HISTORICAL SETTING: CREATION BY CHANCE -- NOT A CHANCE:

In forthright opposition to all forms of creation by chance, the scriptures explain origins by direct creation. Chance creation doesn't have a chance! Chance does not exist except as a statement of mathematical probabilities. Chance does not exist as a person, has no intelligence, embodies no energy, cannot think, plan, call anything into existence, is without designing capabilities, or any of hundreds of other powers necessary to create. Certainly it cannot create itself as it would be necessary in order to create anything, much less everything!

Chance, plus time cannot account for anything. What cannot happen by chance does not suddenly become possible by adding time -- even infinite amount of time. Yet public education from kindergarten to doctorate level degrees ask their students to believe that everything exists without a creator, cause or conscious intelligence-- everything came from nothing and just happened to happen.

God gives us His record of origin in divine revelation. It is a record of creation by an eternal first cause God. Creationists have been pictured as mental midgets and Christians have been falling all over themselves for the last 100-150 years in an attempt to modify divine revelation to fit human rationalization. These two positions on creation are mutually exclusive. If one is right the other has to be wrong. This is true regardless of the position one may take since logic demands that two different concepts cannot both be right.

It is my position that it is far more logically correct to argue that everything came from something than that everything came from nothing. However it also follows that the "something" person that is the causing power behind creation is also to be understood as the moral governor of everything He creates. As moral governor, everything, and certainly man, is accountable (obliged to live within the oughts and ought nots) to the Creator. History is the story of human rebellion to this principle.

I. MAN IS ACCOUNTABLE TO GOD BECAUSE OF SPECIAL CREATION, Genesis 1: 23-27

A. MAN WAS CREATED FROM A PATTERN – IMAGE OF GOD, Genesis 1:26 a

1. God separated man from all the other accounts of His creative activities. He did so for the specific purpose of keeping anyone from thinking that man evolved from previously existing animal life. In spite of this distinction, current academic influences have successfully convinced the educational systems of the world that man is animal and nothing more. We should not be surprised that if people think they are animals that they would begin to act as they think!

2. Care is given in God’s account of creation to identify man as different from all other creation. Man was created following a pattern from God Himself. While the material used in the creation of man is earthly material, he none the less, was created different from everything else by being in the image of God.

3. By separating man from the rest of creation and by clearly stating that he is fashioned after the pattern of God we are to understand that man has capacities to know God and relate to Him that the rest of creation does not have.

4. One manner in which man is fashioned in the pattern of God is being a three-part person, I Thessalonians 5:23, with a body (physical), spirit (eternal breath of life, seat of intelligence, capable of knowing, thinking, remembering, planning, etc) and soul(seat of emotional and desire driven systems, appetites, appreciations, etc).

5. Because man in his creation is patterned after God he is capable of knowing God and reproducing in a limited manner the attributes of God, knowing, living eternally, possessing creative capacities, living righteously, loving, etc, to an extent impossible to the rest of creation.

B. MAN WAS CREATED FROM A PLAN – ETERNAL COUNCIL, Genesis 1:26 b

1. Before God created in form, He created in intellectual formulation. While creation was spontaneous in the sense of being instantaneous, it was not unplanned. Both man and the whole of creation were in the eternal mind of God. This included even the need for the redemption of everything lost in the fall of mankind and the contamination of the world.

2. In many ways, beyond the purpose of this paper, God made it clear in revelation that He created man differently than the physical world, animals, plants and angels which were all created in the week of creation before man. Reserving man for last separated him from even higher forms of life such as angels, 2:1. Clearly, the account of creation of man is shown as different from all other forms of life. When God makes a difference, we are to make a distinction.

3. Scriptural references: I Peter 1:20; Revelation 17:8; II Timothy 1:9

C. MAN WAS CREATED FOR A PURPOSE – ENJOYMENT OF EARTH, Genesis 1:26 c

1. Man was created to enjoy and oversee the rest of creation. He was to have dominion over all creation. While the Hebrew word for dominion, "radah", has a basic meaning of to "tread down" as to subjugate, it also has equally important meanings such as "to rule", "take control" "to mourn". God left man in control of the newly created world in the same manner in which one would be put in a place of being a steward in charge of properly caring for another’s estate.

