Witnesses

“seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses …
let us run with patience the race set before us” (Heb 12:1)

In our text above, the author of Hebrews seems to be indicating that we, as Christians, are surrounded by all those who have gone before us, watching us as we persevere through this world towards our “expected end” (Jer 29:11). Is this the true sense of this word as it is used in context?

The Greek word translated here as ‘witnesses’ is μαρτυρων (marturôn). A variation of this word also occurs in Acts 1:8: “…and ye shall be witnesses (μαρτυρες, martures) unto me.”

Both of these words derive from the Strongs Greek Number 3144 – μάρτυς – meaning “of uncertain affinity; a witness (literally [judicially] or figuratively [generally], by analogy a ‘martyr’” (emphasis mine). We can see from this definition that the primary sense of the word, then, is not of a spectator witnessing an event, but rather of one who has seen or encountered something previously and has been called to testify to their circumstances or outcome.

In that sense then, we can more clearly understand what the writer of Hebrews is trying to communicate to his audience. Having just enumerated dozens of individuals from Jewish history who exhibited extraordinary faith in the face of trials set before them because they counted God as able to deliver on His promises; the writer then implores his readers, effectively, “What more do you need? God has proven Himself over and over throughout history to be faithful to reward those who maintain and persevere in their faith toward Him. Who are you – indeed who are we to question that God will do what He has said He would do and reward those who earnestly seek after Him?”

It is these “witnesses” that God has used over and over again throughout history to remind the children of Israel of His faithfulness. From the pillar set up by Jacob at Beth-el (Gen 28:18) to Joshua’s twelve stones memorializing the crossing of the river Jordan (Jos 4:7), God uses the testimony of witnesses to encourage those who come afterwards towards holiness. RST

Sealed in Blood

“…neither the first testament was dedicated without blood” (Heb 9:18)

The writer of Hebrews makes the case that Christ is superior to virtually every aspect of Temple-oriented Judaism, progressing first from the angelic realm (chapters 1 & 2) to Moses (chapters 3 & 4) to Aaron and the Levitical priesthood itself. In chapter 8, the author quotes the prophet Jeremiah: “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts” (Heb 8:10). Jesus Christ, he argues, has established that covenant Himself through His death and the presentation of His blood in the heavenly tabernacle: “the heavenly things [should be purified] themselves with better sacrifices…for Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself” (Heb 9:23b-24).

That the new covenant spoken of by Jeremiah needed to be sealed with the blood of a sacrifice may have been surprising to some. After all, Jeremiah did not talk about the shedding of any blood. Therefore, the writer reminds his audience that even the first covenant, given to Abram, was not without the shedding of blood at its outset, in addition to the ongoing blood sacrifices it required from the Levites.

In the fifteenth chapter of Genesis, we read where God commanded Abram to kill a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtledove and a pigeon. Abram was to divide the animals in half, but not the birds. The halves he was to place on either side of a trench, allowing the blood to drain into it. When night fell, Abram was gripped by a terrible dream: “and it came to pass that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp…passed between those pieces” (Gen 15:17).

It was customary that, when two parties covenanted with one another, they would pass between slain animals in this manner so that the blood of the animals would soil and stain their robes. This would serve as a permanent reminder to them of the promise they had made and an oath to fulfill that promise, lest what happened to the animals happen to them. So, too, the new covenant spoken of by Jeremiah, was instituted with the shedding of blood; but this time, that blood was used to purify the implements in the heavenly tabernacle (Heb 9:23), allowing us to have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Heb 10:19). RST

The King Whom You Have Chosen

“And now behold the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked;

behold, the LORD has set a king over you” (1 Sam 12:13)

As Samuel chastised the people of Israel for their desire to have a human king to rule over them when God Himself was functioning in that role, he tells them that things will go well with them if they follow Him. But this comes with a warning, as well: “But if ye will not obey the voice of the LORD…then shall the hand of the LORD be against you” (1 Sam 12:15).

