Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

 

Retired Bible Professor,

Bob Jones University

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Why Creation Matters, Part 2: From the Beginning

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Part 1: Introduction 

Moses himself, the author of the creation account, begins to interpret and apply it almost immediately. He finds his opportunity in two specific events: the initiation of the godly line, and the Great Flood. 

After the account of the Fall (Gen 3) and the birth of Cain and Abel and Cain’s murder of Abel (Gen 4), Moses begins to trace the line of “the seed of the woman” (Gen 3.15). That line is clearly not through Abel, since he is dead and without any named offspring, and it’s clearly not Cain, the murderer and outcast (Gen 4.12), as his offspring Lamech demonstrates (Gen 4.23-24). So Eve has a third son, Seth (Gen 4.25), whose name means “to appoint,” implying  that he is either “the seed of the woman” or the seed’s progenitor; indeed, shortly later “men began to call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen 4.26). 

Moses chooses to begin chapter 5 by announcing a formal genealogy: “This is the book of the generations of Adam” (Gen 5.1). But at the beginning he chooses to spend some column inches on the birth of Seth, more than is usual in a genealogy. He begins by referring back to his creation account—specifically the key fact that Adam and Eve were created “in the likeness of God” (Gen 5.1). Borrowing almost precisely from his earlier language, he emphasizes that both Adam and Eve, both of whom are essential in producing the godly line, are created directly by God and are in his image (Gen 5.2). He even says that God “called their name Adam” (Gen 5.2), which sounds odd to us until we realize that the name “Adam” simply means “person” or “human” (e.g. Gen 2.5). 

Now Moses applies that language to the birth of Seth: 

And Adam … begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth (Gen 5.3). 

Likeness. And image. Just as God, so to speak, created “after his kind” (Gen 1.11), so Adam and Eve did as well. And this language is more specific than “after his kind”; it’s a mirror image in certain ways. 

What’s the significance of this? It tells us that the image of God is not a “one-shot deal” effective for just a single generation or birth. It continues; Adam passes that image and likeness on to his offspring, who pass it on to theirs. We’re all, all of us, in that image and likeness. 

We find evidences of that in later Scripture. The New Testament repeatedly describes man, or all mankind, as in the image and/or likeness of God (1Co 11.7; 15.49). It describes Christ as particularly in that image (2Co 3.18; 4.4; Co 1.15; He 1.3), and believers, who are “in Christ” (2Co 5.17), as further conformed to that image (Ro 8.29; 1Co 15.49; 2Co 3.18; Co 3.10). 

I find it interesting that in the first reference to “image” in the New Testament, Jesus implies something further about its significance. In Matthew 22.20 and its Synoptic parallels (Mk 12.16; Lk 20.24), Jesus points out that since a coin bears the image of Caesar, it must belong to Caesar, and should be paid as a tax. What he does not say, but clearly has in mind, is that whatever bears the image of God—mankind—must then belong to God, and not to the state. We are his by right of creation, and he has marked us with his image—a brand, if you will—as visible evidence of that. 

The first significance of creation, then—established from the very beginning—is that God is our Owner and Lord, whether we acknowledge that or not. I suspect that a significant motive in the invention of other creation stories is the desire to circumvent, even to suppress (Ro 1.18), that fundamental fact.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Why Creation Matters, Part 1: Introduction

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Some years back, I wrote a series here explaining why I am (still!) a young-earth creationist, even though more and more of the cool kids are eating at a different lunch table. In evangelical academia, most scholars, while rejecting the atheistic evolution of, say, Richard Dawkins or the late Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan, or Christopher Hitchens, have adopted one of two theistic accommodations of evolutionary theory: either theistic evolution, typified by Biologos and its founder Frances Collins (most famous for his time as leader of the Human Genome Project, which produced a fully mapped human genome in 2003); or what I would call discontinuous or punctuated evolution, typified by Hugh Ross’s Progressive Creationism, which posits that God worked direct acts of creation at points along the timeline that natural processes could not account for. (Theistic evolutionists are generally nearly as dismissive of Progressive Creationism, labeling it a “god of the gaps” solution, as they are of Young Earth Creationism, which they view as uneducated and therefore ignorant.) 