2. Nothing in this test implies that man should either abuse or worship any part of God’s creation. However; both extremes have taken place.

D. MAN WAS CREATED WITH POSSIBILITY – TO LIVE ETERNALLY, Genesis 1:27

1. By being created in the image of God, man has the possibility to enjoy the attributes of God – even if in a limited manner. Because God is eternal, man will live forever.

2. Nothing in the scriptures teaches annihilationism, the belief that humans will permanently cease to exist at death or some point following death. Everything in the scriptures declares the eternal existence of the human soul. This is true of both the believer and unbeliever. The question is not "will an individual live eternally?" it is "where will he live eternally?"

E. MAN WAS CREATED IN CONSCIOUS COMPLEXITY- TO REPRODUCE HUMAN LIFE, Genesis 2:27, 28

1. Reproduction capacities clearly are the highest work of God’s creation. While this is given to animals as well as humans, it is a complexity that is only now being partially understood. However, understanding what already exists is vastly different from the ability to duplicate.

2. To think that life with its complicated ability for its reproduction is the result of non-intelligent, non-living, non-existing material to spontaneous self-generate is as unreasonable as it is impossible! Nothing struggling forever still remains nothing and certainly can never equal everything. Yet this is the inevitable formula for evolution.

3. Every conception refashions human life in a complex process beyond the capacity to understand. It is more than the duplication of matter; it is the formulation of a new entity capable of abstract thought and activity.

II. MAN IS ACCOUNTABLE TO GOD BECAUSE OF SPECIFIC REVELATION, Genesis 2:17.

A. Adam and Eve are not allegory, picturing human experiences with the struggle of good and evil and doing wrong rather right. They were real people. They differ only in the sense that 1) they were created rather than born, 2) they were created with an innocent rather than with a depraved nature, 3) they had a perfect environment rather than one cursed by the presence of sin 4) they could directly communicate with God in a model of the universe no longer available.

B. God’s provision for Adam included everything needed for him to live a long, healthy and happy life. God included both responsibility and accountability as conditions needed for contentment and a completed life. These terms were a part of the human condition from creation and will always continue for everyone.

C. Freedom to obey God would be impossible without the freedom to disobey. The conditions for honoring God are always a choice. The choice for Adam was a simple matter of choosing to refrain from doing what God told him to not do. Nothing good for him was being withheld.

D. The specific revelation from God was that Adam’s disobedience would be considered a personal rebellion by Adam against God’s right to govern his created universe. This is the nature of all sin.

E. Adam alone had a freedom of choice in the truest sense of this concept. Following him, everyone has both an external sinful world influencing their actions as well as an internal fallen nature prompting rebellion against God and in favor of the unregenerate world system.

III. MAN IS ACCOUNTABLE TO GOD BECAUSE OF SACRIFICIAL REGENERATION, Genesis 3:15

A. Following the fall of Adam God immediately responded with an offer of redemption and forgiveness.

B. While the details of a new re-established fellowship with God remained to be carried out in the future, Adam did understand that his relationship depended on his taking God at His word, even when the supportive evidence was not available.

C. Adam did understand that God would never give allegiance to Satan and would always be at "enmity" with him. Enmity is more than being an enemy. On occasions an enemy can become a friend by forgiveness. However, an enmity is never reconcilable.

D. Adam also understood that his redemption was not possible by anything he could offer in exchange for his rejection of God’s right to rule. He stood before God without excuse, hopeless and helpless. Self-redemption remains humanly impossible.

E. The redemption of humanity and a new restored spiritual life had to come from the love, grace and mercy of God. Since fallen mankind became spiritually dead and incapable of generating any form of life, most importantly spiritual life, his salvation would be totally dependent on God acting on him and for him.

F. The promise God made Adam was that a redeemer would be provided as a sacrificial substitute capable of making full payment for his act of rebellion. Adam’s only contribution was to depend on God to keep His word.

G. Adam had to look forward by faith for his redemption and reconciliation with God while we look backward to Calvary where Christ’s death became payment for sin.

GAA/May/2006