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Responding to questions from the congregation at the conclusion of a sermon series through 2 Corinthians, this is part 3 of 3 of this Q&A. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
What does Imago Dei mean? How old is the earth? And is Pangea a biblical thing? And does God experience emotions like we do? The answers to these questions and others when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ. For he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com.
And once again, it's Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. So we're finishing up the Q &A that I did back in 2019 at the conclusion of our series through 2 Corinthians. I've pretty much finished up the 2 Corinthians questions at this point. I still make a few references to 2 Corinthians here.
I'm responding to Genesis questions, and then we have some general theology questions coming up toward the end. Picking up now talking about the doctrine of Imago Dei being made in the image of God. As we read in Genesis 1, 27, God created man in his own image.
In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. Here's the rest of the Q &A. The Latin term that we use to define ourselves as being made in the image of God is Imago Dei. And what we mean when we use that phrase Imago Dei, it means that man is not God.
Man reflects the Lord and is therefore not the Lord. It also means that as the Imago Dei, we are distinguished from animals. We are subordinate to the Lord, but we're not subordinate to the animals. As it says in verse 28 of Genesis 1, God made man to have dominion over all of creation.
So we're not subordinate to animals. Peta, who thinks that people and animals are all the same, no, see, that is contrary to the Imago Dei. And they blaspheme God. They take that which was made in the image of God, we, and desecrate it.
And that's what we do with our sin. We desecrate that image of God. It's as though we are living statues of God. And when we sin, we desecrate those images of the Lord. You who are soldiers, you understand the seriousness of stomping on the flag.
Well, think of how much more serious it is for we who are in the likeness of God to stomp on the image of God. Which is why we must desire holiness that we may reflect God's character in this way. So the second part of this question is, if God is not human himself, then what gender does that make God or what sex does that make God, rather?
Well, honestly, neither. Because He is neither man nor woman. In John 4, 24, Jesus says of God, God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. Now, since God is spirit, He has no form, so He has no sex.
However, God the Father has chosen to reveal Himself in the masculine. And therefore, that's the way we must refer to Him. Even though you could make the argument that God has no specific sex, that does not give you permission to then go, well, then I decide that God is my mother.
No, for you must worship God the way that He has said that He is, not who we want Him to be. And God has chosen to reveal Himself as a Father and refer to Himself in the masculine. Whether you're talking about God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit, all three persons of the Trinity are referred to in the scriptures as He.
And so therefore, that's how we must worship God. And Jesus saying, God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth, according to the way that God has said He is to be worshiped, not the way we would want to worship God.
Now, Jesus Himself, of course, God incarnate, God who put on human flesh, and the human form that He chose to take on was that of a man. So Jesus is male, and even now, sitting at the right hand of the throne of God, He's still fully man and fully God.
In 1 Timothy 2 .5, it says that we have one mediator between God and man, and that is the man, Christ Jesus. So even sitting now at the right hand of the throne of God, Jesus is still fully God and fully man.
So let us know God the way that He has shown Himself to be and worship Him accordingly. Question number eight, Genesis 6 .2 says, The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive, and they took as their wives any as they chose.
What does this mean? The sons of God saw the daughters of men. Does this mean that fallen angels mixed with humans? That's the common interpretation of that, and there are many teachers that I respect and learn from that even interpret that passage that way, that what this means in Genesis 6 .2 is that fallen angels were mating with human women and therefore producing children that became the evil on the earth that God ultimately purged with the flood.
I have to tell you that personally, I don't believe that that's necessarily what that's talking about, because what we have in Genesis 6 comes right after the genealogies that were laid out in Genesis 5, and you have two distinct genealogies.
You have the genealogy of Seth and you have the genealogy of Cain. Those who are the genealogy of Seth were referred to as the righteous, and those who were of the genealogy of Cain were of fallen man.
So what ends up happening is that those who were in the righteous line ended up taking for themselves spouses from the fallen line, and then there became no distinguishing characteristics between the two strain of humankind prior to the flood.
Then everybody just became sinful. There was not a righteous and an unrighteous. It was everybody was living in sinfulness. But God singled out for himself one who was Noah and saved him, a righteous man, and his three sons and their wives.
Eight people on an ark from the devastation that came. That's what I believe that the interpretation of Genesis 6 is. If you don't agree with me, that's fine. You won't be put out of the church. Question number nine, when did Pangaea happen and why did certain animals end up on certain continents?
So in Genesis chapter 10, it's mentioned for us there that in verse 25, to Eber, we have another genealogy there, and this is post-flood. This is all after the flood now. To Eber were born two sons. The name of one was Peleg, for in his days, the earth was divided.
And then at the end of Genesis 10, it says, these are the clans of the sons of Noah according to their genealogies and their nations, and from these, the nation spread abroad on the earth after the flood.