I think it’s noteworthy that although evangelical scholars are generally old-earth creationists, the same cannot be said of the folks in the pew, or even outside the church: a 2024 Gallup poll recorded the most popular view as “God created humans in their present form” (37%); slightly fewer held that “humans evolved, God guided” (34%); and fewer still held that “humans evolved, God had no part (24%).” (Compare an earlier Pew Research Center survey here.) This spread is remarkable, given that public education has promoted atheistic evolution exclusively for well over half a century. I wonder whether there is something inherent in humans that resists atheistic “solutions”; it’s almost as though one has to go to college to be pressured away from it. 

At any rate, the earlier series represents my thinking on the “age of the earth” question. Here I’d like to broaden and refocus the discussion a bit. 

Some years ago my colleague (and doppelganger, before I grew a beard) Dr. Bill Lovegrove challenged the BJU university body, in a chapel message, to search the Scriptures for passages after the creation account in Genesis 1-2 that refer back to that account and draw some sort of conclusion or application from the fact that God is the Creator. I did that, and I’d like to share the results of that study here. Bill’s a scientist (engineer), but what he suggested is in fact a biblical theological study, which is where my training is; it’s right down my alley. 

So where does the Bible refer to God as the Creator, or to the creation event, and then apply that truth in some way to our thinking or behavior? You might be surprised at how frequently, and broadly, it does that. Such passages appear in every section of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh—the Law, the Prophets (Former and Latter), and the Writings. They appear in the New Testament as well—the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as the epistles of Paul, Peter, and the author of Hebrews, and the apocalyptic book of Revelation. That covers all the biblical genres, as well as the entire biblical timeline, from the earliest narrative in Genesis and the oldest biblical book (Job, I think) through the exilic and post-exilic writers (Jeremiah and Nehemiah) and through the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation. 

Because of the wealth of biblical data, I suspect this will be a long series. And that’s kind of the point. 

This is not some minor doctrine. Creation matters. 

Next time, the earliest biblical data. 

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Worthy, Part 1: Nothing, a Donkey, and an Unsatisfied Craving

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Once there was nothing. 

No time. No now, no then. No was, no will be. No yesterday, no tomorrow. 

No space. No length, no width, no height. No up, no down, no left, no right. 

No light; but no darkness either.  

Nothing. 

But there was someone. Or someones, depending on how you count. There were three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—in perfect harmony and at perfect peace, as One God. They—He—were/was not lonely; they—He—needed nothing.  

There was God. 

And there was all that God is. There was holiness; there was truth; there was goodness; and there was love. 

For His own reasons—which are all the reasons there were—God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was unformed and unfilled, and covered with a new thing called darkness. And the Spirit, like a mother hen, nestled over the dark surface of the earth, covering, embracing, enfolding. 

And then, following the Father’s plan, the Son spoke. 

“Let there be light.” 

And there was light. 

And over the next six days—there were days, and thus time, because there was light—the Son spoke again, and again. And every time He spoke, His words—His commandments—came to pass. The earth, unformed, began to take form. And the earth, unfilled, began to be filled, with life. 

And on the sixth day, the Son stopped speaking. He arose from His chair, so to speak, and He stepped into what He had spoken into existence. He knelt in the red clay outside Eden, and with His hands, he began to work. 

This time, unlike the other times, He was taking some time. His hands moved skillfully, purposefully, perfectly; and soon there was, lying on the ground in front of Him, the very image of Himself: a body just like the one He had temporarily assumed. Except—it was red, but not yet pink; it was lifeless. Still kneeling, the Son crouched over the lifeless body, placed His mouth on its ashen mouth, and breathed into it. 

And man became a living soul. Adam—“Red”—pinked up. The image of God lived. 

And then, something even more remarkable happened. The Son—God Himself—spoke to His image. He began to tell him things, about who He was, about what He liked and didn’t like. He offered Adam a chance to know Him. From the very beginning, God wanted to talk to His creature. 

Then the Son fashioned a wife for Adam, also in God’s image, but different from Adam in ways that made him better, more complete. And He told her about Himself too. He offered them both Himself. 

We all know what happened next. After Eve was deceived, Adam knowingly rejected God’s offer of fellowship and plunged all that God had made into chaos and death. And though God expelled them from the Garden, He kept talking to them and to their descendants. 

He spoke in an audible voice. He spoke in dreams and visions. He spoke through dew on a fleece, and through a bush that burned but wouldn’t burn up. Once he even spoke through a donkey. 

And along the way, even though He was communicating already in all these ways, He went even further. He began to see that the things He spoke were written down, so that more people could read His words than heard Him speak them. 

