1689 London Baptist Confession (part 11)

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So we're talking about Genesis 1 talking about creation, and I guess ultimately we're
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Our subject is about Creation itself so Waldron Where we left off last time talking about how it's
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Taking Genesis 1 through 11 as less than literal creates all sorts of Problems not the least of which and he has a list of verses here
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Referred to people that exist in Genesis 1 to 11, and if you eradicate or if you wipe out a
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Literal understanding of Genesis 1 to 11, then you have some real problems What do you do with these people when they show up in the
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New Testament? What do you do with Noah or Adam or any of these other people that show up?
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And so we list a couple of passages in Matthew a couple passages in Mark a couple passages in Luke passage in John Romans 1st
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Corinthians Ephesians 1st Timothy Hebrews James 1st
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Peter 2nd Peter 1st John Jude you get the picture. That's a lot And he says the fact is that one cannot neatly remove
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Genesis 1 through 11 through from the biblical organism It's not like removing scaffolding on a building after a paint job is finished in other words.
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It's not just something extraneous It's integral to understanding scripture.
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It is rather like wrenching the head from a living animal That's a picture The head may be gone, but all sorts of tendons bones and dripping blood attest to the fact that is
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Not an optional part of the organism Okay moving on Waldron says this he says the
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Bible explicitly repudiates the concept of a world in which natural causes are uniform and explicitly affirms the concept of a world history
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Punctuated by events which transcend the processes and laws of the world as it was created by God I'm going to repeat that and then ask what it means
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The Bible explicitly repudiates the concept of a world in which natural causes are uniform.
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What does that mean? What does it mean that?
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Natural causes are uniform Okay Everything is consistent throughout time in other words if we looked at the development of the world
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We would just see basically a pretty close to a flat line, and we would see that in regard to for example
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Things that are radioactive Mike you know wrote me the other day, and he said that you know only
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Ten percent of the radioactive material and is still in him in other words that is still radioactive
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How do we know that? Radioactive decay right half -life.
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You know it has a Projected scale by which it decays, and you know you can you can track it like that now the question is
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Has it always been thus in other words has there always been a predictable?
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stable consistent Measurable Uniformity to the processes of the world and Waldron says no
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Well, why does Genesis 1 to 11? Why does it play into that? Why do you have to say no if you believe in a literal
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Genesis 1 through 11 anything take place in Genesis 1 through 11?
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The flood yes absolutely the flood is fairly key right what else?
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Creation itself, thank you very much Thank you gold star gold star Creation is fairly disruptive.
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I Mean to the whole natural processes thing if we understand what the
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Bible says in fact I think you know just even from Hebrews 11. Let's look at Hebrews 11 real fast
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While we read that last week. I decided this is a pretty good case for a number of things
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Hebrews 11 and I believe But I don't want to just fling them out there,
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I think it's verses 3 to 7 Okay, well actually we only need verse 3
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By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God So that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible
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What's the significance of that verse right there? With regard to creation, okay, something's not visible.
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I But I don't think that's the point of this passage God made everything out of nothing as we would say in the
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Latin X Nihilo or Nihilo Or Navagila or something
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Nihilo how does that how does that play into a
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An evolutionary scale or an evolutionary scheme. I should say how do you reconcile?
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Hebrews 11 3 with evolution It's impossible
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Because it says right there that What is seen that is to say creation was not made out of things that are visible.
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He didn't reorganize what already existed The Mormons say that a bunch of matter was just laying around and God recreated it and boom there was creation
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Evolutionists say that matter existed It did what it blew up, right?
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Spread itself out You know and then over billions and trillions or however many billions of years you like that billions, thank you
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You know, however many However long you want to eons, I guess we could say You know things cooled off and you know life spontaneously came into being
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That's not what Hebrews says is it what Genesis 1 says
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Does Genesis 1 say that God just recreated everything that existed and he just reshaped it reformed it
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Molded it into something else Would somebody read Genesis 1 1 please?
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I mean there are ways of saying you know that he Reorganized things he moved things around He shifted a few rocks
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But he created And again, I think if we take Hebrews 11 as inspired we don't have any choice but to say that everything that came into existence came out of nothing
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God spoke and everything came into existence Okay, so Talking about events that transcend world processes well there are a lot of things that are explained by the flood and I'm not going to turn this into a
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Answers in Genesis forum. I am going to say that Genesis explains a lot of things the fact that God is able to create everything by His own power out of nothing explains a lot with regard to the mysteries that scientists cannot explain
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Waldron goes on to say God is at liberty to transcend such natural laws and Do things in a different way calculated to manifest his glory and transcendence to sinners this is
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I Mean we could call it miracles But I mean, what do we? Why is it and I like to use this kind of example?
