September 6, 2022 Show with Dr. Joseph A. Pipa on “The Importance of Young Earth Creationism”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlyle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions and now here's your host

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Tuesday on the sixth day of September 2022.

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I trust you all had a relaxing, refreshing, enjoyable, and Christ -honoring

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Labor Day weekend and we are delighted to have back on the program one of my favorite returning guests.

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His name will be no stranger to our listeners who listen regularly because not only have

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I interviewed this brother a number of times but you hear his commercial every day promoting a commentary series on the

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Westminster Larger Catechism authored by Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III. So you should not be unfamiliar with the name

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Dr. Joseph A. Piper who is an author of over one dozen books himself and he is

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President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina.

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Today we are addressing a very important theme that not only divides the body of Christ but even divides perhaps even especially

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Reformed Christians. We are addressing the importance of Young Earth Creationism which is actually a qualification for anyone serving on the board or faculty for Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina and I believe if I'm not wrong it could be the only seminary in the nation that does have that qualification or at least one of a very few and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trip and Zion Radio, Dr.

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Joey Piper. Well thank you Chris, as always it's good to be with you.

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I will say that Puritan would also have that same stance that we have. Great, Puritan. I don't know about others but they were in Heidelberg Catechism up in, where is it,

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South Dakota, they would as well. Okay, and well

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I'm glad to hear and actually after it came out of my mouth I immediately thought of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan founded by Dr.

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Joel Beakey because I was almost certain that they would make that a qualification as well.

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Well tell us, tell our listeners more about Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina.

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Thank you Chris. The seminary was started by Dr. Morton Smith in 1987 to have a seminary that was committed to full subscription of the

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Westminster Standards and that would include of course six day literal creation,

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Sabbath, high views of worship, things like that. I came to the seminary in 1998 as the first president, had the privilege of serving in that capacity until June of 20 and Jonathan Master has come in as my successor and is just doing a remarkable job.

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We focus on preparing men for the ministry, that is our great goal and how we teach everything at the seminary, the curriculum is put together under that end.

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And God continues to bless us as I hear of other schools having a lower

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Master of Energy enrollment, ours has stayed high even during COVID and this year we have over 30 new students.

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Praise God and as we let our listeners know last time you were on, one of my pastors,

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John Miller is a graduate of Greenville Presbyterian, even though he is a Reformed Baptist.

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That's right. And I'm sure he is delighted that you are on the program today, he speaks extremely highly of you.

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Well if anybody wants to find out more information about Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, go to gpts .edu,

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G for Greenville, P for Presbyterian, T for Theological, S for seminary .edu and God willing we'll be repeating that towards the end of the program.

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Well this is quite a controversial subject and when I think about it, it shouldn't be.

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It shouldn't be a controversial subject especially among those who believe in the inerrancy of scripture and those that would be confessional and conservative and Bible -believing and Calvinistic and Reformed Christians, but it sadly is.

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And when I say that, I don't mean to disparage those that believe in an old earth position.

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I have very close friends who believe in an old earth position who have even been on this program.

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I only have people subscribing to an old earth position on the show if they're speaking about that subject to be involved in a give and take or a debate because I am a firm believer in a young earth position.

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But I have had men who subscribe to the old earth position speak on other issues on this program and some of them have been my friends for decades.

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But at the same time I think this is an extremely important issue and I'm sure you do too since as you said the seminary for which you are president emeritus and professor of systematic and applied theology has that restriction and requirement that all members of the board of faculty have a young earth position.

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Perhaps you could define for us, it may seem like a no -brainer, it may seem obvious, but why don't you define for us what young earth creationism means.

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Okay Chris, young earth creationism takes Genesis 1 -1 to be an account of how

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God created and in what order and takes the days of Genesis 1 to be normal days.

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I say normal days because it's possible with the flood or whatever that the whole universe or at least our part of it is in great upheaval that perhaps they weren't 24 hours but normal days, that's what

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God wants us to think. And depending on how one looks at the genealogies in scripture, six to ten thousand years would be the age of the earth.

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Amen. And can you give us some of, in summary form, some of the views of those that would reject that description of what the

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Bible truly teaches about creation? Yeah, up until probably the 1830s,

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I think all Reformed people pretty much took the position that I just summarized.

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It was with the claims, first of geology and then of evolution, that with good intentions of hoping to avoid any conflict between the inherency of scripture and what men assume to be the facts of science, we began to see a weakening of that.

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Princeton was one of the main places where, around that time,

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Warfield and Hodge—well, Warfield not then, but Hodge—began to take the position with respect to that.

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And the first thing that was put forward was called the gap theory, and that is that between Genesis 1 -1 and 1 -2 there was a great upheaval, perhaps the fall of the angels or whatever, so that what we have in Genesis 1 -2 is the earth after that upheaval and then a reforming of the earth.

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That is exegetically untenable, and really all the positions are, but it's probably the most in terms of those first two verses.

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What became popular in evangelicalism and amongst the fundamentalists is called the day -age theory, and that is that the days themselves represent long periods of time.

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That is a position that, in one sense, is exegetically sounder in terms that does follow the order of Genesis chapter 1, its chronology.

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It doesn't work exegetically because the Hebrew word yom, as it's used in Genesis chapter 1, the default meaning is either a normal day or day in contrast to night.

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And, of course, there are those that say, well, a day with God is a thousand years, a thousand years a day, but the analogy that the

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Bible makes there, both in Moses and in Peter, would be completely invalid if you were saying a thousand years a day is like a thousand years.

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No, the contrast there is between what we know of as a day, but in God's light it is as nothing, it's a thousand years.

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And I just challenge people that make this remark about yom to do a full word study of the word.