And the story He told had a single theme, in three parts. In the first part, called the Torah, God gave His people priests and sacrifices to wash away their sin and bring them back into fellowship with Him. But the sacrifices had to be made every day, twice a day. And there were other sacrifices: sin offerings, guilt offerings, trespass offerings, peace offerings, heave offerings, wave offerings. Why wasn’t there a priest who could offer a complete sacrifice—who could get the job done, and wash away our sins once forever? 

In the second part, called the Prophets, God spoke to His people through special spokesmen. There were many of them, and they spoke faithfully. But they, too, had a problem: sometimes they couldn’t understand their own messages, and sometimes they couldn’t describe what they saw in words that made sense to us. They spoke of wheels within wheels, and of a man who made his grave with both the wicked and the rich; they spoke of little horns and abominations of desolation, and it was often deeply confusing. Why wasn’t there a prophet who could speak clearly—who could tell us, in words we could understand, what God is like, and what He wants from us? 

In the third part, called the Writings, God gave His people kings to fight their battles for them. The first king was tall and handsome, and everyone liked him. But he was a real disappointment. So God picked a king for them, a young man with a soldier’s skill and courage and a musician’s tender heart. And for much of his reign he was joyously good; but in the end he fell into sin and descended his family into the same kinds of chaos that Adam had brought on us all from the beginning. The next king, his son Solomon, began well, but by the end of his life he was worshipping idols even after he had built a magnificent temple for the true God. And then the kingdom split, and while a few kings glimmered with hope and light, most of them just descended deeper and deeper into darkness. Why wasn’t there a king who could rule us well—who wouldn’t disappoint us? 

And so God’s Word to Israel, the Tanakh, ends, leaving us craving what we need from God, but unsatisfied. We need a priest. We need a prophet. We need a king. Even just one of them would be a blessing. 

The story continues next time.

Part 2: Utter Satisfaction, Utter Joy

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

On What We Learn from Looking Around, Part 4: TLC

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Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Omnipotence | Part 3: Omniscience

There’s something else we learn by observing creation carefully. Despite its brokenness, it seems to fit our needs just perfectly.

Our planet is in the solar system’s “Goldilocks zone”: like the fabled baby bear’s porridge, it’s “not too hot, not too cold—just right!” Further, the temperature is finely tuned by the planet’s slant on its axis, which gives most of the inhabited areas seasons—whether 4 or 2—and furthers the thriving of plant and animal life. And unlike its sister planet Mars, ours has an atmosphere, an ocean of air, with just the right amount of oxygen to support human and animal life, and just the right amount of nitrogen to keep the oxygen from causing us to burst into flame at inopportune moments. (And from what I’m told, all moments are inopportune for that.)

The balance of the biosphere is a remarkable thing; as we breath oxygen, we exhale carbon dioxide, which the plants use to produce more oxygen. Helpful little critters, no?

And it turns out that the sun that warms us and lights our days is also something of an enemy; it sends out radiation at levels that are harmful to us from even more than 90 million miles away. But invisibly surrounding our planet are streams of charged particles, driven from the sun but held in place around us by the planet’s magnetic field, that serve as a shield to divert the lethal levels of that radiation away from us.

Let’s see; what else?

Well, areas of the planet feel really crowded, and sometimes folks in those areas wish there were more land. I grew up in the West, “big sky country,” where we didn’t feel that pressure so much—and preferred it that way. I note that the planet’s average density of humans per square mile is just over 39—though of course, much of the planet’s land surface is uninhabitable (think Antarctica) or nearly so (think Sahara). But the Creator was being kind to limit the extent of the land mass, because the rest of the surface—ocean—is a gigantic water purification system that collects, distills, and then delivers drinkable water right to our feet.

Now, our environment’s not perfect. I mentioned a few words back that the system is broken. Lions choke wildebeests to death—I’ve seen it happen, up close and personal—without mercy and without apparent regret. Some people are inclined to focus on the brokenness; Jack London made a living writing stories about a nature that was “red in tooth and claw.” I think it’s important to note the brokenness, first, for our own preservation, and second, for evaluating the brokenness that we’re causing and then remedying it. After all, the Creator has made us responsible for the care and preservation of the planet as well as its wise use.

