Four Things that Believers Believe (about creation)

Why is believing what God says about creation so important? Because this is who we are - we are believers!

Let illustrate this with a simple example:
Is it necessary for someone to believe that Jesus was born of a virgin to be saved?
Not at all!
Why? Because someone may not have heard that teaching before they heard the Gospel.
When they hear what Jesus did for them - that’s enough to bring them into the Kingdom!

But...once this new believer learns what the Bible says about the virgin birth, then he only has one option.
He must believe it!
Why? Because this is what believers do...they believe!

Although the belief of a young earth and a literal creation isn't necessary as a prerequisite for salvation; once a believer learns what the Bible says about it, it then requires their faith. Not knowing what the Bible says may be excusable, but knowing it and choosing not to believe it is not!

So what do we believe about Creation?

#1-We Believe The Bible

The Bible is the inerrant (it contains no errors), infallible (it is completely true and stands forever), unchanging Word of the God Who cannot lie. Everything it says is truth, from the first verse of Genesis to the last verse of Revelation. In it, God's character is revealed and His acts are made known. Every believer should have complete faith in its trustworthiness - after all, it is this very Word that brings their salvation!

Sadly, instead letting God speak for Himself on the topic of creation, too many believers are taking outside ideas and reading them into the Bible. Whenever these compromising Christians see a contradiction between the secular interpretation of the natural world and what the Bible says - they feel way too free to butcher the plain reading of the Bible to preserve the integrity of fallen man's opinion. Who do they think they are? This isn’t that complicated: Either God's Word is true or it’s not. If it is true, then it's completely true - there is no gray area here!

As believers, we have the responsibility to start with the Bible and line up our world view with what it teaches. This is true of the Old Testament as well as the New. We cannot embrace the spiritual teachings of the New Testament without first accepting the literal and natural sayings of the Old. Jesus taught a literal understanding of Genesis and a young earth, as did Paul. Peter wrote about an actual global flood, and Jude wrote of real people named Adam and Enoch. Can you see that a historical Genesis was a major part of what the New Testament writers believed?

It is absolutely important to start from God’s Word when we are forming our worldview. When someone’s interpretation of evidence disagrees with the Bible, we as believers don't get a choice in what to believe!

#2-We Believe In God At The Very Beginning

Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning, God..."

The Bible never tries to explain God's existence, it simply asserts that He is. He always has been. There has never been a time when He hasn't existed. In fact, He was the very one who started the clock of time!

Genesis 21:33 "Then Abraham...called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God."

Psalm 90:2 "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God."

God doesn’t need a reason to exist. He doesn’t need a cause. He is the cause of every effect. He is the eternal, pre-existent One! God was. God is. God will always be. It's just that simple!

#3-We Believe That Creation Was Accomplished in Six Actual (24-hour) Days

Whether you simply read through the creation account in Genesis 1 or you study every word of it in depth - you would always get the impression of literal, 24-hour days. You would never develop an idea like the day-age theory if the Bible is your only starting point.

Sadly, this theory inside the church isn't merely a different interpretation of God's Word. It’s an attempt to reconcile the secular theory of millions of years and the biblical account of creation.

#4-We Believe That The Beginning Was Around 6,000 Years Ago

Do you remember what every believer's starting point should be? The Bible!

You see, the Bible isn't vague about when creation happened. There are strings of dates and lifespans that stretch from the beginning of the Bible to the end. It is extremely simple to find out the approximate date for creation - if you take the Bible for what it clearly says!

First of all, you take the first event that we have a solid, historical date for. This happens to be the construction of the first Temple. We know from extra-biblical sources that construction began in 970 BC. Working from there, we move backwards through the Bible:

• We know that the Temple was begun 480 years after the exodus (1 Kings 6:1)
• We know that the exodus occurred 430 years after Abram left Haran (Exodus 12:40, Galatians 3:17)
• We know that Abram left Haran 429 years after the flood (Genesis 11)
• We know that the flood occurred 969 years after Methuselah was born (Genesis 5)
• And we know that Methuselah was born 687 years after creation (Genesis 5)

When we work the numbers, we can see that the flood of Noah’s day occurred about 4,500 years ago. We can also see that creation occurred no earlier than around 4,000 BC, or roughly 6,000 years ago.

This is extremely simple. It is based on a straight-forward reading of what the Bible says, and is not in any way contradicted by a deeper study of God’s Word. The only times this has ever been confused is when simple-minded believers try to reconcile the ideas of fallen man with the truth of God’s Word. As a believer, we must start from the Bible - not a theory, an opinion, or an idea. As the scripture says, “Let God be true, and every man a liar.”

Now that we see what believers should believe, let’s take a look at what happened during the first week of the world!