Now, some have taken these passages to mean that Pangaea or the dividing of the continent. So Pangaea was one supercontinent, and then you have the dividing of the continents, and some believe that that's what's being spelled out here in Genesis 10, but whenever we have an earthquake on the earth and we hear about some massive earthquake, particularly it takes place in an island in the Pacific somewhere, what's the next news report that you hear after that earthquake?
A tsunami warning, right? This is just earthquakes as we experience them on the earth right now. So let me detail this for you. If Pangaea happened after the flood, it would have wiped out all of humankind again because that massive move of continents would have destroyed everything.
Simple earthquakes today could mean devastation for an island or for a people that would feel the after effects of those earthquakes. So the spread of the continents would have done far more devastation than even the earthquakes that we experience now, and after the flood, God said He would not destroy the earth again in a flood.
So we can rule that out. What Genesis 10 here is talking about is not Pangaea or the dividing of the continents. What it's talking about rather is the distribution of the people on planet earth after God confused their languages at Babel.
Now, the story of the Tower of Babel doesn't happen until Genesis 11, but what Moses is laying out here in Genesis 10 is just a genealogy. He's not trying to follow a chronological order of events. He's just laying out a genealogy there.
So the things that he says about in Genesis 10 and the later portion of that genealogy happens after the Tower of Babel that we read about in Genesis 11. The dividing of the continents happened during Noah's flood.
And I think it's unquestionable that there was at one point, the earth was just one solid landmass and then was broken into the continents that we have today. There's geological evidence, there's archeological evidence, there's everything that seems to point to the fact that the continents that we have them now were not the way that things were.
In fact, Peter even says in 2 Peter 3, that the way that the earth is now is not as it once was. So we know that the earth was a certain way prior to the flood. But when you read about the flood itself in Genesis 7, it says that on that day that the floodwaters came upon the earth, the fountains of the great deep burst forth.
So the continents spread and the water came up and spreading out the continents allowed the water to come up the way that it did. But in this spreading of the continents, we also had the creation of the mountain ranges.
So then at one point, when those continents finally came to their rest, the collision of those tectonic plates, which was all happening underneath the floodwaters, eventually jutted up into the mountain ranges that we have now.
You know that at the summit of Mount Everest, they've found sea fossils. How would they possibly get there? Except that that mountain range had at one point been much lower and had been covered by the waters of the earth.
And then in Genesis chapter eight, it says the fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed and the rains from the heavens were restrained and the waters receded from the earth continually.
This was able to happen because after the collision of the plates, the land masses were elevated higher above the waters so that the waters could recede. And this was how Noah's Ark landed at Mount Ararat because that mountain actually came up to meet Noah's Ark, not that the waters receded so that the Ark landed on top of it.
So that's what I believe we understand according to Pangaea and the spreading of the continents. By the way, the whole idea of Pangaea, the supercontinent, was first proposed in 1859 by a geologist who was a Christian, Antonio Snyder.
So the evolutionists are borrowing from the Christian's theory when they talk about Pangaea and the supercontinent. Question number 10. How can scientists claim trees, fossils, et cetera have been around for millions of years?
How old is the earth? Personally, I believe that the earth is younger than 10 ,000 years. How is it that scientists can claim that trees, fossils, et cetera have been around for millions of years? I don't wanna go into all the evidence of that.
You can search answers in Genesis or any of those other websites that talk about these things. But let me just give you a biblical response to this. Second Peter chapter three, verses five through seven.
For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God. And that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
But by the same word, the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and the destruction of the ungodly. Notice that Peter starts that section by saying they deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God.
That's a fact. And those who dwell in darkness deliberately overlook it. How do they get one out of that darkness? My friends, by preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, the age of the earth is a tertiary doctrine.
It's not necessary to have to believe that the earth is younger than 10 ,000 years old in order to be a Christian. But I think in order to have a consistent theology, we've talked about this before, I won't go into the details of it.
But in order to have a consistent theology, it's necessary to believe that the earth is as young as the Bible conveys that it is. That's the 10, so that's it with the Genesis questions. We're approaching a quarter afternoon.
Let me do a real brief quick run through of these final five questions. Question number 11, why do you believe God doesn't want a prosperous life for us? He says that we are worth more than the sparrows of the field have no cares, but through praise, make your requests known to him.
Well, God does want you to have a prosperous life, but it's just not the way that we think of it in terms of worldly prosperity. Jesus said in John 10, 10, I have come that they may have life and have it more abundant.
But the prosperity that we would be experiencing would be a spiritual prosperity, not a worldly prosperity. There are some who are certainly gifted to have more wealth and treasures, but no matter what, whether you have a lot or you have little, we all have an obligation to rejoice in Christ for all things and be thankful for him for everything.
And the Bible is clear that whether a person is rich or poor, we all share equally in the eternal things of God if we are followers of Jesus Christ. Question number 12, would God help a person that really needed the help to survive if at the same time it would hurt someone else?
