Biblical Creationism, Part 2

My last two weeks lessons have been the most important in our series so far on the topic of Biblical Creationism. Last week, I started my lesson on “Let there be Light” with an introduction that linked the Doctrine of Creation with the Reformation Day topic of justification by faith alone. Here is a short synopsis: the analogy that Paul makes in Romans 5:12-21 between Adam and Christ only makes sense if Adam is a real historical character. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness works the same way as the imputation of Adam’s sin to the human race. That’s Paul’s point. If the “because all sinned” in Romans 5:12 only means people died because of their individual sins, then Paul’s analogy, if it is to be consistent, must say that our justification to life is based on our individual righteous deeds – which, of course, is no gospel at all! The only reasonable way for us to be imputed with Adam’s sin is if he was indeed a historical character. How can we be imputed with the sin of a fictional or mythological person?

My lesson today concentrated on the creation of the firmament in Genesis 1:6-8 and how some people in past suggested that the waters above the firmament were the source of the water’s for Noah’s flood. The problem with this idea is that Psalm 148:4 indicates that those waters are still there, and besides, a careful reading of Genesis 1:6-8 does not put the separated waters in the atmosphere or in space but beyond the universe. This led me to discuss the Arguments Creationists should NOT use page on the Answers in Genesis website. The lesson we need to learn from all this is that we should defend the supernatural events of the Bible with the Bible, not scientific or naturalistic arguments. Otherwise, we may find ourselves defending the truth of God’s word with arguments that sound good at the time but that may end up on a similar list in the future. Far better to believe the Bible when it says that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God, especially when dealing with a subject that the Bible itself says requires faith to believe (Heb 11:3). Spurgeon puts it best, as he normally does, when he says, “I defend the Bible the way I defend a lion – I let it out of its cage and let it defend himself!”

If you are interested in listening to these lessons. I have most of them posted at http://sermon.net/refugebaptist.