But the obvious brokenness makes creation’s general kindness all the more impressive. We deal everyday with things, creations of fellow humans, that don’t work at all when any little thing goes wrong. That’s why so many people make such good money repairing and maintaining expensive systems.

But creation just keeps doing what it does so well—supporting life. It amazes me how desperately life wants to continue. You can be out in the middle of a lava field, and there’s a little weed growing up through a crack, clinging to a few grains of something resembling dirt, raising its tiny leaves to the sky and soaking up the sun, yearning to grow.

Of course it’s true that by foolish mismanagement we humans can interfere with the Creator’s systems and make life difficult or even impossible (think Chernobyl). But it really is astonishing that a system so complex continues to support life after millennia of inattention or even abuse.

Whoever made all this must really, really like us.

Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator (1P 4.19).

Part 5: Closing Thoughts

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On Beginning at Moses

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… with a nod to my former Greek teacher and colleague Dr. Mike Barrett.

One of my favorite experiences is gaining an insight into biblical material that has never occurred to me before.

That happens to me fairly frequently, and yesterday it happened right in the middle of class, thanks to a student question.

We know that the entire Scripture is about Christ. Jesus himself made that point in a conversation he had with two disciples on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection (Lk 24.13ff). (And that passage, Lk 24.27 precisely, is where Dr. Barrett got the title for his book.) Boy do we wish Luke had seen fit to include a transcript of that conversation in his Gospel!

I suspect it was pretty much like Paul’s standard synagogue sermon, recorded in Acts 13.14ff, but with a lot more prophecies included.

Those two disciples said that their hearts burned within them when they heard these things (Lk 24.32). It’s easy to see why. Here they were realizing that the Tanakh (the Old Testament)—a document they had studied all their lives and thought they knew well—was filled with meaning that they had completely missed. It was like the old book had become completely new again; they were starting over as neophytes, going over long-familiar words and seeing completely new things in them.

It’s also easy to see why the early church became really taken with the idea of finding Christ in the Old Testament, looking under every bush—burning or not—to see if he was there. They found a lot of good examples, but sometimes they found things that weren’t even there—for example, when they decided that Solomon’s personification of wisdom in Proverbs 8 was actually talking about Christ. The heretic Arius was able to turn that unfounded interpretation against them by citing Prov 8.22 as proof, then, that Jesus was created by God “in the beginning.”

Oopski.

Mistakes like that have made more recent interpreters, including yours truly, a little wary of suggesting that Christ is somewhere in the OT where he hasn’t been widely recognized before.

So it’s with some trepidation that I share my “insight.”

[Deep breath.] Here goes.

The New Testament tells us repeatedly that Jesus, the Son, is in fact the creator of all things (Jn 1.3; Col 1.16; Heb 1.2). I take that to mean that the Father is the visionary, the designer, in creation, while the Son is the active agent, actually doing the work of creating, while the Spirit hovers over and tends to what is created (Gen 1.2). (So far, that’s a fairly standard, common interpretation.)

And I take that to mean that Elohim (“God”) in Gen 1 and the first paragraph of Gen 2 is actually the person of the Son. (Many others would argue that the name refers to the united Godhead, the essence rather than any one of the persons. That’s not a hill I’m interested in dying on, but bear with me here.)

In Gen 2.4 the name changes from Elohim to Yahweh Elohim (“the LORD God”). Does that indicate a change of person, or is the protagonist still the Son? Well, if “God” created man in Gen 1.27, and in the theological retelling of the story “the LORD God” created man in Gen 2.7, then it seems reasonable to continue to see the Son as the protagonist in the account.

Now, “the LORD God” continues as the main character through the end of Gen 3; Gen 4 begins to use the name Yahweh (“the LORD”). (Eve uses that name in Gen 4.1, and the narrator—Moses—begins using it in Gen 4.3.)

All of this serves as a reasonable basis for seeing Jesus as the one acting in Genesis 3. An additional evidence of that is that “the LORD God” is described as “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen 3.8)—and the Son is the only person of the Godhead described as physically embodied in Scripture. (But is Rev 5.6-7 an exception? Hmm.)

So, finally, here’s the thought I had in class today.

Is it actually Jesus who utters the prophecy of Gen 3.15?

Is it Jesus who, perhaps with an animated glint in his eye, tells the serpent that one day, the seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head?

Wouldn’t that put quite an edge on those words? Wouldn’t it be a lot like the time David gave Goliath a list of all the things he was going to do with Goliath’s various body parts (1Sa 17.45-47), but exponentially more fearsome, and exponentially more consequential?

