The Unknown Genesis

We don’t need to go to Genesis to get some powerful testimony about the Creation, and find more evidence for the translation and interpretation of Genesis which we offer here, and scientific support for the Biblical account of creation. We can go to Hebrews, Chapter 1.

As in John, we are told that the Son, whom we call Jesus, was the actual creator, that He made the Universe: “…and through the Son he created the universe.” Heb 1:2, (NLT)

In my book* I compared this manifestation of the Trinity to the way Microsoft creates software: God the Father is the creative genius, the Intelligence, the Designer and Authority behind the creation, setting forth the nature and shape and rules/laws of operation of our universe, and the Son as the one who did His bidding, who actually executed and carried out the creation. At Microsoft Bill Gates sets out how he wants his product to look and work, tells his engineers what he wants and is fully confident they will execute his words, and create Windows 7 (within the limits of human capacity and foibles, of course).*

As we’ve pointed out so many times before, this declaration that there was a beginning, that the universe has not been here eternally but came into being, and for some reason took on a very intelligent, and orderly, and lawful design, was not something science believed or accepted until this last century. Indeed, the beginning, which scientists call/designate the “Big Bang” was a very contentious “theory” for many years, mostly because it allowed there was a point of creation, and most reasonably a creating power and creative order/plan which atheists had all but denied with their claim the universe was eternal, having no beginning or origins. The Bible, therefore, knew something science had to discover.

Hebrews also tells us that it is by God’s design, the laws of physics and astronomy He has ordained for this universe, and the efficacy of Jesus, that this universe stays, continues to exist, and will continue as long as he is faithful to the father (and so we rest easily, right?): “… he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command.” Heb 1:3 (NLT)

This is something scientists are still uncertain about. Einstein was so convinced that the universe was stable and certain to go on forever that he amended his own mathematics and theory of relativity because his formulas found too many scenarios in which the universe could/would end in either an awfully slow explosion or inevitable implosion (back into the point – “singularity” – of the orginating Big Bang). But soon astronomers discovered the universe is expanding in what appears to be an ever-accelerating expansion (that slow explosion Einstein first foresaw but could not believe). And they are still trying to figure that out. It makes everything ridiculous: a perfectly designed, beautifully designed universe simply wasting itself away into useless nothingness. To cope with such apparant inanity (they might find comfort in understanding God and having faith that Jesus will not let that happen, but…) the scientists are always coming up with new ideas. They are usually pretty wild and hardly “scientific” or reasonable theories, like multiverses or multi-”greater places than space” that can create ever more and ever new universes. But that’s not all that bad. At least the scientists, in the process, only prove to themselves is just how unique, and intelligently designed THIS universe really is. And without God doing just as the Scripture says, how it shouldn’t exist!

But here’s where Hebrews really says something that may seem a rather little point, but really is a huge, prescient observation that scientists have only been discovering and studying in recent times:

“You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
11 They will perish, but You remain;
And they will all grow old like a garment;
12 Like a cloak You will fold them up,
And they will be changed. Heb 1:10-12 (NKJV)

Or as the NIV says it, “They will wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed.“

Here we have a text written two thousand years ago, by a very nonscientist person, who has no idea of what this planet, or the stars and galaxies are, but should, if anything, given his beliefs about God – and like most scientists before Einstein – assume they are fixed and eternal. Yet here he is, still, writing that they are not! Paul writes that the stars and galaxies (the heavens) are just like a garment. They have a limited “lifetime”. They will each come to an end, wear out like a garment will, and then be discarded and replaced with a new garment! “They will be changed“!

Scientists were at first upset to discover that stars and planets, etc., come and go, that they serve their time and then are ended, to be replaced (recycled) into new ones, to adorn God’s heavens with even greater glory! But today one of the biggest tasks of astronomers and physicists is to observe and describe, and hope to figure out those very “life cycles” of the things in the heavens. Until we could study them with our telescopes and satellites, we pretty much thought just the way Paul should have, that they are absolutely fixed, eternal parts of the universe, those twinkling lights that have been there in the skies forever. But Paul had the word, the knowledge of a greater wisdom, and told us otherwise!

* Hey Mom, What About Dinosaurs?“

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 4th, 2009 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Bible & Science. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.