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Even a liberal skinner on his commentary on Genesis said it's impossible to understand that word in any other way.

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And many men like Charles Hodge and Ritterbosch and others will say that the normal reading, the natural reading of Genesis 1 would be an old creation.

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But also, the gay age theory does not work in terms of trying to harmonize with the claims of evolutionists because the order is different.

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So what we've had more recently are two non -literal approaches, one called framework hypothesis, and that is that what we have in Genesis 1 is a stylized framework that simply has two parallels.

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The kingdom and the kings are the environment and the inhabitants or whatever. And so what we have then is the creation of a structure and then putting things in the structure and that the text is not telling us anything about order.

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They appeal to, and I'll probably get to this later, Genesis 2, where we have the first record of the generations, the

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Ptoledoes, and they want to say that that was a record of what it was like in Genesis 1 and thus normal providence must be at work.

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And that the language is highly poetic, but it really isn't highly poetic. It uses all the

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Hebrew forms for historical narrative. That's the least tenable exegetically, so what we have had since then is what's called the analogical view, and that is the view that, well, yeah, there's kind of an order here of six days so that God shows us how to pattern our weeks.

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But as soon as they say there's kind of an order, then they say there's days one and four actually are the same day.

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So I think all the views break down with respect to their, and we'll probably come to that later, their exegetical approach.

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I'm going to give our listeners our email address if you'd like to join us with a question for Dr. Joey Peipa of your own.

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Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, and please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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And the only way I could possibly conceive that would be the case is if you are a member of a church whose position on the old earth versus young earth controversy differs from your own, and you are perhaps upset by it, you don't want to identify yourself at this point because you don't want to stir up a controversy in your own congregation.

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That kind of thing I could understand compelling you to remain anonymous, but if it is just a general question about the

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Bible, about what reformed Christians have believed throughout the centuries historically on this issue, et cetera, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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It seems to be that the most serious issue that comes up when we are disagreeing with brothers over a young earth versus old earth position is that, well one of these most serious issues is that you would have to believe in an old earth position that death came prior to the fall of Adam and Eve, and if you could pick up from there.

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Yes, that is one of the problems with respect to the position, and there's been any number of attempts to defend that position, some saying that it's just human death that's being referred to, so the evolutionary scheme is premised upon a geological scheme of stratas of fossils, and so you would have to have had, according to that scheme, a good bit, it's not just death even, it's violent death, because the fossil record is a record of violent death, and so it does create a huge problem with respect to Genesis chapter 1.

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Genesis 1 concludes by telling us that God gave the plants of the earth for the food of men and animals, that death came in because of the fall, and that is the death on the curse of creation, which

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Paul tells us that creation itself has been subjected to futility because of the fall, and it's just no way to deal with the text in terms of what the really says, that death is a penal act of God because of sin.

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I was a bit hesitant, I was trying to find a quotation from Noel Weeks with respect to death, and I had it a while ago.

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Well, if you'd like to continue looking, let me repeat our email address for listeners who would like to actually get in line to ask a question of Dr.

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Piper. We already have some people waiting to have their questions asked and answered on air, but our email address again is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence.

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Only remain anonymous if it is about a personal and private matter regarding our subject that compels you not to reveal your identity, such as your church being in disagreement with you over this issue.

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Perhaps you're even a pastor, and your fellow elders disagree with you, or your denomination disagrees with you.

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We would understand those reasons, but give us otherwise your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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Have you found what you were looking for yet, brother? No, that's okay. It's simply preposterous to go against scripture when

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God says that death is the consequence of the fall, and moreover, not only was it a violent animal death, that the probationary period from all evidence of Genesis 2 and 3 was not that long.

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There still would not have been the possibility of this awful cataclysmic events on earth that would have created such a record of a violent death.

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More than likely, what we have in the fossil record is the consequence of a flood, which clearly is the cataclysmic event that does explain the record itself.

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Now, in my conversations with my old earth friends, they have used something that you just said as an argument to defend their own position.

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They have said that what the scriptures are referring to about death coming with the fall is specifically regarding the sin of man, and therefore, the death of plants and animals prior to the fall has nothing to do with the death that came from the fall.

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How do you respond to that? Yeah, I did find my quote from Noah Weeks. So, of great significance for the interpretation of the creation account is the question of whether death is here understood in general, or whether it refers only to human death.

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If death came into the world only with Adam, then all evolutionary reconstructions of development of animals would be excluded.

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Obviously, without animal death, there's no animal evolution. Furthermore, periods represented by fossils must occur after man's sin.

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It is natural to connect Romans 5 .14 about death entering the world with the statement in Romans 8 .20 and 21 about the whole creation being subjected to futility.

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Paul's reference here is obviously to the curse placed upon the ground in consequence of man's sin.

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If we add this to the statement in Genesis 1 .30, the plants are given to every animal as food, and the natural inference is that animals were originally vegetarian, and that animal death was also not present before sin.

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I think Noel answers that, and moreover, we'll see then what God does in Genesis 9, where now there is a real conflict introduced within the animal world between man and animal, as well as now the privilege to take animal food.

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Not that man didn't do that after the fall, but there's just no grounds for that Luther interpretation, in my opinion.

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And you did say looser, not Luther, as in Martin Luther. You said looser, am

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I correct? Hello, brother? I don't know.

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I think you said looser, which would make perfect sense.

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Just a little joke. We have Ted from Moundville, Alabama, who says,

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Chris, you made a disclaimer in your introduction that I don't mean to disparage those who believe in an old earth position, but it seems to me that many, many young earth creationists really do disparage those who believe in old earth creation.

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Specifically, it is not enough for some young earth creationists to reject the old earth creationist position as incorrect, and to state that the holder of that view is incorrect on that particular issue.