The Son and the Serpent, standing in the Garden, face to face, making an appointment for a battle to the death, thousands of years into the future?

I’m going to have to think about that.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Sublime to Ridiculous

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God is great, and he is good.

He created all things in the span of six days, and the Scripture describes the origin of all the stars in all the galaxies in all the galaxy clusters in all the universe with just three words (two in Hebrew): “and the stars” (Gen 1.16). And the speed with which he made it all implies no hurry or lack of attention to detail; he made the earth perfect as a residence—a sanctuary—for us humans, with all of our needs—oxygen, water, food, light, heat—freely and abundantly provided (Gen 1.29).

He made us in his image (Gen 1.27) and sought out our companionship in the cool of the day (Gen 3.8). And despite our faithlessness to him and our rejection of his commands (Gen 3), he set out on a long plan to woo us back to himself, as the one whom his soul loves.

Why so long?

For at least a couple of reasons, I think.

First, because his long, unflagging pursuit of us assures us of his love. He’s serious about this. He’s not going away. This is true love of the purest and most devoted kind.

And second, because he gives us time. We are stubborn—he knows that (Ps 103.14)—and we need to be shown that we will not be satisfied with anything or anyone but him. So he lengthens our leash, and he lets us sniff all the sidewalks to our heart’s content. He patiently endures the jealousy his own heart feels toward us, watching us seek satiation in everything else there is. He lets us exhaust ourselves in our foolishness. He’s a patient lover.

And when we’ve come to the end of our orgy, to the end of ourselves, wrecked and ruined and unattractive and repulsive (Ezek 16), then he draws us to himself, graciously, tenderly, and whispers to us of love. And we ought to believe him. His patience tells us of his love; his revelation of himself tells us (Rom 2.4); and most especially, his giving of himself in brutalizing, deadly sacrifice—for our filthiness, not his—tells us beyond any doubt (Rom 5.8).

But even as believers—forgiven, welcomed, indwelt, gifted, guided, protected, loved—we find ourselves faithless. We doubt his promises—or worse, forget them—and fear the place he’s called us to serve. Like toddlers in the checkout line, we find ourselves distracted by bright colors and sugary treats, and we seek our fulfillment in light and worthless things. We go through the motions of marriage to him, but our heart is elsewhere. We’re glad for his grace—don’t you feel bad for all those (other) people going to hell?—but we pursue our own joys and our own ends. We’ve hired other people, you see, to serve him “full-time,” to take the gospel to the ends of the earth as he has commanded us.

And we fear. Oh, do we fear. Will I lose my health? Will the wrong guy get elected? Will the market crash? Will laws be broken?

What if it does? What if they are? Is our God asleep? Is he in the men’s room (1Ki 18.27)? After millennia of pursuing us, is he going to abandon us now?

This isn’t the first time the kings of the earth have raged against God’s anointed (Ps 2). It isn’t abnormal that God’s people are not the powerful of the earth (1Co 1). His plan for us, apparently, is very different from our plan for ourselves. Once again.

I sought the Lord, and he answered me

and delivered me from all my fears (Ps 34.4).

 

So then.

PSA: I’ve seen all those memes. You know, those fearful and snide and unoriginal and hostile and divisive ones about Colin Kaepernick and Cory Booker and Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein and whatever else. So you can stop posting them now, OK? Maybe you could post about–oh, I don’t know–the things I’ve mentioned above. Thanks.

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash

Somewhere Out There

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OK, that car thing was really cool. Sure, it was a waste of a really good car, in the most materialistic of senses, and sure, it was symbol over substance, and sure, they’re saying the radiation will destroy it in a year, and sure, it’ll never actually get to Mars, and sure, even if it did, without any propulsion it would just crash into it and join the rest of the rust.

But still, it was really, really cool. Sometimes symbol is every bit as important as substance.

And it got me thinking.

Wouldn’t it be even cooler if somebody found it, out there, somewhere? What would they think? What would they do?

The half-full folks think, “They’d know we’re here! And they’d come looking for us! And share their technology! And wouldn’t that be just awesome!”

And the half-empty folks think, “Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND?! They’d know we’re here! And they’d come looking for us! And make us slaves! Or eat us! Or something!”

