All I ask is pray for one another..please…but I guarantee you… When and If you see the Truth you will see the Truth.

When Lucifer was cast out of Heaven, he was sent to earth. In his anger and wrath, he made waste of the earth. I don’t believe God made the earth “without form, and void….” Satan ruined what God had created perfectly.

It is not at all hard to think that the earth existed for a very long time before Satan came to it. I believe when God created it, the earth had the forms of life that He put on it. I think that is why scientists find things that can’t be explained by today’s methods.

When God (The Trinity) came to reform the earth, He did it in the time specified in the ongoing verses of Genisis 1. I believe that the forms of life were dormant in the earth. All God had to do was call forth what He had already created. God said, let there be thus and so, and it was done immediately. God had already prepared the earth to have these things He now called forth. So, it isn’t any stretch of the imagination to believe that God re-made the earth in 6 days.

I believe all things in the Bible are true or are parables to teach us lessons. Jesus used stories and parables to teach things that were beyond the minds of the people of His day to understand.

This does away with the myth of evolution. God created all species with the form they were to have forever. Yes, we evolve as we have better food and medical care. But we don’t evolve from one species to another. I don’t see how this can cause anyone to doubt the accuracy of the Bible.
Sand7

1. Genesis 1-3 is a Wayyiqtol contstruct narrative form. It has to be literal because it’s written in a concrete Hebrew construction. There’s no way around that, and I take task with anyone who wants to pretend like Hebrew narrative is ambiguous. Beyond that, there’s an ordinal number AND an “evening + morning” connected to each day. Every single time the Tanakh has an ordinal number with regards to a day, it’s a 24 hour period…though the Hebrew didn’t think of a day in 24 hours. A day started with the evening and ran through the morning until the next evening…hence the second qualifing phrase.

So play all the exegetical games you want. Ordinal numbers + “evening and morning” + Wayyiqtol (Waw Consequtive + Preterite following a Perfective verb) = you need to provide a LOT of evidence to suggest that Genesis 1-3 isn’t CLEARLY a historical narrative passage, giving a straightforward, historical, eyewitness account. I’ve heard the “poetic structure” argument, or the “evidence of chiasm” argument and around 40 others. The Hebrew is REALLY clear and a majority of the Liberals I’ve read agree that it appears to be a narrative construction; they just outright reject it’s historicity. You can throw a philosophical tantrum, but not a linguistic one.

2. The whole “allegory doesn’t negate history nor doctrine” thing? Come on. If Adam and Eve were real people, and “the curse = death” was metaphorical, why did Jesus need to die a physical death as the final day of atonement sacrifice for the actual sins of Israel? Why does Jesus have to “really die” then? Christianity is the only religious system where there actually needs to be physical death for spiritual restoration, and that’s because spiritual death and physical death are related…and that’s on the basis of the injection of “real death” in the Genesis account. Hence Paul talks about it in Romans 5! If Adam’s death was metaphorical “falling from enlightenment”, then Paul’s argument in Romans 5 is total nonsense. You don’t respond to metaphorical death with real death.

It’s also interesting how all the liberals I’ve read that reject the reality of original sin also question the atonement too. That connection is there and saying “no it isn’t” is not a counter argument.

3. I have faith in science. I do NOT have faith in scientists. (I don’t worship at the temple of the PhD either.) Silly thing though; Can you show me “science” that’s not done by scientists? All of them are victim to the effects of sin on the mind and every last one of them needs an authoritative epistemological anchor. When they reject that, they ULTIMATELY reject “real” science and are attempting to perform observations, hypothesis development and hypothesis confirmation in a psuedo-reality (which they are inconsistent in holding to…hence they perform scientific tasks regularly).

You talk about “the clear witness of creation”. I say that statement is a steaming pile. Mankind has learned a LOT about the world around him, but the more we learn the more we realize how freakishly complex everything is, and we never agree on anything for more than a few years. You talk about distant stars and apparent age. How about you explain to me the relationship between time, gravity, mass, energy and space? Since when do we know enough about the universe to even declare that there’s a problem in the first place? Just because the stars look far away and we think that contradicts a clear reading of Genesis doesn’t make it so. How in the world do you know that there’s not going to be ANOTHER paradigm shift in astrophysics, sometime in the future (not like that’s EVER happened), where the whole scientific community gains a monumental understanding of light and time and realizes that light and time are inter-related (or not related) in a way that we previously didn’t have a clue about? Since when was our knowledge of the universe even REMOTELY complete? What’s funny is that the cynical intellectuals, in EVERY period of history, always argue about *science* like there’s nothing left to learn.

4. Bottom line - The clear understanding of creation comes from the clear epistemological anchor of Scripture. All the *data* regarding ANYTHING, and the corresponding interpretations of such data, needs to be understood through the authoritative lens of scripture. God is the only objective *knower* in creation and only through aligning our *knowing* to his *knowing* can we *know* what there is TO *know*, you know?

The reason I can make sense of distant starlight is the same reason I pay my taxes.

Now, you said:

“Who are some examples of Satan’s ministers transformed into ministers of righteousness? It certainly would include people who pose as Christian leaders, but are really dedicated to UN agenda 21. This would include people like B Graham, R Warren, A Mohler and M Dever. All Southern Baptists and all dedicated to the UN agenda. The apostle Paul battled against these deceitful workers. It’s a real disgrace that you invite some of them in your pulpit.”

The confusion came with the last three lines. You named 4 people, then said Paul battled “these deceitful workers”. It sounded like you were saying Paul battled Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Al Mohler and Mark Dever.

But Calling Out John MacArthur for letting Al Mohler and Mark Dever speak in his pulpit because they agree with UN Agenda 21? In your mind, what is UN Agenda 21 about? Why is that the common bond between Satan’s ministers of righteousness?

Whyte, according to one of your replies in another post,

“I hope that the discussion we’re having here has not descended to the point of a destructive quarrel. We certainly are not going to split a congregation here in cyberspace.”

..Then perhaps the issue of creationism is in this current thread is not really a fruitless debate according to previous comments you have made.

Response: “The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God.” God does the knowing, he knows us in response to our love for him.

MacArthur: Instead, we need to affirm against the spirit of the age that God has spoken with the utmost clarity, authority, and finality through His Son (Hebrews 1:1–2).

Reply: Jesus said, “I am the truth.” The incarnation: God became a man, Jesus the Messiah. A man is the truth. The truth is a man. Certainly authority and finality. But no one has attempted to explain what the significance is of the Truth being a living, human being.

Propositional truth remains, yet Jesus has certainly expanded the concept of truth to include this idea that a human being is now the truth. The “clarity” has yet to be demonstrated.

[And if the “truth” is so clear, then why all the debate over the Letter of the Scripture?]

MacArthur: And we have the infallible record of that message in Scripture (2 Peter 1:19–21).

Reply: No argument here. Infallible, yet what sort of clarity does MacArthur’s “infallible record” statement guarantee when the current thread has Christians bogged down in this creation debate?

If ever the concept of “intellectual assent” was appropriate, it certainly applies in the Six-Day Creation doctrine.

Many branches of Christianity insist on belief in some “magical” element in their theology. Catholics insist on transubstantiation. Dispensationalists insist on the rapture. And Creationists insist on a literal six-day creation.

Oops! There I go getting into a “fruitless debate” (alluding to Paul’s description of it). It’s interesting that MacArthur doesn’t mention Creationism anywhere in this post, yet that’s what predominates this thread.

Why do I need to repeat myself?