We have been studying through the book of Revelation, and I have been preaching through the book of John. These two particular books have come together for me in an unexpected way.
The book of John has a repeated focus on the issue of epistemology- where do we get our information from? Where do we get our understanding of the facts presented to us?
John 7:15-17
15 And the Jews marveled, saying, “How does this Man know letters, having never studied?”
16 Jesus answered them and said, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.
17 “If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority.
Here’s one important principle concerning knowledge, and the correct analysis of doctrines: Truth only comes as a result of being dedicated to doing God’s will. Those who are not committed to doing God’s will cannot know the truth or falsity of a doctrine. They will understand only lies. This is because:
Revelation 13:
11 Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. 13 He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 14 And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast…
This is the false prophet. He has a resemblance to Jesus; note the horns like a lamb. But his power is to deceive, and he deceives with signs so convincing that they would lead astray, if it were possible, even the elect (Matthew 24:24). In Revelation, the power of the beast and the false prophet is extended over the whole world except for the elect. This must mean that the signs and wonders are broader than simply supernatural signs, but all kinds of lying evidence. Many people in the world who are not believers do not even believe in miracles or supernatural reality.
Jesus exhorts us in John 7:24 not to judge things according to appearances, but according to righteous judgment. And He just defined that as being accomplished by being committed to do God’s will. In John 8:31 Jesus tells us that it is being His disciples that give us the ability to know God’s truth, and that it is this truth which will set us free from slavery to sin. Knowing the truth and enslavement to sin are therefore contraries. Which agrees with Revelation’s perspective. In Revelation 14, it is the followers of the Lamb who have been sealed in their forehead and are the only ones who can learn the hymn of praise to God. Those with the mark of the beast in their forehead or on their hands, by contrast, believe the lies of the beast and worship the lying image. Jesus goes on in John 8 to say that they reject the truth because they are the sons of the devil.
So where do we get our information from? Do we get it from the interpretations of the world? The opinions of unbelievers about things? Do we get it from so-called Christians in the church who do not trust the Bible as the final authority in all matters to which it speaks? Or do we get it from the word of God, as understood by those who take it seriously?
This line of thinking was touched off by this post on Lee Johnson’s fine blog. He is reacting to a poll on the Boar’s Head Tavern at which Christian bloggers have taken a poll on various issues. Lee is lamenting the fact that of the 23 who took the poll, only two held to a Young Earth Creationist view. He also pointed to the fact that ten did not hold to an inerrantist view of Scripture. I went and read the BHT for a while, and not only do most of them not hold to a YEC view, they also say that those who do are “dishonoring God” and have a weak view of the Bible. I have heard all these comments before of course.
One of the purposes of the book of Revelation is to draw back the curtain and show the spiritual realities that lay behind the world we see with our eyes. The spiritual reality is that there is an ancient dragon, Satan, who hates the church with all his might, and is trying everything he can to destroy us. He has dispatched for this purpose the beast from the sea, who is the power of this world, and the beast from the earth, the false prophet, who is the lying philosophies of this world. Believers are exhorted throughout the book not to compromise with the world for even one inch. They will bring a great deal of pressure on us. They will bring economic pressure on us, political pressure on us, epistemological pressure on us. This last is to say they will present to us amazing “signs and wonders” that will seem to be utterly irrefutable, evidence with which we cannot argue. But we must devote ourselves to doing God’s will, and this means that people who do not believe in God have absolutely nothing to say to us on this issue, or any other issue touching the truth of God’s word.
As I have said before, nobody ever gets to a “framework hypothesis” or any kind of old earth view from the Bible. They get it from so-called “scientific” evidence and the arguments of the world, which they find so compelling that they must re-read Genesis in this light. They sometimes claim that this is because God’s natural and special revelation must agree, and this is true. But evolutionary beliefs are not natural revelation. They are man’s interpretation of natural revelation. Natural revelation is, “Look, there’s a rock, there’s a bone. That bone or that bone-shaped rock has X amount of Y radioactive isotopes in it.” When man says what those things mean, then it’s no longer natural revelation, it’s the opinions of men. And if those opinions differ with Scripture, it’s clear where our sympathies ought to lie. Any belief which differs with Scripture, no matter how compelling it may seem, is a lie of Satan, a lie of the beast, which is intended to destroy the church. We cannot compromise with such views for a second.
I am sending this out as a plea to all Christians. Wake up. This is a war. It is a spiritual war for your souls. It does not matter in the slightest what you think you know about the fossil record or carbon dating or redshifts or speciation or anything else at all. What matters is whether you believe the Bible or not. Don’t judge by appearances- don’t judge by what you think you see with your eyes. Judge by righteous judgment. And the issue does matter. How you view Genesis 1 and 2 will affect a lot of things, as I go into some here. If you can jettison all of your scientific beliefs and tell me from Scripture itself that the world is fifty billion years old, then that is an argument I’m interested in hearing. But your accommodations, your reading of Genesis 1 and 2 in such a way as to encompass Darwinistic thinking is no different than the early Christians saying they could go worship at the pagan temples and participate in their feasts and still worship God in their hearts. What did Paul have to say about that?
1 Corinthians 10:
18 Observe Israel after the flesh: Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?
19 What am I saying then? That an idol is anything, or what is offered to idols is anything?
20 Rather, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.
21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons.
22 Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than He?
