Tag Archive for 'genesis'

Turning Point of History

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Son of God. He came to bring order and reconciliation to a world fallen into sin. The birth of Jesus is not merely a fact of ancient history.  We can live triumphant today with the knowledge that the defeat of all of our foes commenced with the death and resurrection of Jesus in the first century. The story begins with the promise of the offspring of the woman who would come to defeat the serpent:

The Lord God said to the serpent . . .
” . . . I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:14-15)

The people who lived before Christ lived in general darkness, but Christ came to bring light to the world:

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined. (Isaiah 9:2)

. . . when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away  . . .  But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed  . . .  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another . . . (2 Corinthians 3:14-18)

Jesus was born into the world to rule the world in peace, justice, and righteousness:

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9:6-7)

All authority over all things was given to Jesus by the Father:

“I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14)

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

Jesus will continue to reign until all enemies have finally and completely been abolished:

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death  . . .  When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:25-28)

Merry Christmas!

Published on December 25, 2008. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Supernovas and Time

Jeff Meyers has an very interesting article called, “A Sabbath Conversation: How Old is the Earth?” at Theologia. The article basically points out the fact that even if men or the universe have an apearence of an age greater than the amount of time since creation that God isn’t deceiving anyone. This is true because God may have made something with the appearance of age but at the same time told us how old it was. Adam appeared to be 30 or so but on the first day God would have told him, “I made you yesterday.” Any observations concerning an “appearance of age” must take into account all of the facts in order to be faithful.

This would indicate truly that it doesn’t really matter what we find in science because God has already told us the truth. I believe though that there are still scientific questions that relate to the age of the universe that we may want to continue to pursue. Many people have pointed out that the light from stars millions of light years away is already reaching us. This isn’t necessarily a problem but sometimes we will see one of those stars go supernova. The question here that may still need answered has to do with that star that isn’t there anymore. Did God create a universe that appeared old and appeared to have things in it that were never really there?

My next question is not entirely parallel, but did Adam have any marks on his body from injuries that never happened? I realize the question may be entirely different because maybe he never had any injuries before the fall. Along that same line though did stars go supernova before the fall? Did entropy change after the fall?

I believe God at his word when he says that he created the universe in six normal days. The Bible is pretty clear that creation occurred sometime less than ten thousand years ago. I still think we may find explanations that show that true science and the Bible go hand in hand. Starlight and Time and the new fiction book that I have blogged on recently, Journey to Eden, are both decent attempts to give a legitimate explanation. Starlight reaching us from planets farther than ten thousand light years away does not bother me. I’m not even sure that being able to see a supernova that never occurred is a problem. I do believe that science needs to continually increase in understanding our world and universe. The scientists just need to make sure that they are submitting to the God that made us as they study and come up with new theories.

Published on January 25, 2004. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

More on Journey to Eden

I am still reading Journey to Eden. It is beginning to get more interesting. I like the science aspects but am not sure that I like the overall story and how the science is being explained. The main characters are Christian and are showing some support of six day creation. At the moment I am annoyed that the governments of China, Britain, the United States, and Russia are all depicted as evil and almost working together. The good guys are the “religious fundamentalists” which include Islam, Orthodox Jews, and Evangelical Christians. It’s almost as if those three groups are the conservatives who are fighting the secularists on the age of the earth. This makes those in Islam out to be good guys and the Christians while they witness to a chinaman never really witness to their friend Mohammed who is muslim. Seems pretty weak on a philosophical level.

The science claim is that everything is slowing down relative to an imaginary absolute. Earth days are shorter today than they were ten years ago. We can’t tell this because clocks go slower too. Biological time does not change though. This is why Abraham lived longer than people do today. His body and ours have the same time relative to the absolute while everything physical in the universe has slowed. Interesting idea, but I haven’t seen any proof yet.

I will continue to report as I read more.

Published on January 18, 2004. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

New Book from Emerald House

I am in the midst of reading Journey to Eden. The book was given to me by the publisher as a “Science Fiction” title for the Christian market. The author is trying to promote a new understanding of time. I am 140 pages into the book and at the moment the book seems to be explaining how that time is now going slower than it was in the past. We would never normally know if time was slowing, but because of some bizarre circumstances in the book the main characters discover that it is. This slowing of time means that years happened faster in the past and that the earth is not really as old as it seems.

The idea seems plausible. The old earth people and atheists assume that time is a constant that always goes the same speed. Just like they assume that carbon decay and other such things always occurred at the same rate. If the speed of time fluctuated it means that we would have a hard time telling how old anything really was and use the same length years.

The book is interesting and I will attempt to keep you all posted as I read more.

Published on January 13, 2004. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .