Creation in Six Days
Most people do not believe that the creation story told in Genesis 1 and 2 is true. That is not surprising. What is surprising is that many Christians think it does not matter whether you believe the account of Genesis 1 and 2 or some kind of evolutionism. We believe it is very important to accept the biblical account of creation as literal history.
For one thing, if you deny that Genesis 1 and 2 are true, then you have really denied that the Bible is the inspired and infallible word of God from beginning to end. You have then denied what II Timothy 3:16 states, “ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God.”
Not only that, but you have also denied other parts of Scripture as well, and in doing so made liars of both God Himself and of our Lord Jesus Christ. Consider this: in the Fourth Commandment, God says, “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God … for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.” Did not God know what He was talking about? Or think about this if you believe that man was not created in one day but evolved: Jesus says in Matthew 19:4-5, “Have ye not read [in Genesis 1:27 and 2:24], that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?” Jesus plainly treated the first two chapters of Genesis as true. Should we not also?
For another thing, if you believe that man evolved and that there never was a real person named Adam, then you will also be unable to believe the important biblical doctrines of the fall and of original sin as taught in passages like Romans 5. Romans 5 teaches that it was a real man—the first man, Adam—who fell and through whom sin and death came on the whole human race. To deny the truth of Genesis 1 and 2 is to deny that there ever was such a man and this makes it impossible to believe what the Bible teaches about Christ as the “second” Adam (I Cor. 15:45-47), and about salvation through Him.
But what about the scientific “proof” for evolutionism? The Bible answers this for us also. Fundamental to all this so-called proof is the idea that all things have continued the same since the beginning, whenever that was. Things like the rate of radioactive decay, the laying down of sediments, the formation of fossils, erosion, and such things have proceeded at basically the same rate always. The Bible shows clearly that this is not so in I Peter 3:3-7. Foreseeing the development of these unbelieving theories, the Holy Spirit wrote there that all things have not been the same. Before the flood, there was a different world altogether; a world which perished in the great flood and is no more. Things were not always the same!
But we must not forget either that creation in six days is a matter not of proof but of faith in God: “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which were seen were not made of things which do appear” (Heb. 11:3). Evolutionism is unbelief! Rev. Hanko
Pleasure In Death? (3)
“Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?” (Ezekiel 18:23).
“Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (Ezekiel 33:11)
In considering these passages of Scripture in the last two articles, I called attention to the fact that these passages could have two possible interpretations: one which referred the passages to the elect alone; the other referring to the truth that God, according to the will of His command, insists that all men everywhere forsake sin and live in obedience to Him.
The reader will recall that these two passages have often been appealed to in support of a general and well-meant offer of the gospel which expresses God’s love for all men and His desire to save them.
Under Comment in the March, 1993 issue of Evangelical Times, e.g., the editor writes: “Is it true that the God of heaven has a loving regard for lost humanity in general? … If … available examples of the Saviour’s attitude towards mankind generally do not reflect a loving regard, language has lost its meaning. They show plainly and unmistakably that he truly loved those who are not among his chosen people … We must not conclude … that because God savingly loves the elect he has no kind of love for the non-elect.”
This notion is taught nowhere in Scripture, nor in these passages in Ezekiel which we are considering.
We wish to consider the interpretation that these verses refer to the will of God’s command a bit more in this article.
The statements in the text are phrased in a negative way: “Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?” “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” These are explained further. We can paraphrase 18:23 in this way: “I do have pleasure that he should return from his ways, and live.” “I have pleasure that the wicked turn from his way and live.”
It ought to be obvious to any thinking person that it would be a horrible accusation against God to say that the Holy One has pleasure in the sin of man. He never delights in sin, for He is holy in all His ways. These two passages assert this with great emphasis.
Because God never takes pleasure in man’s sin, or in the death man brings upon himself by sin, God commands man to keep His law and walk in obedience before Him. This is the basis for the gospel command proclaimed in preaching: that men everywhere repent of sin and turn to God. Every man remains under continual obligation to live in love for the Lord his God.
The total inability of man to keep this command does not alter the command in any respect. In fact, to deny this is part and parcel of Arminianism. Arminianism claims that God may not in justice require of man that which he cannot perform.
The Reformed faith insists that God maintains the just requirement of His law. God created man good and able to keep God’s law. That man lost the ability to keep that law through the fall does not excuse man in any way from the just requirements of the law. Man is under obligation before God to do what God requires of him.
Thus God is pleased, not with man’s sin, but with man’s obedience. This good pleasure of God is expressed in the gospel command.
This in no way impairs God’s eternal and sovereign determination to save only the elect in Christ. In fact, when God punishes the sinner with temporal and eternal judgment, man’s continued refusal to obey the law serves to show God’s absolute justice in punishing the sinner. The universal command of the gospel underscores the frightening sin of man and shows the holiness of God in His just judgment.
Does all this imply that the will of God’s command is different from the will of God’s decree? Calvin insists that God’s will is one—also in his treatment of Ezekiel 18:23.
But we shall discuss this aspect of the question in another article. Prof. Hanko
Why Sing Psalms?
One of our readers has asked about the regulative principle of worship, more particularly about the singing of Psalms only.
The Covenant Protestant Reformed Church, the Protestant Reformed Churches and a few other denominations sing only the 150 Psalms in their worship services. They do this because they believe it is required by the word of God.
What does the word of God say about this?
The basic principle for all worship is the word of God in John 4:24: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Two things are required in worship: worship must be spiritual and it must be in truth—that is, it must be according to the word of God as revealed in the Scriptures. It is the second of these two things that concerns us here.
If worship is to be “in truth”—according to God’s word—we may not do anything in worship that is not specifically commanded by the word of God. This is sometimes called the regulative principle because it “regulates” all our worship. The alternative is “will worship,” that is, that we worship God as we please and as we think best. Will worship is clearly forbidden by the examples of Cain (Gen. 4:3-7), Nadab and Abihu (Lev. 10:1-3), Uzzah (II Sam. 6:1-11) and Uzziah (II Chron. 26:16-21). All of these men were punished severely because they were worshipping God in ways other than He had explicitly commanded—something that might seem a small thing to us but obviously was not in God’s eyes.
The question whether the word of God requires us to sing only Psalms in worship centres especially on Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16, since both passages use the word “hymns.” Many, therefore, appeal to these texts as warrant for singing man-made hymns in worship.
The trouble is that the word “hymns” in these passages does not refer to the same thing as we do today when we speak of hymns. Rather it refers to a particular kind of psalm. In fact, in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, the 150 Psalms are designated as “psalms,” “hymns” and “spiritual songs.” Those designated as “hymns” are generally psalms of praise to God. It is from this Greek translation, therefore, that the words “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs” are taken and made part of the inspired word of God in Ephesians and Colossians. Hymns in Scripture are not man-made compositions, then, but certain of the inspired Psalms. They—and they only—are the song-book of the church as she worships. Rev. Hanko