A ruler had long been promised to the descendents of Jacob: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah” (Gen 49:10) and reiterated: “there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel” (Num 24:17). Clearly, the tribe of Judah was to be the royal line of Israel, just as the tribe of Levi was to fulfill the priestly role in Jewish life. In point of fact, virtually every king over Israel hailed from the tribe of Judah, as prophesied. One glaring exception, however, was Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, not Judah, whom Samuel himself anointed (1 Sam 9).

There are two schools of thought here. The first, that once the kingship of Israel passed into the tribe of Judah, it would not depart it. The second, that the intent of God was always to have rulers come from Judah. The first is most easily disproved by focusing on the proof for the second. In point of fact, Samuel is ordered by God to anoint Saul – but not as king! “To morrow about this time I will send thee a man out of the land of Benjamin, and thou shalt anoint him to be captain over my people Israel” (1 Sam 9:16). And during the anointing itself: “Then Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured it upon his head, and kissed him, and said, Is it not because the LORD hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance” (1 Sam 10:1). Clearly, God’s intention was not that Saul function as king, but merely as regent, ruler or captain, ever subservient to the Kingship of the LORD. When Samuel presented the anointed Saul to the people, to be their ‘captain,’ it was they who shouted, “God save the king” (1 Sam 10:24) choosing a creature over their Creator. RST

His Holy One

“It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel; I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6)

Jesus Christ “was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of [us] who, through him, are believers in God” (1 Pet 1:20-21).

It is difficult at times to look back over biblical history and tie together all of the threads that God has woven into a single tapestry. Our finite, temporally-locked minds have difficulty giving credence to these amazingly well laid-out plans that stretch for millennia. Our own existences are limited to less than a single century, yet God had ordained the sacrifice of His son as the atonement for our sins long before He had commenced creating any one of us (Rev 13:8).

By picking out a “people for Himself” (1 Sam 12:22), many throughout history have been led to believe that God’s ultimate favor rests on Israel. However, scripture teaches that God’s ultimate favor rests on Himself. God, through providential history works towards one goal – His own Glory. And God is most glorified through the redeeming work of His Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. In fact, hints of this were given even to Abram: “…and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Gen 12:3). While God would single out Abram’s son Isaac for his eventual people, it would be through this line that God Himself would be glorified and all people everywhere blessed. Isaiah, in our text, speaks of this son of Jacob and Israel who would be a light, not just to the other sons of Israel, but to the Gentiles, as well.

The apostle Paul noted how the Jews had so withdrawn into their Judaism that they missed their Messiah: “…Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for … as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear…their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see” (Rom 11:7-10). Why would God give them a spirit of slumber? Eyes that they should not see? Ears that they should not hear? Paul continues: “… through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles” (Rom 11:11). Thus fulfilling the promise given to Abram and reiterated in Isaiah: “A light to the Gentiles… my salvation (ישׁועתי) unto the end of the earth” (Isa 49:6) RST

And the first animal was. . . .

And the first animal on Earth was a... from PhysOrg.com

A new study mapping the evolutionary history of animals indicates that Earth's first animal--a mysterious creature whose characteristics can only be inferred from fossils and studies of living animals--was probably significantly more complex than previously believed.

[...]

I think the first sentence of the attached article says it well. "Earth's first animal...was probably...more complex than previously believed."

Actually, this article is so riddled with careful language and unsubstantiated, unproven presuppositions, it's hard to see how a journalist would even print this stuff as factual. Let's quote mine. . .

"The tree of life is a hierarchical representation of the evolutionary relationships between species that was introduced by Charles Darwin."

Presupposition: All life evolved from a single form of life at some time in the past.

Fact: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures...So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm...And God saw that it was good."

Discuss: Since we're dealing in this article with aquatic life, I think it's of some worthy note that God created the "great" sea creatures along with the microscopic life with which the seas teem.