Well, I’ll observe that if they come looking for us, then they’re way more advanced than we are, and the outcome is going to be pretty much out of our hands at that point.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, aren’t we? Shouldn’t we be asking if there’s a “they” at all?

A lot of people think there is. Are. Whatever.

I suppose we think like that because we want to. We’re social people—God made us that way (Gen 2.18)—and we want there to be Others. And since we’re broken, and everybody we know here is broken (Rom 3.23), maybe we like to hold out hope that there will be less irritating people Out There.

So we posit reasons and evidences. Evolutionists argue that as many galaxies as there are, there must be bazillions of planets, and a lot of them must be in the Goldilocks zone, and surely the odds favor that evolution has happened out there too. (Methinks they misoverestimate the odds that evolution happened even here.)

Even my fellow Christians—using the term fellow relatively loosely—have suggested biblical evidence for life on other planets:

Well, suppose we get a little more, um, down to earth, and give a little theological thought to the subject?

  • Could God have created life on other planets?
    • Of course! He’s omnipotent, and a multivariate creation of life is certainly not inconsistent with his nature.
  • Wouldn’t he have told us?
    • Not necessarily. There’s a LOT he hasn’t told us (Dt 29.29). He’s infinite, you may recall.

This possibility does raise a bunch of questions. For example,

  • Has this hypothetical extraterrestrial race been created in the image of God?
  • If so, has it fallen into sin?
  • If so, has God willed to redeem it? (Would it violate his nature not to redeem his image?)
  • If so, …
    • Is more than one method of redemption possible in some other planetary cosmos? Or is the specific method of redemption tied to the unchanging nature of God?
    • Or does the Son—or even a different member of the Godhead—incarnate with them and endure another death?
    • Or does God simply reveal to them what he has done on another planet (ours) and offer to apply it to them?
    • Are any of the above options completely ruled out by what we know of the nature of God?

I’ll tell you what we do know.

God has invested us with a stewardship here, and now, on this planet, and we need to make that our first priority. Speculation on matters like this are useful in that they can exercise our theological thinking and may provide insights into other theological questions. But they cannot replace direct obedience to the Great Commission (Mt 28.19-20) and to our fundamental purpose as images of God here on earth (1Co 10.31; Rom 11.36).

So that’s enough speculation for today. Let’s get back to Kingdom work, my fellow princes and princesses.

But that car is really cool.

Photo credit: SpaceX

Created. Now What? Part 9: Creature vs Creator, and the Surprise Ending

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Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

In our study of what it means to have a Creator, we’ve noted a couple of significant consequences: the fact that we’re in the image of God, and the fact that we’re responsible to the one who created us. Last time I noted that the Bible seems to place our sexual behavior fairly high on the list of our responsibilities to God. Here, rather than itemizing further down the list, I’d like to make a larger point.

Since we have responsibilities, it’s possible to shirk them. We can fulfill our responsibilities poorly, or half-heartedly, or we can ignore them altogether. Most of us know how irritating that can be; we’ve had children who didn’t do what we asked, or we’ve been assigned group projects with people who just didn’t care, or we’ve had employees who acted as though we were paying them primarily as a philanthropic endeavor.

Boy. Some people.

Imagine, then, the heart of the Creator when we ignore or trivialize our responsibilities to him.

He has made us—we are in debt to him for every breath of fresh air, every floral scent, every brilliant sight, every soothing sound, every delicious taste of food or drink, every hug, every laugh, every moment of passion or delight. We exist, and we know every one of the joys that existence has brought, because of him.

Beyond that, he has made us in his image, far greater than any other creature, so that even mighty animals respond to us with respect. He has given us dominion over all we see, so that we can use it freely for our own survival and prosperity.

We owe him everything.

So how despicable is it when we despise his gifts and ignore the responsibilities he has given us? when we turn every one to his own way? when we treat him as absent, or even enemy, instead of loving Father?

There’s a word for that kind of attitude or behavior. We call it sin. It’s possible only because we are creatures: if we were random accidents, no other creature could claim that we owe him any duty; we would all be lords of our own flies and nothing more.

But we are not random accidents. There is such a thing as sin, and it’s very, very serious business. It’s far worse than anything any ungrateful child or apathetic fellow team member or entitled employee has ever done to us. It’s worse than inattention or even hostility; it’s a denial of our very selves and the One to whom our very selves are owed.

What should be a Creator’s response to such ingratitude and rebellion? After we have despised his many gifts, what more does he owe us? What should we now expect from him?