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Why is it that? Scientists know what they know. What's that?
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Observation right but observation predicated upon Something that we started with that is to say uniformity right because if for example
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What the atomic makeup or the molecular makeup of copper varies from day to day?
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Well, they're gonna have a real hard time with dealing with copper because they're gonna go. I don't know. What kind of copper is it today?
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Right if copper is a random element I don't know why I chose copper just copper when they go into the laboratory and they're looking at copper
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They know what to expect why? Because they've tested it before they looked at it before and the presumption is going to be that it's
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The same thing well, why are things the same? What's that?
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Common grace is the correct answer right that God is upholding all things by the word of his power a scientist says that things change that they
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Radically changed, and then they've stayed fairly constant. Why do we have gravity? Why do we have all these things well
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I? Don't even know if scientists can really so they can describe it. Why it exists
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I don't know if they know anybody know if they know why gravity exists Scientists are really good at observing.
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They're not so good at the Other other things that well what the transcend of the study of the transcendent.
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They're not good at all that but God is able to interrupt the natural laws.
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I mean what are some of the examples other than the flood What are some of the examples where God has transcended?
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What existed changed the the course of history as it were interrupted the space -time continuum the normal flow of things
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Gary okay Babel he did that yes change their languages
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He stopped time yes, he did creation is a great example. You know which came first the chicken or the egg the chicken
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How do we know that well because You know Genesis 1 talks about him creating creatures not you know eggs
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I mean can you imagine you know it because it says that he he brought these creatures in front of Adam and whatever
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Adam named Them that's what they were can you imagine he brings up an egg? And You know
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Adam says chicken. I don't know how that would have worked Exactly of course he wouldn't said chicken because I'm pretty sure he didn't speak
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English, but I digress Okay, so moving on with Waldron After God had made other all other creatures.
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He created man male and female With reasonable and more immoral souls now some of you want to dispute that and I don't blame you because when
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I read that reasonable Souls some people are not necessarily reasonable, but I digress this is this is not
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Waldron. I'm sorry this is the London Confession of Faith 1689
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After God had made all other creatures He created man male and female with reasonable and immortal souls rendering them fit
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Unto that life to God for which they were created being made in the image of God in knowledge righteousness and true holiness
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Notice it doesn't say the physical image of God Having the law of God written in their hearts and power to fulfill it and yet under a possibility of transgressing
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Being left to the liberty of their own will which is sub which was subject to change now when
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I read that let me just kind of Skip over a few things, but get get to this part
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When it says having the law of God written in their hearts right they have a conscience They know what's right and wrong and the power to fulfill it to keep the law of God Yet under a possibility of transgressing being left to the liberty of their own will which was subject to change in other words the original creatures
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Male and female Adam and Eve had what they had free will
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I? Don't think we'll find any other part of the London Confession of Faith will find that any other creature is described as having free will right
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Who has free will in the Bible God including the Lord Jesus Christ Adam and Eve?
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It's pretty hard to see anybody else who has a free will and as soon as they fall their will is no longer free
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Besides the law written in their hearts. This is a 1689 again the law written in their hearts
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They received a command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil which whilst they kept
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They were happy in their communion with God and had dominion over creatures Okay, so as long as they did not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
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They had peace with God that communion with him they had dominion over the creatures everything was the way it was supposed to be and then
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We come to the fall Waldron says of the
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Constitution of Man, it is the sundering of the body and soul in death and the intermediate state that the clearest evidence of man's two -fold makeup is given that is to say body and Soul that's we don't believe in trichotomy here, and if we have any trichotomous.
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I apologize to you in advance. What is trichotomy? Something that you're probably contemplating before you went to sleep last night body soul and spirit, okay
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Can anybody explain the difference between the soul and the spirit to me neither can I so We are what's called dichotomous we believe in the physical and the spiritual not trichotomous
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Okay Man is body man is physical though He is not just physical several practical conclusions follow from the biblical doctrine of the dual
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Constitution of man that is to say physical and spiritual it shows the difference between the biblical dichotomy between Body and soul and the
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Greek dichotomy the difference between the biblical and the Greek dichotomy for the Greeks the body was at best worthless and at worst essentially sinful
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The spirit on the other hand was almost or actually was divine and eternal the significance that was the
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Gnostics The Gnostics who some people try to say are what that they're
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Christians and that the books they wrote were Christian and therefore should be in the
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Bible So you know they would say things like the gospel of Thomas Should be in the
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Bible You know Bart Ehrman has made how many know who
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Bart Ehrman is okay? Bart Ehrman is a professor down at North Carolina He's overly influential mostly.