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Rather, they have to take a cheap shot at that believer's faith, most often claiming that the old earth creation position is the result of not taking the

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Bible seriously. To wit, I'm wondering if your guest and you, Chris, would be willing to acknowledge that it is not the case that all those who believe in old earth creation do so because they do not take the

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Bible seriously, or at least as seriously as they should, or at the very least not as seriously as you do.

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Well, first of all, I have friends that are—I'll let

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Dr. Piper respond after I do, because you were talking about my caveat in the beginning—I have personal friends who are far more brilliant than I am, far more biblically literate than I am, and I would never say that they hold their old earth position because they don't take the

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Bible seriously. But I can also say to you, just as the divisions between Calvinists and Arminians and Textus Receptus Onlyists and those that believe in the older manuscripts of the

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Scripture, and we could go on and on with things that divide the body of Christ, I have personally witnessed a hatred and ad hominem and mean -spiritedness and lack of Christ -like behavior on both sides of these issues, and I have been actually astonished by some of the rhetoric of old earth creationists that I have encountered.

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I used to think that they were the picked -on guys, even though I disagreed with them,

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I used to think that they were the picked -on guys by the young earth bullies, but that is hardly the case, that it is a one -way situation.

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I have met and spoken with old earth folks who actually believe that young earth creationists are guilty of young people going to hell because the young earth position is so moronic in their minds that young people have left the faith because we are not represented by brilliant scientists as those who are evolutionists and old earth creationists are.

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So this is not a one -way street. But anyway, Dr. Piper, perhaps you could respond. Well, I agree with you where you began the program.

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I, too, have close friends that take different approaches to Genesis chapter 1.

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Actually, some of those friends that actually support Greenville Seminary know in our position. No, that's not the issue.

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Again, it is a two -way street. I've been accused of being a fundamentalist and all types of things because of my exegesis on Genesis chapter 1.

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So with any kind of controversy amongst brethren, we ought to stick to the arguments and not throw out the ad hominem against them.

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So I would solidly affirm to the young man from Mountainville that it's wrong to do so from either direction, and we deal with each other as brothers in Christ, and we pray that God will continue to give us insight into His Word.

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Amen. Well, thanks, Ted, in Mountainville. Let me also say that we actually do at Greenville Seminary, you can't be on our faculty, but we have had people speak at our conferences.

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That's not a litmus test. If you're an expert in a particular area and we'd like to have you come and speak to us, we've often done that.

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In fact, Ian Hamilton says we're probably the most reformed ecumenical seminary he knows of in terms of the breadth that we use in our conferences.

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Great. Well, thank you, Ted, from Mountainville, Alabama. I hope that those answers satisfy you.

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We're going to our first break right now, and again, if you'd like to join us with a question of your own and get in line behind those that are waiting, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence. Don't go away.

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We'll be right back with Dr. Joey Pipe right after these messages from our sponsors. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here, excited to announce that my longtime friend,

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that's g3min .org. Stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Arnson while you're there.

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I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the theology and ethics of the

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Westminster Larger Catechism titled Authentic Christianity by Dr. Joseph Moorcraft.

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It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism, it is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

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Dr. Moorcraft is Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

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For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.

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heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Please tell Dr. Moorcraft and the saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, that Dr.

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Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you. Satan is the father of lies and spin, and the mother of those lies is a government who has rejected

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Joey Piper, and we are discussing the importance of young earth creationism. We have a listener who

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I believe is a first -time listener, Brenda in Greer, South Carolina. She actually has a two -part question,

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I'll read them one at a time. It is helpful to use the topic of evolution as a segue to the gospel, or actually she asked that.

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Is it helpful to use the topic of evolution as a segue to the gospel? I'll let you answer that first.

41:42

Well, I don't really know what Brenda means by the question.

41:47

I would much rather use direct people to the triune

41:53

God who is the creator of all things as a segue to the gospel, because he is the creator we are.

41:59

All people are responsible to him, and because he is perfectly holy, and we're sinners, then we're under his judgment.

42:10

So I don't quite... Well, let me read some more of what she has to say. She asks, how do you respond to a friend or a stranger who offhandedly says, well, for millions of years, et cetera?

42:23

I struggle with this because I cannot honestly say all Bible -believing Christians understand the importance of reading this part of God's Word literally, not figuratively.

42:34

I know there are godly men who believe otherwise, and even the PCA and OPC have indicated in their reports that our other views are legitimate.

42:44

Okay, and before I ask her final question, I'll let you respond to that. Well, if the person's hindrance to the gospel is a belief in evolution, then

42:59

I think we have to try to answer them honestly in terms of the

43:06

Scripture's testimony A, and then B, the absolute lack of scientific evidence.

43:13

In fact, the scientific impossibility of evolution as being a means of development of any species, which even non -Christian scientists now are saying.

43:32

Yeah, recently. Okay, okay, I'm sorry. No, no, you go ahead, brother. Go ahead, brother.

43:39

I just keep directing people to what the Bible says in God's testimony to himself in the

43:48

Bible. What Paul says, for example, there would have been people in Athens that, well,

43:56

I would think there would have because of the great philosophical diversity that would have led to evolution. It's something new.

44:04

But Paul asserts God is creator made from one, all mankind, and in him we live and move and have our being.

44:13

That's the place I would go and say, let's just see what the Bible says, and then let the

44:20

Holy Spirit bear testimony as God says he will do if he's willing, and then to the authority of Scripture at that point.

44:31

I think probably Genesis 17 is a good place to go. Yeah, it's interesting that, well, not surprising at all, that the far -left political assistant, consultant, and pundit,

44:46

James Carville, just very recently during an interview, mocked, and he was attaching this to a typical

44:55

Republican, mocked anyone who would dare to deny evolution as a moron and an idiot and so on.

