G1 Conference Session 1: Dr. John Jackson "From Genesis to Jesus"

Hi, my name is John Jackson, and I'm the president of William Jessup University. I want to thank you for letting me share with you here today, and I decided that what

I would do is I would share my conclusions at the very beginning. That will allow you to know where I'm coming from, and it might end my talk a little bit sooner.

But before I do, let me share a story with you. It's a story of a little girl. She was in an art museum, and she knew more about theology than some people did.

As she was walking through the art museum, she saw a painting of Adam and Eve. That little girl stood next to that painting and raised her little fist and said,

You ruined everything! That little girl knew a lot more than some of us.

Let me share with you four conclusions that I start with. I think they'll be helpful for you to understand my perspective on these matters.

Number one, I want to contend that truth matters, and grace matters. An unflinching commitment to the

Word of God is the only secure foundation in a world that's cut loose from any moorings of truth.

Number two, if Genesis 1 -11 is an allegory, then Jesus accommodated himself to the ignorance of his audience, or worse, maybe he didn't know any better.

If Genesis is not true, then humanity, sin, salvation, marriage, family, history, good and evil, are all social constructs subject to change depending upon cultural norms.

Number three, to deny the historical Adam is to stand against the teachings of Moses, Luke, Jesus, and Paul.

And again, they were either confused, deceived, or even worse. And finally, number four, denying the truth of Genesis is like unleashing an army of termites under the foundation of a wooden home.

In time, everything crumbles. What we know about free will and sin and salvation and family and gender and identity and marriage all crumble in time.

I believe Genesis 1 -11 is the hermeneutical issue of our day. The dignity and fall and hopes of humanity all rest on the story of Adam and Eve.

In fact, B .B. Warfield, a famous systematic theologian, said this, "...the unity of humanity in Adam is the postulate of the entire body of the

Bible's teaching, of its doctrines of sin and redemption alike. So the whole structure of the

Bible's teaching, including all that we know as its doctrine of salvation, rests on it and implicates it."

I want you to be clear about this. The God of reason and the God of revelation are one and the same.

He cannot contradict himself. There's no conflict between right science and right

Scripture. The fact is that when there appears to be a conflict, we either have incompleteness or error on one side or the other.

Now many of you know my background. You know that I'm a pastor, but you also know that I've been a higher education leader in a faith -based, a

Christian setting this last decade. I am deeply committed to the proposition that biblical truth is the foundation for everything.

I also want you to hear this. I think there are four things that God wants for you. God wants you to be saved,

He wants you to be grounded, He wants you to be healed, and He wants you to be equipped.

But you know, we live in a world that has a problem with authority and truth.

It used to be that we could think about truth from the conduct of maybe Scripture as truth, that you could just make that assertion and people would rest with that.

Or you could say, well, a pope or some scholar or community of scholars, what they say is our source of authority.

But we live in the modern era. In the modern era, we've introduced something else, and that is the concept of experience.

For many in our modern world, our experience is the final determinator of truth.

My experience is what determines truth around me. I experience things, and therefore, my truth might be different than yours.

Let's begin by being very, very clear. I believe that God is the only source of final authority and truth.

In John chapter 8, verse 31 and 32, Jesus Christ Himself said this.

To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, if you hold to my teachings, you are really my disciples.

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. A lot of times, people pass

Jesus off as a good teacher. You may not know this, 78 times in the New Testament, Jesus said,

I tell you the truth. Many people in our modern age say, well, all religions are different, but they're all kind of the same.

What works for you might not work for me. My experience is what determines reality, and in fact, the ultimate value being lifted up in a number of contexts these days is experiential truth.

My experience is truth. And quite frankly, a lot of people who claim to be scientists are looking at physical evidence and essentially interpreting through their own lens.

Tolerance is the new reality. In fact, I wanted to share a quote with you. Thomas Helmbach, the Executive Vice President of the

National Lambda Chi Alpha, has about 280 ,000 members in 195 college campuses.

This is what he explains, quote, the definition of new tolerance is that every individual's beliefs, values, lifestyle, and perception of truth claims are equal.

