At the opening of a new millennium, it seems particularly significant to return to the beginning.
Perhaps no portion of Scripture has been more challenged or derided than the simple declaration of Genesis, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" and the Bible's subsequent description of seven 24-hour creation days.
For Seventh-day Adventists, the literal days of creation, culminating with the seventh-day Sabbath, holds particular significance for our worship of Jesus Christ both as Creator and Redeemer.
Sabbath rest is rooted in creation and grounded in love.
Coming directly from the Lord's example at the conclusion of His creative work, as Christ rested and sanctified the seventh day, the Sabbath rest is rooted in His fiat creation.
Sabbath becomes the perpetual memo rial of His rule over that which He made.
Coming directly from the Lord's experience at the conclusion of His redemptive work, as Christ rested in the tomb from redeeming His creation, the Lord's Day is grounded in His love. Sabbath becomes the energizing seal of His redemption, providing the secure rest of grace.
No wonder the last book of the Bible calls people to "worship Him who made the heavens, and the earth, and the fountains of water." We are called to celebrate Jesus' creative initiative, to commemorate His redemptive love, and to anticipate His ultimate restoration.
Likewise, believers should not be surprised that Satan would do whatever possible to obscure the magnificence of God's creative power or the abundance of His redemptive grace. From a cosmic view, when Jesus' reputation as either Creator or Redeemer is diminished, Satan's self-inflated pride is exalted.
Over the past 150 years, the biblical account of creation has received repeat ed body-blows from skeptics, scientists, and some spiritual leaders who have vainly attempted to reconcile geological columns and epochs of time with the simple Genesis story.
Even self-declared and perhaps well-intentioned religious people express opinions ranging from outright acceptance of evolutionary speculation to cautious questioning of the age of nature's basic building materials to refusal of dialogue with anyone holding alternative views.
Some believers have attempted to remain faithful to the biblical view by developing elaborate explanations of imponderables. Others have been so certain of their answers, they have ignored basic questions that must be answered. So what is the best current evidence to support creationism or to refute evolution?
I have found that the new book, Creation, Catastrophe, and Calvary, edit ed by John T. Baldwin of Andrews University, presents credible fresh evidence and deep spiritual insights into the debate.
After perusing this book, I telephoned my long-time friend and colleague to say, "John, this is the book you were born to write!"
For years I have both admired and teased John for his ability to plumb the depths of theological thought while lesser minds are just catching up to the point from which he began to dig. For example, ponder the title of his University of Chicago doctoral dissertation: The Argument to Design in British Religious Thought: An Investigation of the Status and Cogency of Post-Human Forms of Teleological Argumentation With Reference Principally to Hume and Paley. I once told him such an impressive title should be acknowledged in Ministry. And now, John, it has!
I admitted to John, who is a scholar of such note that he won the 1994 John Templeton Foundation prize, that I did not understand every word in the book. This is not light reading. But the depth of spirituality linking creation, the catastrophic Genesis flood, and the cross of Calvary, coupled with the strength of evidence and logical reasoning on behalf of creationism, makes this book a most significant landmark and worth the effort necessary to study its chapters.
Every pastoral and seminary library should include this book, not for easy-reading, but for its evidentiary record of the strength of creationism's case.
Baldwin brings scholars—scientists, archeologists, theologians, and geologists—together to demonstrate why a six-day creation non-evolutionary worldview is supported by the best biblical scholarship; why and how the first two chapters of Genesis are complementary creation stories rather than conflicting accounts; how and why the biblical text clearly demands a universal flood; and how the Bible's final pages use the very terminology of Genesis and Exodus to call people back to faithfulness in following God's plans and God's commands.
Focusing on a worldview that includes the great controversy between Christ and Satan, Baldwin challenges the postmodern evolutionary worldview which has no causal connection between sin and death. He demonstrates how the catastrophic flood provides scientific answers for the reality of dead forms entombed in the geologic columns which, otherwise, would have occurred prior to human sin.
On the other hand, the biblical worldview of creation, followed by a catastrophic flood producing the geologic columns, demonstrates the causal connection between sin and death as a reality, preserves the atonement, and exalts Christ's death as the wage of our sins, coupled with the surety of His coming as the culmination of our hope!
So, forward to the beginning? Yes indeed! Forward to Jesus, the Beginning as our Creator, the Center as our Redeemer, the Culmination as our King.
And that's just the beginning!