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I think because he's written a lot of books Books like with titles like lost
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Christianity You know this idea. He's basically made popular this idea that the
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Council of Nicaea Was a battle between two warring factions
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You know the the Gnostics and the Non -Gnostics,
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I guess they we would call them the biblicists. We would say the biblicists and the heretics, right? but he wants to make it sound like you know it was just this large group and that the
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Gnostics were outvoted they were outgunned at this thing and they shouldn't have been that their their philosophy was just as Christian as The biblicists you know that the the
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Christian viewpoints There are a number of problems And I mean I've mentioned some of these before like the easy examples if you read anything any of these
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Gnostic books The gospel of Thomas You know
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Jesus is quoted as saying something akin to Unless a woman become a man she can not enter the kingdom of heaven
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You know that might sound really cool and hip these days but It's not it's not right, and it's not biblical
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Jesus never said anything like that but the Gnostics had this idea of Gnosticism being
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Greek for hidden knowledge they had this idea that the spiritual side of man was eternal and which is true, and it was inherently good, and it was the physical body that was evil and sinful
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And so what the Gnostics taught about Jesus was that he didn't Have a physical body because if he had a physical body the physical body being evil
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Then he necessarily would be Evil himself and that couldn't be so he only appeared to have a physical body, and he was just spirits
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You know I who are the modern Gnostics or the most modern
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Gnostics What's that? Madonna okay, let's see what the survey says survey says
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Gnostics Gnostics today who would deny the physical and accentuate the spiritual
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I hear some Whispers, I think somebody has an idea
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Seventh -day Adventist so close It's like I think I could jump from that cliff to the next cliff without falling in but it's not quite there
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I'm gonna run and jump oh
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But I have no cartilage on my knees, so I'm gonna drop like a rock okay Christian Scientists right these are the people
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I I've told this story, but I just love this story. You know working at the jail back in the day
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These ladies coming out you know I was having lunch or whatever outside I think Janet was there
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I was having lunch outside and then going back inside and I run to these ladies as they're coming out because they would go in and Minister to the inmates and so one of them asked me.
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They said what kind of tree is that? And I was such a dope I walked over to the tree, and I said is there really a tree here
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Because they deny the physical reality right if you if you say you have an illness They say no you don't that's a spiritual condition.
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It has nothing to do with your physical body Back that up.
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They say it's a physical condition. It has nothing to do with who you are which is your spirit They deny their the realistic existence of The physical world they're all about the spiritual world the spiritual world is good the physical world is evil.
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They are the modern Gnostics, and they're really Pretty crazy when he gets to talk to him a little bit
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But that's it right here So when he says it shows the difference between the biblical dichotomy between body and soul and Greek dichotomy for Greeks the body at best was worthless and At worst essentially sinful the spirit on the other hand was almost or actually was divine and eternal and that's the idea that they had
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That's that Gnosticism Waldron goes on to describe why
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Trichotomy is not the way to go. He says it this suggests, and they're not insuperable that means can't be overcome difficulty with trichotomy
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During the intermediate state man is torn into his two component elements and goes into two not three specific places
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In the case of the righteous the body goes to the grave and the soul goes to heaven Trichotomy the idea that man is composed basically of three elements body soul and spirit is incompatible with the biblical doctrine of the intermediate state
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Because it suggests that the soul is a third distinct element and would require a third place for its abode
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Anyway, there's your trichotomy versus dichotomy thing for the day A Study of the biblical data on the image of God may be summarized under the following two headings.
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What is the image of God? Okay now this is this is kind of the a key thing would you say true or false
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Men and women possess the image of God How many want to support that one?
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Show of hands, okay Let's see what
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Waldron says We should not even speak of man possessing the image of God.
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I Spoke of it, so I'm just in as much trouble as you are For the image is not something man possesses.
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It is something man is Man is the image of God.
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We are image bearers, right? We're not image possessors. So The the term term image so, you know a little trick question on a
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Sunday morning, it's good for you the term image means a replica So if we say we possess we're we're not
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Replications of God, right The term likeness being derived from a verb which means to compare designates something that looks like something else
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In both words the idea of a visible Resemblance comes across which is not correct, right?
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We don't physically resemble God But we do We are made let's put it that way we are made in God's image is fallen man
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God's image Are we made in God's image even though we're fallen? Yes Many theological traditions have answered this question with an emphatic
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No, and have maintained that in the fall man lost the image of God The biblical concept of the image informs us that the question as formulated is impossible to answer on one word such a question in fact
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Radically fails to appreciate the biblical concept the image of God is man's identity is not something which he can simply lose
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Thus in a certain sense man continues to be the image of God after the fall He says the question must be put as follows is fallen man an accurate replica of God And the answer is no
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If the answer or the question is is he a good or distorted image of God? Well, I like that one better.
