Beth-El Baptist Church

03/04/2012

Greg Tomlinson


How important is one's understanding of Genesis 1?


There are several different ways that professing Christians interpret Genesis 1. Despite the disparity of ways to understand Genesis 1, many claim that it is actually unimportant.


  1. Why is Genesis 1 controversial?

Genesis 1:1, 14-19, 26-31 Exodus 20:11

2 Peter 3:8 Psalm 90:4

Hebrews 11:3


The primary challenge for people regarding Genesis 1 is the fact that it declares that God created the entire universe out of nothing but His own word in six days. This includes the existence of light before the Sun, moon and stars. The application of Peter's information about “one day is … as a thousand years” also leads some to apply that the days of Genesis 1 are not historical days but some sort of age, generation or something else. This is almost exclusively tied to modern scientists claiming that the universe is billions of years old, the earth is slightly younger and that humans did not dwell on earth until about 100 million years ago.


  1. What principles should be applied when interpreting scripture?

Isaiah 28:9-10 Psalm 11:3

Job 38:4-5 2 Peter 1:20-21

Titus 1:2 John 17:17


The more complex passages of scripture must be interpreted in light of the clearer and more specific passages. When it comes to origins, the Biblical interpreter must understand that no living human being was there when the world and all that is in it came into being. The only one who was there and thus an eyewitness to the creation event was God who is incapable of lying and incapable of deceiving people into believing a lie. Understanding scripture begins with it being the Word of God and thus reflecting the person, the nature, and the character of God from people who were specifically directed by God to record what God wanted them to record.


  1. How did Jesus understand Genesis 1?

Mark 10:5-8; 13:19 John 8:44


Jesus believed that Genesis 1 was literal history. Notice that He states that the man and the woman were there from “the beginning of creation”. Furthermore, Jesus identifies Satan as being present since the beginning. This alludes to the fall of man in Genesis 3. These events are all understood as being historical in nature.


  1. What does it imply if Genesis 1 is not interpreted as historical?

Genesis 3:5-8 Romans 5:12; 8:3-4

James 1:6 John 3:11-12


Since Genesis 1 is written with specific time markers, if Genesis 1 is not understood to be historical then the fall itself should be questioned since it is written in the same type of language as is Genesis 1. Furthermore, if the fall is not historical then there is actually no need for Jesus to have come in the “likeness of sinful flesh”. Instead of Jesus Christ dying for sins, original sin and the ability to be saved through the sacrifice of Jesus is illegitimate. There would be no need for a real and historical savior if sin itself is neither real nor historical. The basis for sin being historical is directly related to man having been created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27). We would then be free to understand scripture anyway that we like and when that takes place, scripture really has no meaning.