Session 16: WCF Chapter IV Of Creation, Section 2

The Days of Creation God created heaven, earth and light and separated light from darkness to create “day” and “night.” God spoke the sky into existence and placed waters above and below it. God spoke to divide the land from the seas and create trees and plants on the land. God spoke the sun, moon and stars into existence. God spoke sea animals and birds into existence. God spoke the land animals and, finally, man, into existence. God rested.

The Days of Creation “Creatio Prima” vs. “Creatio Secunda” Creation of space, time, energy and particles “ex nihilo” Combination and organization of energy and particles into larger assemblies

Loaded Terms The “Big Bang Theory” “Intelligent Design”

Mixed Blessings The Renaissance The Scientific Revolution The Age of Enlightenment or The Age of Reason

Genesis 1:26-28 Genesis 2:7 Ecclesiastes 12:7 Luke 23:43 Matthew 10:28 Colossians 3:10 Ephesians 4:24

Romans 2:14,15 Ecclesiastes 7:29 Genesis 3:6 Genesis 2:17 Genesis 3:8-11,23

CHAPTER IV - Of Creation 2. After God had made all other creatures, He created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after His own image, having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfil it: and yet under a possibility of transgressing, being left to the liberty of their own will, which was subject unto change. Beside this law written in their hearts, they received a command, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which while they kept, they were happy in their communion with God, and had dominion over the creatures.

1. God immediately created man – no evolution   God created man’s body out of earthly materials and his spirit and soul out of nothing. “The hypothesis of development is a mere dream of unsanctified reason, utterly unsupported by facts. Not one single individual specimen of an organized being passing in transition from a lower species to a higher has been found among the myriads of existing species, nor among the fossil remains of past species preserved in the record of the rocks.” – A.A. Hodge, The Westminster Confession: A Commentary

2. God directly created one man and one woman, from whom the entire human race has descended.   Under the various accepted views of Creation, Adam and the woman may have been created thousands or even millions of years ago, but they were the first humans. Geneticists claiming that mankind descended from different pairs of humans (given the genetic variety) are wrong. Archaeological, historical, and philological investigations all indicate a common origin to all nations.

3. God created man in His own image.   Man is a rational, moral, free, personal spirit, which is necessary both to know God and be subject to moral laws. “Knowledge” - a capacity for the right apprehension of spiritual things, lost in the Fall, restored upon regeneration (Colossians 3:10)

1. God immediately created man – no evolution   God created man’s body out of earthly materials and his spirit and soul out of nothing. “The hypothesis of development is a mere dream of unsanctified reason, utterly unsupported by facts. Not one single individual specimen of an organized being passing in transition from a lower species to a higher has been found among the myriads of existing species, nor among the fossil remains of past species preserved in the record of the rocks.” – A.A. Hodge, The Westminster Confession: A Commentary

Pelagians believe that a God-created holiness is an absurdity – only a self-decided moral character formed by a previous unbiased choice of the will itself can lead to a permanent disposition or habit of the soul should have a moral character.   However, a state of moral indifference to sin is itself sin. Indifference cannot lead to goodness (self-restraint and selflessness). It only leads to selfish ends. God proclaimed his creation “very good,” which implies a God-created tendency toward good in man. (Genesis 1:31)

4. God furnished man with sufficient knowledge for his guidance. It is necessarily implied in the fact that man was a holy moral agent and God a righteous moral governor.   5. God created man capable of falling. It did, in fact, happen.

Controversy of the Week!

Will We Be Restored? Have justified men been restored to Adam’s initial state? Will glorified man be restored to Adam’s initial state?

Personal Personal Focus Focus

Do you wish the Fall had never happened?