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What's the answer? Distorted right We're a very inaccurate
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Replica of God it needs to be renewed By being redeemed by being shaped into the image of God Man is the image of God he may be a good image or a bad image
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But he must always remain the image of God Walton says Okay now let's
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Look at this just a little bit more here since man's identity is the image of God this means that he remains intimately and indissolubly
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Related to God as the image of God is in such an intimate relationship with God that he cannot
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Cease to know God, so what does that mean? It means if we know man
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We must know God and he has a few references here. Let's look at Romans 1
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Okay now We normally when we think about this. I mean I do certainly when
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I think about Romans 1 and the creation I think of You know the
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Grand Canyon the sky the Sun the physical things that we can observe or measure or Enjoy, I don't typically think about us
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Right I don't typically think about mankind and think okay when
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I look at mankind What do I see and the truth is I see? Image bearers
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Not always perfect, but image bearers well what in what sense do we bear the image of God? What are the attributes of God that we see in mankind?
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creativity God is creative, and we are creative we're not as Magnificent in our creations obviously, but what else?
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Okay, we have some of I think you could say some of the attributes of God You know we have a sense of justice.
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We you know and these things are distorted Because our
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I mean, I'm interested by what people say about justice
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Because I'm like I I don't I don't think God and well. I know God doesn't view things the same way
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You know what is here? Here's a good example the death penalty if you talk to Some believers, but a lot of unbelievers.
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What do they think about the death penalty? What's that?
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It's wrong. Why it's cruel.
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It's it's murder, right? To the taking of a life can never be justified.
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You know all these kind of things But what does God say about the death penalty it suppresses evil?
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It's just right If you shed blood Your blood shall be shed
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And what does it say you know just in with regard to justice What does it say when you you know
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I I watched this video the other day a secular video But what's this video and it talked about most of you will recall the situation in Connecticut a few years ago where a family was basically taken hostage for a while and Unspeakable things were done to the wife and daughter and the husband was hit over the head the house was set on fire and everyone died, but the husband and the father and the two men who did these things were sentenced to death and Then what happened the death penalty was overruled?
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because It was cruel and unusual punishment. I'm like Okay, I'll tell you what cruel and unusual punishment is
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You know it's living through what that family lived through So how is it justice?
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You know this and this gets right back to it our sense of justice is Boy that it just seems really you know because now these guys are gonna have to go through like 10 or 12 years of Incarceration and all these appeals and isn't that gonna be really really tough?
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These are vicious murderers Murderers Romans 13 says that the government doesn't bear the sword for nothing for no purpose
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It bears a sword for what to punish evildoers those who do wicked
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So when we see what the Word of God says about Justice, and then how it's carried out in our world sometimes there's a major disconnect
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Other ways in which man is the an image bearer of God or that we have the same
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Qualities or attributes we reflect the attributes of God yes
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Okay, we can show forgiveness. I mean, that's I I would say that that's one of the great attributes of a
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Christian how do you know you're a Christian because your desire is to forgive as God forgives right Ephesians 432 right
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What else? love Absolutely, God is love and you know
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John says if you don't love then we know that you're what? Not born of the
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Father What people say is love is? Not how
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God loves God's love does not change. It's not subject to Emotions let's say other ways that we represent.
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Let's let's look at Romans 2 verses 14 and 15. Let's see if that's far back enough.
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Yeah For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature Do what the law requires they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law
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They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts While their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them
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What's the earliest you can remember? You know as you flip through your little
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Rolodex of time in your head What's the earliest you can remember doing something wrong that that was the first time you heard anything wrong will
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I'm not worthy ladies and gentlemen I Will Harriet formerly perfect he fell yesterday.
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I just want to know so What's what's the earliest you can remember doing something
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I mean the earliest like how old were you Five I think fives about the first time
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I can remember and what did you think I mean? What what can you remember anything of the emotions that you felt?
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Because it's the funniest thing I I don't know why but I can remember it like it was yesterday Which would make me pretty young I Can remember like it was yesterday because my heart was racing
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I mean, I'm sure I had sinned on many occasions before that time, but it was like the worst sin I had ever done in my life, you know
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And I don't even think I was thinking oh, this is bad I knew it was bad though. There's that just kind of like Am I gonna get in trouble for this?
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You know because in the back of my mind I I would just say it this way even though I couldn't hear anything.
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It was like fire alarms are going off Right if you were to take my pulse right then I guarantee it would have been like 20 or 30 over normal because I was pretty
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Excited why is that it's because we have
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God's law in our hearts. We know he put it there He created us in his image
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People inherently know what is right and wrong and how do they know that because we are image bearers and when we sin
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Every single sin is what it's a searing of the conscience and it's also a suppression of the truth
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We're holding down the truth. We're not going to do what we know is right because Whatever our sin is means more to us than what the truth is
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Adam and Eve had the capacity to not sin We have the capacity now as believers to obey but before that all we could do was sin because without faith
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That's impossible. Please God, but even unbelievers
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Have that sense that something is wrong, but yeah, well, let me let me approach it a different way
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Let's think about this. Why is it? you know that Psychologists and psychiatrists when they study criminologists when they study the criminal mind will tell you that Murderers serial murderers often start with what what's that?
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With animals why? It has something to do with searing their conscience, right? They're small.
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They're easy, you know, and you can feel less of a paying of conscience but you can still kind of get a little bit of a
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Thrill knowing that you're doing the wrong thing and what they do over time is they sear their consciences
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Step by step by step by step so that they can look at somebody what would absolutely mortify any of us to even watch let alone do and They can do it without missing a step
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Why? Because they've trained themselves It's as if they've taken, you know, it let's let's say that we each have an image of God Us, you know as the image of God and we each have this little
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Mirror or whatever Well when if we look at it and we try to see you know The attributes of God in what we are we're gonna see a really warped picture because of sin
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What the Holy Spirit does over time Lord willing as we are sanctified is he refines that image
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So that we look more and more like the Sun. This is just a metaphor So don't I'm not saying we're gonna physically look like the somebody's
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Removing those Sinful habits that we are that we have and helping us to put on righteousness, right?
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So we are conformed into the image of the Sun the scripture says For someone like this who's bent on sin
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Without the Holy Spirit, they are basically taking a hammer to that image because their goal is to deface it as much as they possibly can to sear their conscience to do away to just Suppress that law to obliterate it as it were to get rid of any remaining vestiges of conscience the law of God anything that would warn them that something is wrong and That's how you wind up with somebody who's so hardened and so virtually like Indescribable Understandable to us.
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We just hear the hardness and we go. How could somebody be like that? They've worked hard at it. I was talking to somebody.
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I don't know if it was this class, but I talked about the first person I ever did
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I tell you guys about the first person I ever arrested for drunk driving and And the person like hit his blood alcohol level
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I think was like point five one or something like that and You know,
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I mean literally people were coming in from all around the station to see this because they'd never seen anything this high right, I mean this is like You know, even at that point when it was point one.
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Oh, that was five times the legal limit. I mean that was You know, he he had been training for a long time
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You don't just go out one night and try to do you know point five one because you'll die He had been training and training and training, you know teaching his body to handle more and more alcohol and it's the same with other
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Sins other crimes you train yourself, you know, how is it that somebody becomes?
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Just name the sin, you know the the most profligate sinners how is it that they reach that level they train themselves
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They learn how to you know, ignore that alarm and eventually they don't even hear it anymore
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So there are two two basic paths on the image of God one is, you know sinners set about to destroy that image of God and For the
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Christian the Holy Spirit sets about to refine us and to mold us and to shape us into The image of the
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Sun that we might better reflect the image of God any questions or thoughts about that Yes, Gary.
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Yeah. Oh Excellent point. Yeah, because even as you know, let's say the serial murderer is actively doing these things.
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Well, God is also hardening him It's hard for us to you know Fully understand that except for scripture says it and so they become more and more reprobate and that's what's going on With many individuals and with our society, you know as a whole.
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I mean some of the things that You know people say don't even I I mean,
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I cannot even Make sense of some of the arguments people make especially when it comes to you know children and how they're
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They're able to identify themselves you watch I've made this prediction before but if if they're saying that children ages four and five are able to identify their
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Gender identity. I'll just leave it that way if they're able to With a certainty identify their own gender
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The time is coming when people are going to start questioning the age of What's what
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I'm looking for consent I Mean if a four and five year old can decide that and set themselves out on a course for you know
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Hormones and suppression medication and surgery and everything else then what can't they decide and That's the world that we are introducing right now
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It's gonna It's it's gonna be a war and it's gonna happen a lot sooner than we would like to see it happen
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Anyway, we need a closer prayer father Thank you for your word. Thank you for the 16 and 9 89
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London Baptist Confession of Faith and what it Teaches us about your word what it teaches about ourselves and about you
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Lord just pray that you would strengthen us in our conviction to love your word and to know it's and to yield ourselves to the spirit and to be