There's a book that C .S. Lewis wrote called A Grief Observed, and it's his journal entries that he wrote right after his wife, Joy, died. And one of the things that C .S. Lewis talks about in that book is that God would not allow one series of events to happen to one person and disregard a series of events that happens to another person.
All of these things are happening within the divine sovereign will of God. Lewis also gives this illustration. He says, God would not put a bowl of soup in front of one person only to have them right before they take a bite to take it away and then hand it to another person.
God is not a cruel God with a magnifying glass standing over an anthill burning ants, okay? That's not the way that the Lord works. But we are told in 2 Peter 1 that in Christ Jesus, we are recipients of his very great and precious promises.
And you know Romans 8, 28, that God is working all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. So all these things, no matter how difficult the trial may be in our life, no matter how much we might look at another person and say, well, they're having it great and I'm having it hard, what's God thinking?
And I'm the more righteous person than they are. Well, if you have to say that, you're probably not. God is doing all of these things for our good ultimately and for his glory so that we would give God praise for everything on the day of Christ.
That we've done nothing, but that God has given us everything. And there's a song that I relate to you every once in a while from Stephen Curtis Chapman. It was from one of his 90s albums entitled Heaven in the Real World.
There's a song on that album stuck with me my entire life. I heard it when I was a teenager. I've never forgotten its lyrics. It's called Remember Your Chains. And in one of the verses of that song, Stephen Curtis Chapman says, there's never one more grateful to sit at the table than the person who can remember all their pain.
Some people will go through a tougher life than others, but they will have a greater glory at the table of God in the end. Question number 13, is dating biblical? Dating is divorce practice. I think that you can do it in a biblical and an honorable way, but the way that it's done in our American culture, in our American context, is to try to find the person that fits.
If that person doesn't work, I'm going to dump them and go find another person. You're practicing divorce. You're not practicing commitment and marriage. And so I believe that there is a more godly way to approach that.
And if you want any more advice or details beyond that, come and talk to me later. Question number 14, is God all emotional? I have heard a preacher say that God can feel all emotions all the time. Well, we've already said that God is not a woman.
So I'm just kidding, just kidding, just a joke. I could not resist, but let me just say that whatever emotions God experiences, and we do have conveyance in the scriptures that God does feel certain things, but whatever he feels is not the same way that we feel it.
So we need to be very careful about that. These things have been spelled out for us in the scriptures in such a way to deal with our human limitations, but that doesn't mean that God goes through those things the same way that we go through them.
The best example that I can give you is out of 1 Samuel 15, where God says to Samuel, I regret that I have made Saul king. But then in the same chapter, 19 verses later, Samuel says to Saul that God will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man that he should have regret.
And it's not like Samuel brain farted right there all of a sudden, he's like, he just forgot that God said that he regretted. We just understand that what God experiences emotionally is not the same way that we experience it.
So we need to be careful not to transmit our emotions onto God and think that he's going through this the same way that we're going through it. God is sovereign and he sees all things from beginning to end perfectly.
He knows that because he ordained it. So he does not experience these things the same way that we do. What we can know is this though, that Jesus in his flesh experienced what we experienced. When God became incarnate and dwelt among us, Hebrews 2 .17 says, therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
And then Hebrews 4 .15, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet is without sin. So we know that when we pray to God, Jesus Christ, who is the God man, sympathizes with us in our weaknesses.
And we do not worship a God who is unable to empathize with what it is that we are going through. Final question, question number 15. If women can teach the Bible, can she teach over a group of high school, middle school boys?
Discipleship like a mother teaching her kids. I'm not opposed to the idea of a woman teaching a high school class. In fact, we've even had it here at this church, but I would rather a man teach in that class.
And here's the reason why. A statistic that I just saw earlier this week, 43 of boys are raised by single mothers. 78 of teachers in the public school system are female. So that means close to 50 of boys have 100 feminine influence at home and 80 feminine influence at school.
You hear about the term toxic masculinity used a lot. We do not have a problem in this culture with toxic masculinity. We have a problem in this culture with a lack of masculinity. And so for that reason, if we've got young men in classes, whether that be a middle school or a high school class, I would prefer that a guy be in that class.
Now, you know where our position as a church, that the position of a pastor should be a man that is filling that role, according to 1 Timothy 2 .12 and other passages. Paul talked about it in 1 Corinthians 14 as well.
Also, just going back to the order of creation, that man was created first and then woman. And that's what Paul appeals to when he says that the role of a pastor should be filled by a man. I'm not adamantly opposed to a woman teaching high school boys, but I still think it would be a good idea to put a man in that class because of the lack of masculinity that exists in our culture.
And we give good, strong, godly examples of men to our boys that we're training up to be godly men. That is the conclusion of all those questions. Thank you for letting me take an hour.
You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.
On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.