Do you know better than God? What do you think God wanted you to know when He divinely inspired Genesis 1 and 2? If He wanted you to know that the world is fifty billion years old and came about through millions of tiny changes, then He’s either a very poor communicator or a liar. Which of those roads do you want to pick? And if He didn’t care about you knowing the details of the physical creation, why spend so much time talking about those details?
Do not fellowship with demons. The lie of Darwin is one of the fiercest attacks against the church in a long time. It doesn’t matter what the scientists say or Pharyngula says or the Smithsonian Institue says or anyone else. It matters what the Bible says. God said what He meant to say. Submit yourselves to His will and believe the Bible.
I am not saying that everyone who rejects a literal view of Genesis 1 and 2 is a servant of the beast. But I am saying that everyone who rejects that view in order to accommodate a philosophy that rejects God and rejects the Bible is compromising with demons.
I’ll let John have the last word. First a note- we’re not sure exactly what the Nicolaitans believed, but it’s clear from Revelation 2-3 that they believed that some participation in the paganism of the world around them was acceptable, which is essentially the argument of those wishing to accommodate Genesis 1-2 to Darwinism. If there are any demons at all in the world today, what do you think they’re teaching?
Revelation 2:
12 ” And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write, ‘ These things says He who has the sharp two-edged sword:
13 “I know your works, and where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. And you hold fast to My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days in which Antipas was My faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.
14 “But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.
15 “Thus you also have those who hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate.
16 ‘Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.
17 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.” ‘
Hi, Great post. You know, I always get nervous about reading revelations. When I was growing up my dad was one who said, “we will never take the mark of the beast. we will go hide in the mountains.” All the while he was talking, he was probably on something. I do believe that the bible is Gods word and I do not doubt that, I always douby myself. Anyway, It was a fine post. Thank you.
Hi Matt! This is glovergj from the evangelutionist.com blog. As promised, I read your post. There was a time when my belief in Biblical infallability and inerrancy would have led me to the same conclusions. I still believe in the Word of God, but here is why I think it is a mistake to use Scripture to argue against science.
You said the following:
“…nobody ever gets to a “framework hypothesis” or any kind of old earth view from the Bible.”
I agree 100%. But nobody ever gets to a sphereical earth or a solar system, or a galaxy, or that the sky is not solid and that the waters above the firmament do not exist from the Bible either. The only reason we know any of these things is because of the modern science of astronomy.
You also say: “If you can jettison all of your scientific beliefs and tell me from Scripture itself that the world is fifty billion years old, then that is an argument I’m interested in hearing.”
Why are looking to Scripture to tell you how old the earth is? Is that something Moses was concerned about? Is that the point of the Genesis narrative? The Bible says that the moon is a “great light” and that God “made the stars also” as if they were inconsequential in relation to the size of the moon. As a result, some Medieval Christians resisted the astronomical discovery that the star of Saturn was greater than the moon. They wrongfully assumed that the point of Genesis was to teach literal astronomy. Of course, we know now that was never the point. In the ancient Near East, stars were woshiped as Gods. By giving them a lower status, Moses is making a theological statment, not a scientific statement. In fact, if you understand the ancient Near Eastern pagan polytheistic creation mythologies (such as the Enuma Elish), it becomes clear that the agenda of Genesis 1 is to offer a point-by-point theological contradiction of contemporary paganaism. It was never the intention of Moses to give scientific or historical truth. We have other ways of determining those things.
You go on to say, “Do you know better than God? What do you think God wanted you to know when He divinely inspired Genesis 1 and 2? If He wanted you to know that the world is fifty billion years old and came about through millions of tiny changes, then He’s either a very poor communicator or a liar. Which of those roads do you want to pick? And if He didn’t care about you knowing the details of the physical creation, why spend so much time talking about those details?”
Whoa! Again, what was the point of Genesis? If you assume that the point of Genesis was to communicate scientific truth about the cosmos, then you have just made God a liar! The earth is not flat, the sky is not solid, there are no waters above the heavens, the earth is not at the center of the universe, the moon is not a second luminary, etc… If we fail to understand the true intent of Genesis, then it is we Christians who make God a liar!
Be careful about making these kinds of extreme statements. I understand your desire to let God be true and all men be liars, but this isn’t the best way to accomplish this. In fact, these arguments give the unbelieving world that perfect straw-man to attack the Christian faith and the Word of God. Know your church history and don’t repeat the mistakes of the past! Don’t hand the world the very club by which they will try and beat our faith out of us.
GJG
The rest of this discussion is here,
http://evangelutionist.com/blog1/2006/12/12/the-yec-christianity-conflation/
Hey Matt,
I just read thru the entire discussion and have two observations.
First, even if we wish to credit these ‘framework’ guys’ position, I wouldn’t care so much if they didn’t accuse their opponents of ‘dishonoring’ God simply because they don’t hold to a human-contrived theory. Reformed people are to hold each to account for believing what the Scriptures teach and what can, by ‘necessary consequence’ be derived from them. There is no ‘dishonoring’ of God simply because someone doesn’t buy your rationally dubious, materialism-based, non-theistic-creation-myth-with-God-added-for-seasoning.
2. With respect for the theory itself, it’s amusing, isn’t it, to watch Christian spend so much effort ‘accomodating’ a theory which purports to be scientific. Scientific connotes making observations, forming hypotheses and making predictions, thus putting these hypotheses to the test. Evolutionists have an interesting twist: insteach of making predictions about future events, they extrapolate the past, which can’t be tested and call that ‘science.’I could say more, but I’ve got to go.
See you.