45:04

And it's interesting, has Mr. Carville come up with some new information that we haven't heard where evolution, especially

45:12

Darwinian evolution, is still called a theory? Never been claimed by any scientist to have been 100 % proven.

45:23

Anyway, but let me go back to our listeners' final question,

45:29

Brenda in Greer, South Carolina. Do you think that even churches, I'm sorry, do you think that even in churches where the leadership is united in holding a six -day creation, there is a reluctance to emphasize it?

45:44

What should be done by these churches to address this deficiency? Well, I don't know if there is a hesitancy because of the backlash.

46:00

I think that we should, every time the text would deal with the sovereignty of God or His power as creation,

46:12

I think in our liturgy, our prayers, we address

46:18

God as the triune creator who made all things and nothing by the word of His power in six days.

46:25

I think every Reformed church should have a new members class where they teach that on the front end so people that come in don't have to believe it, but they need to understand this is what we believe and we'll teach.

46:42

Same way in a Presbyterian church, we will gladly receive a credo baptist into our membership as long as they understand this is what we believe, we're going to teach it, and they would in no way seek to counter that, and we'll continue to study that with us.

47:03

So it's not a litmus test for membership, but people need to know on the front end this is what we believe and what we're going to preach, and if they are comfortable being under that even if they don't believe it, then they're welcome.

47:20

But we don't, if we talk about the consequences, we really, this is much more important than merely an academic dispute over how one is going to look at Genesis 1.

47:33

The consequences of the approach, I think, are quite detrimental.

47:41

Thank you, Brenda, and I believe, if I'm not mistaken, you're a first -time questioner, and if that is the case, you have won a free

47:50

New American Standard Bible if you would like to provide for us by an email, your full name and your full mailing address there in Greer, South Carolina.

48:01

Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service will be shipping a free New American Standard out to you, compliments of the

48:09

Lachman Foundation, who are a key sponsor of this program, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com,

48:17

who will actually be physically shipping that out to you at no cost to you or to Iron Sherpa and Zion Radio.

48:23

Thank you very much. We have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, do you know of any old earth creationists who believe in the literal

48:34

Genesis account of the creation of Adam and Eve, or do they all believe in theistic evolution in regard to Adam and Eve having evolved from lower life forms before being fully human?

48:49

Well, by all means, that is a terrible caricature.

48:56

There are people that don't take Genesis 1 seriously, like William James Craig, that fall into that, and I've watched a number of people who started off either analogical or framework going that direction, but the great majority of the old earth people

49:20

I know still believe in a fiat creation of Adam and Eve, so we want to be careful again not to paint with that broad brush.

49:31

There are those that have moved into, and even those that are moving into theistic evolution will often still hold to the creation of Adam from the dust of the ground, so there's a lot of variations there with respect to that, so that's not a place for us to paint with the broad brush.

49:53

Thank you, Arnie, and we have time before we go to our midway break, we have time for one last question.

50:00

How do you respond to Tim Keller's promotion of what appears to be theistic evolution?

50:11

Who's? Tim Keller, a very well -known author and pastor of...

50:17

What's the question? How do you respond to his promotion of theistic evolution? Well, I would say he's wrong.

50:29

As I've said, I've watched a number of men who began either particularly as proponents of the framework hypothesis who have continued to go that direction and have ended up in some type of approach to theistic evolution.

50:53

I don't think that Dr. Keller would again deny the supernatural creation of Adam and Eve, but he has to some degree joined forces with Biolaugas and...

51:08

What is the position of Biolaugas on that? Biolaugas is basically committed to theistic evolution.

51:16

Yeah, I'm assuming that's why our listener assumes Dr. Keller was or is as well.

51:22

Well, he is. I'm just saying, I know he does. Actually, our presbyter wrote him a clarification a number of years ago.

51:31

I'm just saying, again, I'm not going to say because he hosts theistic evolution that he is denying the supernatural creation of Adam and Eve.

51:40

I don't know where he is on that, but I would not accuse him of that at this point. Now, is that something that...

51:49

It's interesting, Brenda's question mentioned how the

51:54

PCA, Presbyterian Church of America, Orthodox Presbyterian Church reports allow these other positions. PCA report was quite strong against any type of theistic evolution, and so it's since that report has come out is when we've seen now this further development.

52:12

I think Bruce Walkie has gone this direction. Yes, that saddened me greatly because I remember seeing

52:18

Bruce Walkie in the 80s preach at the church where I was a member on Long Island, and he was such a blessing, and I was heartbroken to hear of this.

52:29

You're cutting out on me, Chris, for some reason. Really? Oh. Yeah. I don't know why. All right.

52:37

But I was just saying it was a tragedy to hear of Dr. Walkie's changed...

52:43

Well, it is. It is. So at least he and Tim Keller would be two.

52:49

There are others not as much in the Reformed world that have gone that same direction.

52:58

All righty. Well, we have to go to our midway break right now, and please be patient with us because this is the longer, the normal break in the middle of the show because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

53:08

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the FCC requires of them to localize geographically all of their programming, including ours, to Lake City, Florida.

53:21

They do that with their own public service announcements and other local things, and while they do that, we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

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So please respond to them and thank them if indeed you love the show. And also send in those questions to Dr.

54:13

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54:23

We'll be right back. Don't go away. Attention all men in ministry leadership.

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and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr. Joseph Piper on the importance of young Earth creationism.

01:10:27

And we have a question for you, Dr. Piper, from Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who says,

01:10:35

I love your book, The Lord's Day, and your booklet is The Lord's Day for You.