Well, the reasonable response would be for him to take our unappreciated toys away from us. Joy. Delight. Pleasure. Freedom. Rest. Peace.

And life itself.

But he doesn’t.

Oh, my friend, does he ever not.

In the midst of his anger, rightly earned, he gives more grace.

He determines to forgive—and to find a way to do so without violating his perfect justice.

He determines to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.

Astoundingly, he steps into our world, lives in the dump we have made for ourselves, and does perfectly what we have done badly or not at all. He meets his own standard of perfect righteousness.

And then—what?!—he punishes himself for our graceless acts of rebellion. He pays the price himself, through death.

Even the death of the cross.

And because he will not tolerate defeat, or even apparent defeat, he uses that death to destroy the one who has the power of death, the one who led us willingly astray in the first place. Rather than counting us enemies, he soundly defeats our greatest enemy and so counts us his friends.

There are no words.

Now, after all that, what does it mean to live as a creature?

It means gratitude, devotion. It means steely determination to live for him, for the publishing of his fame to every corner of what he has created. It means loving our enemies with the same fervor with which he has loved his.

It means using every breath, every neural impulse, every calorie, every heartbeat to be his servant.

What difference does it make that we are created?

Every possible difference. Every one.

What patience would wait as we constantly roam?
What Father, so tender, is calling us home?
He welcomes the weakest, the vilest, the poor!
My sins, they are many; his mercy is more!
(Matt Papa)

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Created. Now What? Part 8: On Hurting Yourself by Ignoring the Directions

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If we’re created, then we’re accountable to our Creator. That’s just simple logic.

We’re accountable in many ways, great and small. We have to do what he says.

Does the creation account emphasize any specific kinds of accountability? specific design specs? our essential identity and proper use?

Yes, it does.

From the very beginning, we’re told, when God created us in his image (Gen 1.26), he created us male and female (Gen 1.27). That’s the original design, an essential part of what it means to be human.

And the first recorded words God spoke to his creatures, this male and this female, were straightforward: “Be fruitful, and multiply” (Gen 1.28). That’s the first way that humans are to implement dominion; there have to be enough of them that they can get significant things done.

Now, there’s only one way to multiply, to be fruitful.

Yep. God has designed, and then ordered, our sexual nature and behaviors. And to encourage things along, we’re told at the end of the next chapter, he creates the first couple naked and unashamed (Gen 2.25). His intent couldn’t be more clear.

So here’s the principle: our sexuality is an important part of who we are; it’s part of the image of God in us. And he has commanded the sexual relationship and the consequent fruitfulness.

There are a lots of observations to make about that, which are significant for the current culture, but let me focus on just one for now.

Sexuality is designed to be monogamous.

Monogamy was the only option, obviously, when Adam and Eve were the only people on the planet. But although it’s strongly implied in the creation story, we need later revelation to be certain of God’s intent in the matter. Polygamy becomes routine fairly quickly (Gen 4.19), but what does God think about that? The first identified polygamist, Lamech, is not presented as an admirable character (Gen 4.23-24), but that doesn’t necessarily discredit the practice. Eventually, in the Mosaic Law, God forbids adultery (Ex 20.14), but the polygamy question gets a firm and clear answer only with Jesus’ comment that God’s design intent was monogamy (Mt 19.4-9), and Paul’s later restatement of the principle (1Cor 7.2). Jesus, of course, was there at the beginning; he was in fact the active agent in creation (Jn 1.3; Col 1.16; Heb 1.2), if you will, the Elohim of Genesis 1. He is in every position to know what the designer’s original intent was.

It’s interesting to me how our culture has twisted that sentiment, and the horrific price it has paid for ignoring the designer’s specs. As just one example, the sexual revolution of the mid-20th century urged promiscuity (“Love the one you’re with!”) as a means to heightened sexual pleasure—variety obviously being the spice of life, and all. But with promiscuity, and especially with the frequent accompanying intoxication and lack of reasoned action, came hygiene issues and the rapid spread of sexually transmitted diseases. And in a few years along came an STD, HIV, with real teeth: it could kill you.

Well, then, we have to be more careful, don’t we? Not monogamous, of course—that’s obviously out of the question—but smarter in our rejection of norms. Turns out there’s effectively only one reasonably reliable preventative of HIV transmission: the condom. So the Surgeon General urges everyone to make it a practice.