Let me reread that. The definition of the new tolerance is that every individual's beliefs, values, lifestyle, and perception of truth claims are equal.

There is no hierarchy of truth. Your beliefs and my beliefs are equal, and all truth is relative.

That's the world that you live in, and quite frankly, sadly, that is often the determinative world of higher education.

Relativistic truth, or relativism, requires truth to be dependent upon social, personal, historical, and linguistic factors.

Not absolute factors, but relative ones. This stands in stark contrast to a biblical worldview.

Here at William Jessup University, we are deeply committed to a kingdom of God worldview, to a biblical worldview, to a gospel worldview.

We do believe that Jesus Christ, when he talks about the truth, he's declarative.

And when Jesus Christ affirms the Genesis narrative, that means something to us.

Francis Schaeffer described absolute truth this way. He said, if there's no absolute moral standard, then one cannot say in a final sense that anything is right or wrong.

By absolute, we mean that which always applies to all people, that which provides a final or ultimate standard.

There must be an absolute if there are to be morals, and there must be an absolute if there are to be real values.

If there's no absolute beyond man's ideas, then there's no final appeal to judge between individuals and groups whose moral judgments conflict.

We are merely left with conflicting opinions. Some of you hearing this talk have probably participated in one form of social media or another.

You know the reality that in our world, social media is almost like a mud fight at times.

Mud gets slung back and forth. And at the end of the day, quoting Bible verses, as I've often done, saying to somebody that your opinion is based on revelation literally doesn't carry the day.

For a lot of people, what matters is their opinion. My opinion, my experience, that's automatically equal, as we heard from the quote earlier, to anything else that you might have to say.

Well, the Bible makes it clear that all beliefs and values and lifestyle are not equal.

The Bible teaches that the God of the Bible is the true God. You can look in Jeremiah chapter 10, verse 10, and that all his words are true.

Psalm 119, verse 160. And that if something is not right in God's sight, that it's flat out wrong.

Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 1 and 8. This is not just the view of Hebrew culture or Christian culture or Western culture.

It's the truth according to the God who rules over all cultures revealed in God's Word.

Truth matters. Grace matters. The law came through Moses, but Jesus was full of grace and truth.

And our challenge as you prepare for this conference is to say, how can we discern the truth of God's Word?

How can we discover and learn the truth of science and make sure that we're being able to understand the world we live in, in alignment with the revealed

Word of God, while simultaneously loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength?

Here at Jessup, when we first launched the sciences, I actually had newspaper reporters ask me this question, is it possible,

Dr. Jackson, that you can be a Christian school full of faith and you can also really be rational scientists?

They saw a conflict between the two. I want to assure you fully and completely, as you will learn throughout the day, you can be 100 % committed to the authority of God's Word and 100 % committed to the discovery of real science and what our world tells us about the nature and character of God.

Genesis matters. Genesis to Jesus matters.

Genesis to you matters. If Genesis is not true, and if Jesus is not true, then we'll simply devolve into whatever truth fits our personal or cultural narrative.

You know, our culture has changed over time, and I remember a time, it was quite a few years ago, where people were upset about some of the things that were being said in culture.

And so what they decided to do as Christians, followers of Jesus, is develop a bumper sticker.

It was a good bumper sticker. This is what it said, God said it. I believe it.

That settles it. Well, you know, that was a good bumper sticker, and at the time it created kind of a good reaction.

God said it. I believe it. That settles it. But the more I thought about that bumper sticker,

I actually think it's off the mark. I think the way the bumper sticker should have read is,

God said it. That settles it. I believe it. Now what

I believe is that you can do real Scripture, and you can do real science. And if you will do real

Scripture and real science, you will end up understanding the narrative from the first page of Scripture to the last page of Scripture in a way that honors the person and work of Jesus Christ, the personhood of Adam and Eve, and the narrative that Scripture provides for us of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation.

The whole story arc of the Gospel. God said it. That settles it.

I believe it. That is the truth. And from Genesis to Jesus, we can be absolutely clear that the

God who made everything is at work in our world. It's been a delight to share with you, and I think

I've actually saved a few minutes off your total conference time by telling you my conclusions in advance.