01:10:42

And I was wondering, isn't the Sabbath itself a refutation of an old

01:10:48

Earth creation? Because you cannot possibly believe six of the seven days of the week may be thousands or millions of years when the

01:10:58

Sabbath is included in the description of those days, which was obviously a sunrise to sunset day.

01:11:07

Actually, I believe the listener meant sunset to sunrise day. But anyway, if you could.

01:11:14

Good. Yes. The grounds of the Sabbath in the

01:11:19

Fourth Commandment, that God reveals through Moses that we have a

01:11:27

Sabbath because God quotes Genesis chapter 2, get all things in six days and rested on the seventh.

01:11:37

Now, the way the nonliteral people get around that is some will say that we got the pattern of God's week.

01:11:52

And so they'll say it that way. But oftentimes what's happening is they say the seventh day is open ended.

01:12:01

And because of that, we don't take it as a literal day. And there's actually general reasons why it doesn't conclude with it was evening and morning the seventh day.

01:12:12

That's actually a hooker as on a clasp on a train. And it connects the days we come to the end.

01:12:22

We don't need that any longer. The rest of the Bible treats the Sabbath as a day.

01:12:29

And so what's happened then is you'll see one of the consequences of these views is a weakening of a commitment to the

01:12:38

Sabbath on people that I'm not saying all of them, but on some people who hold to the nonliteral interpretation of Genesis chapters one and then two, three.

01:12:52

Excellent. Thank you, Susan Margaret, for an excellent question. Before I take any more questions,

01:13:00

I want to make sure that we don't get entirely off track and miss things that you find most important about this subject.

01:13:09

So why don't you take a couple of minutes or more to bring up some of the things that would compel you to believe this is a crucial issue.

01:13:19

Obviously, we're not discounting the salvation or the brotherhood of people who disagree, but it's still a crucial issue nonetheless.

01:13:26

So please have some uninterrupted time. And let me quickly go through some of these things.

01:13:32

First place, Scripture's premium on supernatural sovereign character of God's creating work.

01:13:39

The Institute's Calvin writes, therefore, that we may apprehend with true faith what it profits us to know of God.

01:13:46

It is important for us to grasp first the history of the creation of the universe as it has been set forth briefly by Moses, and then as has been more fully illustrated by saintly men, especially

01:13:57

Basel and Ambrose. So rest of Scripture appeals to creation. God alone is God.

01:14:02

God is transcendent, infinite, sovereign. He's to be feared and worshipped. It's the basis of self -revelation of God.

01:14:10

It's the fulfillment of God's Word, and it illustrates the nature of the new birth. Second, and you alluded to this when we began the program, a confessional integrity.

01:14:21

For those of us that would either hold to the Westminster standards or the American or English historic confessions that parallel the

01:14:33

Westminster standards, there's been no Reformed confession teaching anything other than six normal days.

01:14:42

Now, some don't address the question as specifically, but there's been none to teach otherwise.

01:14:48

There are those that say when the confession of faith says that God made and created the space of six days, that that was a very ambiguous statement.

01:14:58

Well, in fact, it's a statement coined first by Calvin and picked up by Archbishop Usher to posit that there were six normal days of creation.

01:15:06

That's exactly what that phrase means, and it's used in other literature and where it came from.

01:15:14

And it relates to many key doctrines in the unity of the race from one man, imputation of sin,

01:15:20

Christ the covenant head, the nature of the flood, covenant history, the historicity of Genesis 1 through 11.

01:15:29

But ultimately, not that people do this consciously or self -consciously, but it does destroy the doctrine of the perspicuity, the plain meaning of Scripture.

01:15:44

And you read the Bible for yourself, and not all things are equally clear.

01:15:50

But this chapter is very clear. I had a special class one time, and I gave an assignment. I'm going over next week, read

01:15:58

Genesis 1, and come back and tell me what you think it says. Even those who oppose our view will say, as did

01:16:08

Ritterbosch, one who reads Genesis 1 without prepossession or suspicion is almost bound to receive the impression that the author's intent is to say that creation took place in six ordinary days.

01:16:21

But we cannot stop here. He's bound also to receive the impression that the earth was created first, afterward the sun, moon, and stars.

01:16:28

Well, yes, by all means, that's exactly the impression that God wants us to have. And the language,

01:16:35

I think, is quite clear as how it describes Genesis 1, our life, and then on the first day, the fourth day, really violates many of the tenets of grammatical historical exegesis, that there's so many markers there.

01:17:01

For example, it uses the historical marker in Hebrew that is used for consecutive narrative.

01:17:08

It uses the word yom with days that are ordinal numbers, first, second, third, and fourth.

01:17:15

When those are used in that way, they're to be taken in a chronological order. I've already mentioned yom that's used in the rest of the

01:17:24

Bible, and then this little phrase, evening and morning, is not talking about beginning or end of day.

01:17:33

It's an idiom used by Moses in three other places to simply talk about nighttime. And so we have the daylight time of God's work, then we have night, and that ends the first day.

01:17:45

So there's many exegetical reasons to go with the literal translation.

01:17:55

It's arbitrary as well, and the method is because Moses' writing style in chapters 2 and 3 is as figurative, if not more so, than chapter 1.

01:18:09

I mean, the description of the creation of man, and God's making man's clothing, a talking snake, why are not chapters 2 and 3 made non -literal?

01:18:19

In fact, some people now are doing that. Or the flood account is given to us in the chronological narrative, again, with this use of days.

01:18:29

So why is Genesis 1 not taken in the same way? Or the supernatural intervention in the plagues and crossing the

01:18:37

Red Sea, or the clothing of the children of Israel not wearing out? These are not matters of ordinary providence.

01:18:45

So there's no exegetical breaks to the system. And then it really does have other disastrous consequences.