And what do you suppose is the most immediate and obvious consequence of condom use? Reduced. Sexual. Pleasure.

Not only did the sexual revolution not deliver what it promised, it actually gave its fans the exact opposite.

How about that.

Doesn’t it make sense that the one who designed sex, who made it pleasurable in the first place, would want us to take pleasure in it? Wouldn’t the most potentially pleasurable practice of it, then, be in what the designer intended? And isn’t it a shame that by rejecting his design, his specifications, we damn ourselves to a lifetime of less than that? or much worse?

And we’ve noted just the biological side of things. We find that sexual activity is much more complex than the simple physical mechanics, much more of a whole-person experience—something that promiscuity directly undercuts by making the partners strangers.

This is just one example, the first one that comes to mind from the text. How much more joy do we miss, how much more pain do we feel, how much more substantial meaning do we replace with empty wind, all because we ignore the Designer’s specifications—because we act like a chimp with a chainsaw?

May I ask you a question?

Why not be smart about it?

Why not read the directions?

Part 9

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Created. Now What? Part 7: On Listening to the Designer

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In our consideration of the practical consequences of being created, we’ve identified the clearest consequence as our existence in the image of God, and we’ve noted the effects of that image in our dominion over the planet, our personal nature, and our social disposition. There’s a second major consequence, which is not stated directly as such in the creation account, but is assumed throughout Scripture, from the very beginning.

You see, if we have a Creator, then we are not self-existent, and we are not random, and we are not essentially independent.

If we have a Creator, we’re responsible to him. What he thinks matters, and his purpose in creating us is at the core of our responsibility.

In short, we have to do what he says.

This concept drives all of our lives, as a human race and as individuals. Whatever we think, however we feel, whatever we do, we need to derive from the Creator’s purpose for us. To do otherwise is inherently destructive.

When my wife and I bought our first house, the inspector recommended that I cut down a tree whose branches were rubbing slightly on the roof. He said the tree would shorten the life of our shingles, and eventually the root system might undermine the house’s foundation as well.

Yikes. Big stuff.

So I went to one of those big box home improvement stores—the orange one—and I bought me a chainsaw.

Every man needs a chainsaw.

And, to everyone’s surprise, I read the manual.

I learned a lot of things—how to tension the chain, where to put the sprocket oil, how much oil to mix in with the gasoline (2-stroke engine, you know), and where to put the gasoline mixture when I had the ratio right.

Most important, the manual had a section on a phenomenon called “kickback.”

Apparently you can handle a chainsaw in such a way that the Business End will proceed rapidly in the direction of your face, and I’m told that you really don’t want that to happen.

The manual explained what kinds of behaviors increase the likelihood of kickback. I read that section very carefully, because when your face is as attractive as mine is, you have an obligation to prevent anything untoward from happening to it. I have a duty to my public.

Now, I had bought and paid for that chainsaw. It’s mine, and I can do whatever I want with it. I can empty the sprocket lubricant reservoir. I can use straight gasoline, or even jet fuel, if I feel like it. I can juggle it while it’s running. I can use it to cut concrete.

I have my rights.

But if I do any of those things, I’m an idiot. I’ll shorten the life of the machine; I’ll waste money; and most important, I might do serious harm to myself and others. I wouldn’t be much of a husband or father if I did that to my family.

I have my rights, but I have responsibilities as well.

The engineers who designed that chainsaw know how it was designed to operate. They know its limits and its capabilities. I ought to listen to them.

And so it is with us. If we’re designed, the designer knows our specs. He knows how our equipment—physical, mental, emotional, spiritual—should be used. He knows what will lead to a long, happy, and useful life, and he knows what will send us to the scrap heap. So we ought to do what he says.

But it goes deeper than that. The chainsaw designers have a lot of expertise to share with me and advice to give me, but they don’t own either me or the chainsaw. But it’s different with us. God’s not just a designer whose product or services we’ve hired; he owns us. He has a right to tell us what to do. And if we ignore him, there are more than just practical or financial consequences—there are moral and even eternal ones.

We could apply this principle endlessly; God has sovereign rights over every decision we make, from the smallest to the greatest. We’ve noted in an earlier post that our obligation extends to the care with which we exercise the dominion that is ours as part of the image of God. There’s a second specific application in the creation account, one that speaks powerfully to the world we find ourselves in today.

We’ll talk about that next time.

Part 8 Part 9

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