as does the Hebrew original.
To reject this biblical evidence would be a sinful criticism of God’s wisdom and integrity, and promote the question, “Why did He not tell us the truth, or the whole truth?” Should we believe instead the claims made by sinful men who lack the true wisdom that begins with the fear of God? The words of the Lord Jesus are surely relevant to God’s revelation about His work of creation, when He gave thanks to the Father: “Because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matthew 11:25; Luke 10:21).
In 1 Corinthians 3:19 we read, “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God,” and Psalm 94:11 teaches similarly, “The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are foolishness.” God’s searching question of Job designed to humble him may surely be applied to the scientists who question His revelation: “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding” (Job 38:4). There is no alternative description of Creation in God’s Word so that to reject the teaching of Genesis 1:1-2:3 would leave us with none and open the door for the theories of ‘scientists’ and deductions from claimed facts. Like Timothy we are commanded to avoid, “profane babblings, and the oppositions of science falsely so called” (1 Timothy 6:20).
This leads us to enquire in God’s Word about the effects of sin on the human mind and its expression in what men claim and teach as truth. We may firstly consider the teaching in Ephesians 2:1,2 “And you hath he (God) quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” This teaches that the devil exercises dominion over all men. All mankind lives under his control, so that Satan controls our thinking and our behaviour. The Lord Jesus declared that he is a liar, John 8:48, and from the beginning he prompted distrust of and disobedience to the word of God, Genesis 3:3-5. In 2 Corinthians 4:4 we read that the gospel is veiled to those who are perishing, “In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not.”
This solemn truth that sin affects the mind and intellect is commented on by E.J. Young, “The noetic effects of sin lead to anti-theistic presuppositions and inclinations” (Studies in Genesis One,’ page 53). We find in Romans 1:21 this searching exposure of fallen men that despite God’s revelation of Himself in the works of creation, “Men did not glorify Him as God, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
The unregenerate are always opposed to God – before they are converted nothing they think or do pleases God: “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. So, then they that are in the flesh cannot please God” (Romans 8:7,8).
Prof. John Murray explains that here, “The flesh is human nature as corrupted, directed and controlled by sin” (The Epistle to the Romans page 285).
The whole biblical doctrine of Creation is founded on the truth of Genesis 1:1-2:3, and the biblical doctrine of “fallen man” clearly reveals that he is deceitful and opposed to God and His truth. Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” When we bring together the biblical teaching of creation in six days, and the biblical doctrine of man, it must surely lead to the glad embrace of God’s truth in its entirety and the rejection of the teaching of sinful man.