"This finding challenges the traditional view of the base of the tree of life, which honored the lowly sponge as the earliest diverging animal. 'This was a complete shocker...So shocking that we initially thought something had gone very wrong.'"

Presupposition: The tree of life, as written, is sacrosanct and correct.

Fact: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth...And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures..."

Discuss: Well, duh, Mr. Dunn. Something has gone very, very wrong. You have placed your own fallible mind and understanding ahead of God. You have fallen for the lie. And here you have evidence that the "tree of life" is no longer a Holy Relic to venerated, but merely a relic of man's own misplaced faith in himself.

"...We don't have fossils of the oldest comb jelly, therefore, there is no way to date the earliest jelly to determine when it diverged."

Presupposition: That it "diverged" at all.

Fact: "God created the ... sea creatures ... according to their kinds"

Discuss: The article goes on to discuss what happened "after diverging from other species." It is full of words and phrases like "probably", "likely", "going to" and "will." There is nothing new under the sun, it seems.

What's most troublesome about stories like this is the way in which otherwise intelligent people are blinded by the reality of their own presuppositions. Not once does it occur to PhysOrg, the NSF or Mr. Dunn himself to question the base premise of this study: that evolution is a fact, not a theory.

If you use a pure exegetical reading of the book of Genesis to inform your worldview, then it becomes clear that finds like this support and uphold the Genesis record. God created all of the original sea creatures on the fifth day. If you don't -- that is, if you rely on the fallible opinions of mankind, where you are boxed in by your own premises, then when a finding like this happens along, you have to invent a story of your own to make the finding fit. We have to 'rethink' the tree of life.

Did God Really Say. . . .?

It is the height of irony that so many Christians have succumbed to the attacks by the secular-humanist society around us when their game plan has been

"clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world....So [we] are without excuse."
Romans 1:20 (ESV, paraphrased, used out of context for a point)

What do I mean by that, exactly? Well, from the very beginning, the attack on humanity has been rooted in the subtle words of the serpent in the Garden:

"Did God actually say..."
Genesis 3:1 (ESV)

You see, the attacks on our faith today are just as subtle now as they were then. And believers everywhere have fallen for it, including many evangelical leaders! The world has taken fallible Man's interpretation of the things around us and tried to force it to fit the biblical account! And over time, likely in order to keep the proverbial door open to discussions about the Gospel, we've acquiesced on these foundational principles of our faith.

For example, Oxford Hebrew scholar James Barr, in a letter to David C.C. Watson, April 23, 1984, wrote

"...probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: 1. creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; 2. the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story; 3. Noah's flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark."

Naturally, Barr doesn't believe Genesis, but he understands the writer's intention. Consider Exodus 20:11, which often gets overlooked any debate on what the writer of Genesis meant to say:

"For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy." (ESV)

The appropriate hermeneutic for Scripture in general, and Genesis in particular, should be exegesis, not eisegesis. God has revealed Himself to us through His word. I do not find the need to force it to say what I find to be more "reasonable" in light of what origins science, rather than observational science has determined about the "truth" of history. Genesis is God's first and best source of information with regards to the beginning of history as He was the one and only eye-witness to the events contained within it.

So yes, God really did say...

Why Genesis? Part Deux

A recent comment on my "Why Genesis?" article read:

Ok, so what if God (assuming He exists and is, in fact, the Creator) kicked everything off with the Big Bang and just let it all simmer until conditions on Earth were ready to support homo Sapiens. What if He then created the Biblical Adam and Eve and placed them here in a special event. The rest would then be Bible history. Kind of.

This would allow us to worship at both alters, right?