01:18:54

I know people don't like the domino theory. We've already mentioned that some of these proponents now have moved into evolution.

01:19:04

There's a couple of reformed men, also a man like Youngblood has gone that direction.

01:19:11

Animal deaths before the fall. Now we have people who hold this position actually saying that the flood, we used to hear that the flood was not universal, it destroyed all people.

01:19:22

Now they're actually saying, well, the flood didn't even destroy all people, just people in that particular area.

01:19:29

So all of these are logical consequences, I think, of this method, this approach to scripture.

01:19:38

It's an exegetical, arbitrary method. Now, again, these men love the

01:19:44

Word of God. They don't deny inerrancy of scripture. I'm not accusing them of that in any way, as whoever.

01:19:50

But I'm simply saying that I've observed in a number of proponents this type of devolution for these reasons.

01:19:58

And then as the lady mentioned, the Sabbath, there's been a great one more reason why there's been a great decline in a biblical

01:20:10

Sabbath is coming out of this approach to Genesis 1 -2. Of course, now we're getting people who claim to be evangelical like William James Craig, completely doing away with any sound exegesis of Genesis 2 and the creation of man.

01:20:27

Wow. Yes, I recognized that the apologists that seem to more closely tie themselves with William Lane Craig are old earther folks.

01:20:43

And in fact, I've heard some of them, I'm not going to say this about Dr. Craig because I haven't heard him say this, but some of them that have appeared on stage with him and so on, have mocked very cruelly as being ridiculous, our views of a young earth.

01:21:00

But excellent summary. He does say in the book that when he started his so -called quest, he was really hoping it wouldn't lead to that because he could never hold it.

01:21:14

We have RJ in White Plains, New York, who asks, to your knowledge, historically, did any

01:21:23

Christian, at least a Christian of note who wrote anything that is in print, believe in an old earth until those that are enemies of Christ in the scriptures first entered into that proclamation because they believed that science trumped the scriptures and they believed that their science proved something contrary to a young earth?

01:21:52

I guess we need to be careful how we don't want to be ambiguous about that.

01:21:59

The people that responded to these claims did believe in an and they were hoping to, in a sense, protect the

01:22:08

Bible from accusations that it had error because it contradicted either the claims of geologists or the later claims of evolutionists.

01:22:20

Like Warfield. Yeah, I can say that I don't know of anybody.

01:22:27

David Hall's a very good job of demonstrating, for example, the framers of the

01:22:34

Westminster Confession of Faith. And more and more, we learn their positions.

01:22:39

Every one of them was committed to a six -normal -day approach to creation. There was a view that Augustine taught that because God is omnipotent, he created in a nanosecond, and that Genesis 1 is to spell out for us the order of what he did.

01:22:57

That was never a majority position in even the ancient church.

01:23:05

And if I mentioned, that's why Calvin coined the phrase, in space of six days, to argue against that.

01:23:15

So I don't, I'm happy if somebody can show me a

01:23:22

Reformed writer who, before the 19th century, advocated a long, an old -earth or a non -literal approach to Genesis chapter 1.

01:23:42

But as best I can tell, it was not normal. It was not, in the ancient church as well. I mean, Calvin mentions

01:23:47

Basil and Ambrose and many, because it's been asserted that many of old fathers held to a day age, but there's a long list of quotations from the early church as well.

01:24:01

So no, there maybe was somebody that exegetically came to that position, but it was only after, because they'll talk about it in their writings, people like Hodge, that they're trying to bring

01:24:24

Concord to the two positions. Thank you. And I want to also give another plug to Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service.

01:24:33

If you would like to purchase the books that were mentioned by one of our questioners,

01:24:40

The Lord's Day by Joseph A. Piper, and also the booklet, Is the

01:24:45

Lord's Day for You? Cultivating Biblical Godliness, also by Joseph A.

01:24:51

Piper. You could go to cvbbs .com, cv for Cumberland Valley, bb for Bible Book, s for service .com,

01:25:01

cvbbs .com. Just out of curiosity, have you written anything specifically on the young earth position that we can promote?

01:25:10

Or is there a book that you'd like to promote, whether you wrote it or not? The seminary, one of our first conferences was on creation.

01:25:25

We invited a number of Reformed people that would have these other positions to make their presentation.

01:25:32

And then we then responded with people both scientifically but also exegetically.

01:25:38

That book is, Did God Create in Six Days? And that has my more extensive reputation of framework hypothesis.

01:25:54

The seminary has a very brief statement on creation.

01:26:02

I think that Doug Kelly has written a very good book. I don't remember the title.

01:26:08

E .J. Young's criticisms of framework came up in a couple of things that Banner Truth published many years ago on Genesis 1 and Genesis 1 -3 that also are very good.

01:26:26

We have Christopher from Amityville, Long Island, New York, my former hometown of most of my life.

01:26:35

Christopher says, one thing that baffles me about why

01:26:40

Christians would even want to adopt an old earth position is that, to my knowledge, it is absolutely impossible to prove anything is a million or years old even under the rigorous examination of geologists.

01:26:58

In fact, I know that paleontologists and geologists have made embarrassing blunders trying to guess the dates of fossils and bones, sometimes saying that they are millions of years old when they turn out to be hundreds or less years old.

01:27:17

Do you have any comment about that? D .L. Yeah, a couple of things. One is carbon dating just cannot go back that far.

01:27:23

Everything has deteriorated. But first, basically, a philosophical thing.

01:27:35

Now, Christians who are promoting science to this day, on the basis of what they're reading scripture, still can only look at the world around them and postulate.

01:27:50

They can give theories that are every bit as valid and oftentimes much more logically sustainable than the theories of the scientists who look at the same thing and posit.

