devotional

09MAR
2016

LBCF 1689 Reflections (part 52 (updated))

Reflections on the Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689. 23 Aug 14 began a perhaps unbroken, orderly, and personal journey through my favorite written confession of faith. This will be my personal reflections on this beloved written codification of the Christian Faith which is according to a Baptist flavor.

 

NEXT-

 

Chapter 4, paragraph 1c: “…in the space of six days, and all very good.”

 

Here we see a much softer stance than what we may see today on creation and its mechanics in this confession. This confession was penned in 1689. That’s nearly two hundred years before Charles Darwin championed the first “scientific model” for a universe without God in November of 1859 in “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection”. Though Darwin himself it would seem was no atheist, and though his ideas were by no means completely new, his views affected a great deal in the world. This confession’s stance on the six days of creation is no “challenge” to Darwinianism because again it came long before any such views had been circulated widely. It was the accepted view held of the day.

 

Now, with some good reasons, many respectable Christians say that Genesis 1-11 is the real foundation of the Bible, and that if it is undermined in a literal six-day creation view, that the whole of the Bible is then called into question irrevocably. I disagree. I believe that certain scientific disciplines have always helped us understand the Bible more. All truth is God’s. Aside from any of the absolutely stupid Darwinian macro evolutionary insanity of the past century or so, I believe that what’s called the “Modified Day Age” theory as articulated by several respectable theologians like Wayne Grudem is acceptable. Theistic evolution is neither biblical nor scientific, but none of us knows the precise date of the earth’s age. I personally today am a young earth creationist. I don’t hold to it as essential doctrine, however. The gospel and the Bible do not stand or fall by the earth’s age. Could God have made the world and prepared it for man to inhabit it when man was created fully in God’s image? Yes. This doctrine is adiaphora despite the proper defense against many foolish non-scientists in our generation like Bill Nye the “I’ve a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and never accomplished anything in a field of science guy”. Doesn’t have quite the same ring as just “the science guy” though. I surrender no ground to Darwinian Evolution. That’s easy to refute. Most vociferous atheists today are not accomplished in their fields. They’re just skillful orators teaching their religions. A literal six-day reading of the text is the straightest forward, but there are still, in the text, areas where other opinions have significant weight. Here are two articles to further our understanding on how we can handle this issue:

http://www.ligonier.org/blog/age-universe-and-genesis-1-reformed-approach-science-and-scripture/

http://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/justintaylor/2015/01/28/biblical-reasons-to-doubt-the-creation-days-were-24-hour-periods/

I believe that it’s our duty to speak on all sides of this argument and so I will here and elsewhere.

 

I think that the logical assertion of all being “very good” is to be seen as before SIN entered the picture. What mankind was before the Fall was good. Man was free in every way until he and his wife sinned. There was no birth yet in our first parent’s brief time in the garden, but not to be any pain in it like what women must now experience, no hostility in the wild despite its equipment, no shame in nakedness, etc. When God made everything, it was good. Its corruption by SIN has produced our current abnormal state of existence in this “very not good” time we’re in.

 

What Christ has bought for many in humanity and for all of creation is more than what we lost in Adam. He came to earth to bring about a restoration of all things, and that’s precisely what he accomplished.

 

 

10 responses to “LBCF 1689 Reflections (part 52 (updated))”

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