This is a question which has driven many many Christians to attempt to somehow square the Biblical record with more recent scientific "findings". Some of the more well known attempts are:

1. Day-Age - The days of Genesis 1 are not to be interpreted as literal days. Instead, the author simply used the word day to mean "an indeterminate but finite length of time". This is like saying "Back in my grandfather's day. . ."
2. Gap - This theory purports a "gap" in time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. In other words, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Some unknown length of time later, probably billions of years in fact, the earth was without form and void..."
3. Theistic Evolution - God created, setting "things into motion" and natural processes took over, resulting in the eventual rise of Man.
4. Progressive Creation -God created this, then He waited. Then He created that and waited some more. Finally, after billions of years (4.4 or so billion of them), He planted "a garden in Eden, in the east, and there He put the man whom He had formed [very very recently, but late in the created order of things]."

So, the comment above is sort of an amalgam of Theistic Evolution and Progressive Creationism. Let's examine WHY these modes of thinking contradict the Bible.

1. First and foremost, there are other words in Hebrew for "a long period of time". For example dor means just that: "an age". If God had intended for us to think it took Him a long period of time, he could very easily have said so. He did not. He tells us it took Him only 6 literal days.
2. The genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 give very detailed information, allowing us to accurately determine the amount of time which passed between Adam and Abraham. The genealogies of Matthew 1 are clearly intentionally abbreviated, as their purpose is to show the ancestry of Jesus rather than the ancestral line of Jesus. The genealogies of Genesis are clearly and specifically delineated to provide for us the ancestral line of mankind.
3. For every argument over the meaning of the word day in Genesis, Exodus 20:9-11 makes it very clear that the true intent was to communicate six literal days:"Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." (ESV)
4. Jesus himself taught the historicity of Genesis. He referred to Adam, Noah, Lot and his wife, Moses and Jonah during his ministry as real, historic figures. In Mark 10:6, Jesus was addressing the issue of divorce and said "But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female." Now, if you accept a 4 billion year history for the Earth, with Adam and Eve being either specially created or fully "evolved" within the last, say, 100,000 years, you have a problem. See, the last 100,000 years, if we assume the total 4 billion years as one 24 hour day, they only account for the last 2.16 seconds. That's hardly the "beginning of creation," is it? But, if we go with the Bible, and compare the last 6000 years as our 24 hour clock, day 6 happened only one quarter of one second from the first creative act. That fits nicely with the words of Jesus, doesn't it?
5. To believe in millions or billions of years is to believe in the existence of pain, death and suffering prior to the Fall. Genesis records that all living creatures were initially created vegetarian. Scripture refers over and over again to the "restoration" of things: Acts 3:21, Colossians 1:20. This restoration will things set back to their original state, which Revelation 21:3-5 clearly indicates NO disease, suffering or death.
   
6. Circular Reasoning. Initially, the *illions of years were proposed by eighteenth and nineteenth century geologists. Using uniformitarian assumptions about erosion rates, etc, and starting without a biblical worldview to account for what they were seeing, they "determined" the age of the Earth to be significantly longer ago than the Bible clearly indicates. In fact, even today, fossils are dated according to which layer of sedimentary rock they are found in. This is the classic "geologic column." But they prove the ages of these rock layers, since none of them come with dates attached, by seeing what fossils each layer contain. That is classic circular reasoning, which should lead you, as it does me, to question the validity of either the age of the rocks, or the age of the fossils within them.

All this points to the fact that there is only alter to worship on. Genesis provides us with a very firm foundation on which to build the story of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ of Nazareth on the Roman cross nearly 2000 years ago.


If you've never trusted Jesus as your personal Savior, I urge you to do so. There is a God in heaven who is responsible for your being here. He wants you to love Him, and it hurts Him deeply when we choose to disobey the things He has commanded for us. This is called sin. The Bible records that "the wages of sin is death." This means that, when someone sins, then someone needs to die. He loves you so much, though, that He was willing to step into history and bear your sin and pay your penalty. Paul says in the book of Romans:

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." Romans 8:1-4 (ESV)

God Bless and good night.