01:28:08

None of us were there, so we take God's record. But what we do have now, and there's been excellent work done on this by a

01:28:16

Christian geologist, and that is Mount St. Helens. At Mount St. Helens, what happened in a matter of weeks is what geologists claim took millennia to form the grains.

01:28:32

And it's all now observable. I mean, even the trees that are horizontal and vertical in the water, all the different strata that has developed, it's been quite phenomenal.

01:28:45

So here we have an example of a modern phenomenon that we can examine and see that this kind of thing can happen in a very brief period of time, which is why

01:28:59

I think the original work, although it's been improved on by Whitcomb and Morris on flood geology, is so valid.

01:29:08

You read the account of Genesis 6 through 8 about the flood.

01:29:16

This was not just water. This was, as I mentioned earlier, a cosmic upheaval.

01:29:22

It was a geological upheaval. The Earth was basically topsy -turvy upside down.

01:29:30

So again, we know from what we've seen happen even in less cataclysmic events what things like that can do to geological formation.

01:29:42

And then we see something like Mount St. Helens. So yeah, the strata differs.

01:29:51

There are plenty of people who have written on the inaccuracies, even trying to measure by strata. So I think your questioner is correct.

01:30:02

Great. We have another anonymous listener who says,

01:30:07

I'm remaining anonymous because some of my very close friends are old Earthers, and we've already had heated disagreements over this.

01:30:15

I don't want to add to that heat by making my complaint public. But my question to you is simply, do you envision that a young Earth position has a long future ahead of us, seeing how it seems not only do the secularists and scripture haters vehemently and publicly and with claims of science oppose our young Earth position, but the body of Christ seems to be more and more infiltrated with the old

01:30:50

Earth position? I mean, obviously, you're not a prophet, but what's your...

01:30:56

What we've seen in the culture, though, is now the world's refusal to submit to God as creator and to create analogical differences.

01:31:08

So the whole transgender business, homosexual marriage, all of these things are the products of what young people have been taught in school about evolution.

01:31:22

And so surely in the culture, there is a trend to absurdities that even 30 years ago were unimaginable.

01:31:34

A self -identifying transgender movement is our

01:31:40

Tower of Babel, men's refusal to submit to a creator God. So, yes.

01:31:47

And so we've already seen it inside the homosexuality, where, well, I'm a celibate, but I have this nature.

01:31:55

It's not sinful. That's just a further step. And this is in Christians, this is even in some

01:32:03

Reformed churches. So if we keep capitulating, then it's only going to get worse.

01:32:14

So it's very important, as Brenda's question implied, that we take winsome loving but strong commands about creation, about analogically created differences, about there's male and female.

01:32:29

That's how God created it, that marriage is to be heterosexual. Because I think we're going to see the evangelical church collapse on these issues.

01:32:40

I think we'll become increasingly a minority. Yeah, that is a shame.

01:32:46

But of course, for those of our listeners who are post -millennial, post -millennialists, they may have a different view.

01:32:53

As I am. And, oh, that'll be a joy for many of our listeners to hear, because we do have quite a number of post -mill, and a -mill, and pre -mill.

01:33:03

But, in fact, we have Gary DeMar on the program tomorrow. Oh, wonderful.

01:33:09

Yeah, he's a dear friend, and he's going to be not only discussing an important issue, but he'll be promoting a major conference on post -millennialism to take place in 2023 in Texas.

01:33:22

Oh, very good. But, well, we're going to go to our final break, so I don't have to interrupt you mid -sentence.

01:33:31

This will be much briefer than the other breaks. And if you would like to make sure your question is asked and answered on air, please send it in immediately, because we'll be out of time before you know it.

01:33:42

ChrisAronson at gmail .com. ChrisAronson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back. Josh Weiss, founder of G3 Ministries, and Daryl Bernard Harrison and Virgil Walker, co -hosts of the

01:34:31

Just Thinking Podcast. To register, visit g3min .org, that's g3min .org,

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and click on Events. Your registration will include a ticket to the Museum of the Bible, nearby the conference venue in Washington, D .C.

01:34:46

So join me and Chris Aronson, September 15th through the 17th in Washington, D .C.,

01:34:51

for the G3 Ministries Regional Conference. Register now before they run out of seats at g3min .org,

01:34:58

that's g3min .org. Stop by the Iron Sharpens Iron radio exhibitor booth and say hi to Chris Aronson while you're there.

01:35:10

Have you noticed the gap that exists between the Sunday morning sermon and the Sunday school classroom or the small group study?

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It seems like it is nearly impossible to find good curriculum out there today that is true to the word of God and is built upon sound doctrine, much less it's hard to find curriculum that will actually teach people how to study the

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Satan is the father of lies and spin, and the mother of those lies is a government who has rejected

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If you've watched my Dividing Line webcast often enough, you know I have a great love for getting Bibles and other documents vital to my ministry rebound to preserve and ensure their longevity.

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I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide. This is a day of great spiritual compromise and yet God has raised

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I'm pleased to do so and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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01:48:21

You're all invited to my friend Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon Thursday, September 22nd, 11 a .m.

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01:49:24

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01:49:30

to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania, for Chris Arnzen's Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Free Pastors Luncheon.

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01:50:03

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01:50:10

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It is free of charge. All are welcome. And for more details, you can go to ironsharpensironradio .com,

01:50:33

or you can send me an email to chrisarnzen at gmail .com. We have a listener,

01:50:40

Cindy in Findlay, Ohio. Hello, Chris and Dr. Piper.

01:50:46

I have enjoyed watching the Is Genesis History series with Dale Tackett.

01:50:51

Does Dr. Piper have any comments regarding this series? I saw it when it first came out, and I thought it was excellent.

