Author: tvanraalte

God, Adam, and You (review)

tvanraalte

God Adam and You

God, Adam, and You: Biblical Creation Defended and Applied. Edited by Richard D. Phillips. Philipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2015. 210 pages. $14.99.

Church leaders must be noticing something. This is at least the third book in 2015, written by confessional Reformed and Presbyterian authors, defending the biblical doctrine of creation. Consider how Joel Beeke opens his essay in the book at hand, “Carl Trueman has written that the historicity of Adam is the biggest doctrinal issue facing this generation” (15).

2015 has already seen William Van Doodewaard’s Quest for the Historical Adam: Genesis, Hermeneutics, and Human Origins (RHB, 2015). It is a tour de force, surveying in 400 pages the entire history of the church’s stand regarding the historical Adam. A much shorter work has also just been published by Richard Gaffin, entitled, No Adam, No Gospel: Adam and the History of Redemption (P&R, 2015). He mounts an exegetical defense from Scripture of the teaching that all human beings descend from Adam. The volume at hand, God, Adam, and You: Biblical Creation Defended and Applied contains ten essays, edited by Richard Phillips, a minister and prominent leader in the Presbyterian Church of America. The essays were composed by well-known professors and pastors: Joel Beeke, Kevin DeYoung, Liam Goligher, Richard Phillips, Derek Thomas, and Carl Trueman.

It’s noteworthy that all of these men are noticing the need to defend the biblical teaching of creation. They’re not doing so simply because evolutionary teaching is out there in the world, but because it is making remarkable inroads in the church. The essays first saw life as speeches at the Philadelphia Conference of Reformed Theology, sponsored by the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, in 2013. As the footnotes in this book demonstrate, these scholars were well aware of the radical trajectory of Peter Enns and the compromising views of Bruce Waltke and Tremper Longman III—all of whom had once taught Old Testament at confessional Reformed seminaries—as well as the white paper of Tim Keller and other postings at the Biologos website. These things gave their conference (and this book) a sense of urgency.

Theistic evolution, in various forms, was and is being promoted among Christians via speeches, conferences, courses, and educational centres. For example, since 2008 the Biologos Foundation in the United States and the Faraday Institute in Great Britain have received huge grants from the Templeton Foundation to promote evolution among Christians (Biologos has received about 9 million dollars since 2008, to be precise $8,735,123). More about all this another time, D.V. This just to say that defending biblical creation is an urgent and timely matter. Those in the know are probably not surprised at the appearance of creationwithoutcompromise.com.

God, Adam, and You contains some very fine essays. Most are written at a grade 10 or lower reading level and most are quite understandable to the average reader. Some will move you to praise the Lord as you contemplate his greatness in creating this beautiful world. This is what Derek Thomas first highlights: creation exalts God (3–8)! Overall, the book’s authors advance a clear antithesis between creation and evolution. The question of what it means that God created Adam and Eve in his image returns several times.

To read the rest of this review, click here.

Evangelism Begins with Genesis One, Two, Three

tvanraalte

Where to begin?

Many Christians witnessing for Christ have wondered what to say first. Many pastors have likewise wondered what curriculum to use in their new members courses. Where do you start when the person you’re speaking with knows absolutely nothing about the Christian faith? Some suggest the gospel of Mark, others the gospel of John, still others the Belgic Confession, but one of the most successful starting points has actually been Genesis 1, 2, and 3.

Presenting the gospel? Many Reformed churches have held training sessions for their members using Two Ways to Live, a course developed by Philip Jensen, an Evangelical (Reformed) Anglican from Australia, and marketed by Matthias Media. This course begins with the truth of the good creation.

God is the loving Ruler of the world. He made the world. He made us rulers of the world under him. “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, because you created all things and by your will they were created and have their being” (Rev. 4:11).

Starting with “Jesus saves” begs the question what he saves us from. Starting with sin begs the question whether God is responsible for it. But starting with the loving Ruler creating a good world gets matters off on the right track.

Teaching new members? I’ve used Genesis 1 through 12 at least twice in a new members course, in two different congregations, with good fruit. It’s really quite amazing how, by journeying through the narrative of the good creation of Genesis 1, the blessed provisions of Genesis 2, and the disastrous rebellion of Genesis 3, one finds all the major topics of Christian doctrine covered: God as almighty, loving, and wise; the world as distinct from God, dependent on him, and all very good; humans made in God’s image, exalted, and made responsible; Satan seeking to destroy God’s creation by bringing down its rulers; God holding humans responsible, starting with the man; God bringing a curse upon us and creation so as to punish us and draw us to him; and, finally, God promising salvation by severing our tie to Satan and speaking of a single Descendant who would put Satan out of commission. There may be other ways to get at these teachings, such as following the outline of the Belgic Confession, but it’s certainly important to erect these teachings as biblical pillars early on in one’s journey of faith.

Mr. Antoon Breen, support officer of the John Calvin Schools in Australia, has kindly sent us a short, entry-level, meditative-style booklet that he recently published in the Reformed Guardian series. Readers will enjoy his reflections on the text of Genesis one through three. His title suggests that the gospel itself begins with these chapters. I couldn’t agree more.

You’ll appreciate his story about asking a question in front of a crowd of 750 people at an ACER Conference on learning back in 2013. He writes (pp. 28–9),

I’m thankful that I got the opportunity, before an audience of 750 or so people, to challenge one of the keynote speakers on his appeal to scientific method. I told him that I respected the call to be scientific in our approaches to linking neuroscience to education. “But earlier in your address,” I continued, “you mentioned the developments that had taken place in relation to the human brain some 400 million years ago; that’s not science, that’s metaphysical. In this respect I would like to offer an alternative view. What if the human brain did not come about by the processes of evolution, but that it was created by a transcendent and immanent God, for the purpose that it should be used by mankind to return to Him glory and honour for His great and awesome works? I offer that as an alternative perspective”.

The applause told me that there were many more who didn’t bow their knees to the modern Baal.

You can read the rest of this edifying 73 page booklet here (you’ll notice we’ve added a new category: books).

The first verse

tvanraalte

Today we’re posting the first of several popular articles by Dr. Cornelis Van Dam. Some years ago he published these in the Clarion.[1] By including articles such as this one, we aim to make our website a gathering place of useful resources, particularly from the Canadian Reformed Churches (of which we all are members). We intend to re-host or write both popular-level articles such as this one and those that involve more technical exegetical, theological, and philosophical arguments.

Van Dam’s article opens,

God’s Word starts off with those impressive words in Genesis chapter one. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” What a powerful and deep opening word of divine revelation! There’s nothing else like this in the so-called creation stories of man’s imagination. This is revelation! For that reason this opening verse continues to speak so directly to man today.

Besides examining briefly all the words of Genesis 1:1, Dr. Van Dam notices the implications of this verse as a refutation of atheism, polytheism, materialism, and pantheism. He also briefly notes that the context of the verse “makes it clear that this work of the creation of heaven and earth did not consist of making something out of what already existed, but it brought into being what did not exist.”

Read the rest of the article here: The first verse

[1] Dr. Van Dam’s article “The first verse” first appeared in Clarion: The Canadian Reformed Magazine 37.24 (Nov. 25, 1988), pp. 485–6. Dr. Van Dam quotes Scripture from the Revised Standard Version. We are hosting it here at creationwithoutcompromise.com with permission from the author and publisher. His own first footnote stated the following: “This article is the first in a series selected from lectures delivered on a popular level.”