Pre-Clovis Breakthrough or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Radiocarbon Dating

Pre-Clovis Breakthrough

Ok, so this archaeologist has discovered human feces that radiocarbon dating has pinpointed as being 14,300 years old. Hrm.

That doesn't seem to square with a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis, does it? Radiocarbon dating has long been used to determine the age of organic materials recovered by archaeologists.

Now, not to get too technical, but Radiocarbon dating compares the amount of C¹⁴, or Carbon 14, a radioactive isotope of carbon with a half-life of only a bit more than 5000 years, with the amount of C¹² in the same sample. The problem here lies in the assumptions of those doing the testing. By determining the C14:C12 ratio and comparing it to the C14:C12 ratio in the atmosphere today, they can determine how much C14 has decayed away. Since they know the half-life of C14, they can then determine how long it's been since the organic specimen was alive. The problem, of course, is that we have no way of knowing what the C14:C12 ratio was 1000, 2000, even 3, 4 or 5000 years ago. In fact, it is possible, even likely, that the biosphere contained significantly more carbon in living organisms prior to the Deluge. In "Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Vol. 2", published by the Institute for Creation Research, J. Baumgarder stated:

If that were the case, and this C-14 were distributed uniformly throughout the biosphere, and the total amount of biosphere C were, for example, 500 times that of today’s world, the resulting C-14/C-12 ratio would be 1/500 of today’s level....

There's a good article on C-14 dating over at Lambert Dolphin's Library.

Start with the Bible. It is a firm foundation!

Why Genesis?

Why is Genesis so important? Why do I believe it's necessary to take it so seriously?

Let's get one thing straight and out in the open first thing:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV)

...at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father

Philippians 2:10-12 (ESV)

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

Romans 10:9-10 (ESV)

So a literal interpretation of Genesis is obviously not required for salvation. It is my belief that you can believe that the Universe is billions and billions of years old and still be saved. Your only real issue is one of consistency.

You see, without a literal, historical Genesis, it becomes almost insurmountably difficult to justify our faith. I mean, if the theory of evolution is in fact a fact, and if there was no first man and first woman who truly sinned by disobeying God, then why was it necessary for Christ to come at all?

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned
Romans 5:12 (ESV)

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
1 Corinthians 15:22 (ESV)

The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
1 Corinthians 15:45 (ESV)

Clearly, if Genesis 1-4 is allegory, if there was no real Adam, then a universalist position that a real savior isn't necessary and the above passages are actually allegorical as well naturally follows. It's also clearly NOT what most Christians believe. Jesus was an historical figure. He did come and die on a cross to save us from our sins. He did rise again and ascend to the Father. And the Bible itself tells us that he did it because Adam did have a choice to obey or disobey God; and that Adam did choose to disobey; and that Adam did condemn us all to death.

Genesis is so foundational to the Gospel story, that, in order to be intellectually honest, I don't think you can cavalierly sweep it under the rug of Theistic Evolution or the Gap Theory.

In the coming days, I'm going to be post some thoughts on the first 11 chapters of Genesis. I hope you'll come back, read what I have to say, and leave your comments or thoughts!

In the Beginning. . .

Genesis [jen-uh-sis] - the first book of the Bible
Historicity [his-tuh-ris-i-tee] - historical authenticity
Genesistoricity [jen-uh-sis-tuh-ris-i-tee] - The historical authenticty of the Word of God from the very beginning

So. I've always thought about blogging. I read a few blogs with some regularity -- you can find those to the right of this post, I believe. But, I've not really stumbled upon anything that I felt passionate enough about to warrant some kind of on-going commentary.

Well, that's changed.

John 17:17 says "Your word is truth"

Why, then, do we compromise God's Word with man's opinion? Answering that question has been my quest of late, and this blog will be your window on that quest.

I mean, even the Baptist Faith & Message even says that scripture "...has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy." You'd think they'd apply that uniformly. Not so, apparently. More on that tomorrow. . .