01:51:01

Great. And do you know how anyone could watch this series?

01:51:07

I mean, is there a, you know, I would imagine if you just went on Google and did it, you would get it back up.

01:51:14

It was released, they gave it a preview at the seminary, and they ran it at different theaters, like one of those special one day type things.

01:51:23

I think if you simply went on Google and typed it in, that you could get it.

01:51:32

Thank you, Cindy. We have, let's see, I was just looking at another...

01:51:37

Let me mention, you mentioned books. Let me mention that from the science point of view, that there's a number of organizations,

01:51:46

Ancestors in Genesis, the Creation Research Group in Atlanta, and the one that's in Dallas.

01:51:54

All of these people have PhD scientists working in every sphere, seeking to put forth scientific tenable theories to answer the theories of the modern scientists.

01:52:13

And they do really useful work. Great. We have

01:52:19

CJ from Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who says, I have been confronted by a growing number of Christians who think that to disagree over these areas and theological debates and other forms is unloving and unbrotherly.

01:52:36

But for the life of me, I don't understand why they would say that as an absolute fact.

01:52:42

Obviously, any debate or disagreement can deteriorate into hate speech.

01:52:48

But when these differences can be conducted in an academic and brotherly and collegiate fashion,

01:52:54

I think they're extremely valuable. I was wondering what you had to say about that. Well, I would agree with you 100%.

01:53:01

We've already addressed the issue of not attacking people and not question their integrity.

01:53:08

But just as the name of the program, Iron Sharpens Iron, we need this kind of good, strong, biblical theological discussion.

01:53:20

Do it prayerfully and humbly, respectfully. But that's how we grow in our grasp of truth.

01:53:29

And oftentimes, the people that will take that position either have a very simplistic view about the

01:53:35

Bible. They don't want to discuss any kind of doctrines that might be controversial. And other times, it comes from a position of weakness.

01:53:45

They don't want to be made to think about the holes that might be in their own position.

01:53:52

Thanks a lot, CJ. Well, let's have a few more minutes where you have another opportunity of uninterrupted time to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today before the program goes off the air.

01:54:08

Well, I think that to not be threatened by the fact that some oftentimes major theologians will take positions against the six -day position.

01:54:29

And those that study it, I mean, a very good example of a man who humbled himself under Scripture was

01:54:35

R .C. Sproul, who for the longest period of time did not hold to a normal -day chronological creation.

01:54:46

And he changed on that, wrote about that in Table Talk. And so that's refreshing.

01:54:54

But don't be intimidated because big names are setting forth these theories.

01:55:04

And this is an area where anybody can read the Bible for himself. Another thing that I have a lecture on is how the rest of the

01:55:13

Bible looks at Genesis 1. It's quite phenomenal.

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Throughout the Old and New Testaments, how the Bible is supporting.

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Let me just quickly give an overview of this without being able to go into the specific text or anything.

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But in the first place, the Bible does teach immediate instantaneous creation.

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The word for create is used in this particular form with God as the author, is a record of supernatural work on God's part.

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And that word is used throughout the Scripture or throughout

01:56:20

Genesis 1, as well as other places in Scripture. So the Bible treats creation as an immediate instantaneous supernatural act of God.

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Lots of references there. Paul says, "...texts that lay emphasis on what is new, previously not present, that appear to be as productions of creation."

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It gives a number of other categories that I can't do now. The Bible confirms the order of the days and the pattern of the six -day week.

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We've already talked about Exodus 20, 11. Psalm 136, 5 -9.

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Psalm 104 seems to reflect the order of creation. Bible takes its face value, the fiat and fulfillment nature of creation.

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Psalm 33, 6 -9. "...by the word of the Lord the heavens were made, by the breath of His mouth all their host, for He spoke and it was done.

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He commanded it stood fast." Christ uses the phrase from the beginning to refer to the time of institutions of marriage, which would take us back to the beginning of creation.

01:57:17

I mentioned the uniqueness of the Hebrew word bara for create. And then each day is explicitly referred to in Scripture.

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So you can just go to other places. Day 1, 2 Corinthians 4, 6.

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Day 2, Psalm 102, 25 and 26. Day 3, separation of land and water.

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Peter refers to that in 2 Peter 3, 5. Vegetation, direct operation of the spirit necessary to renew the ground.

01:57:48

How much more to create? Psalm 104, 30. Job 38, 27. Day 4, many places referred to as the heavenly bodies created by God.

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Day 5, the birds and the fish. Psalm 104 and Psalm 8.

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Matthew 6, land animals. Day 6, Genesis 2, 19. Jeremiah 27, 5, man.

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Psalm 8, 7 and so forth. So you go straight through Scripture.

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And every genre of biblical literature affirms a literal reading of Genesis 1.

01:58:27

Historical, poetical, prophetic books. Gospels, Acts, Epistles, Revelation.

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Quite an eye -opening exercise just to go through and look at the rest of the

01:58:39

Bible, deal with Genesis chapter 1. Which is how we'd interpret Scripture, right? Scripture interprets

01:58:45

Scripture. Amen. Well, folks, for more information about Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylor, South Carolina, go to gpts .edu,

01:58:57

gpts .edu. And how can our listeners find out more about your church plant that you are pastoring?

01:59:05

Well, they can go on antiochpca .com and there access our website.

01:59:14

The church had died. It's kind of out in the country, but houses have been built all around it.

01:59:19

And Pastor Groff and I are working there. We've gone from three couples and some children to now about 14 or 15 family units and 27 children.

01:59:35

Praise God. And we've got to get you back on the program to even discuss more about the church. I want to thank everybody who listened.

01:59:43

I want to obviously thank Dr. Joey Piper for doing such a magnificent job today. I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater