The “Word” is not the Bible, but the Logos, Jesus Christ. See John 1:1 (NIV2011)
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Jesis said that that God did not rest on the seventh day. John 5:17
An exegetical study of these verses will show that these verses are not about biblical exegesis.
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Indeed, Jesus Christ IS the Logos, which translated to English is “Word”. Jesus Christ is the Word.
Also, of note in John 1:1, the word “the” has been inserted by the translators. The verse is actually:
“In beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
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Well yes, but what we can see and observe in creation is most definitely not hidden from the natural man.
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:18-20)
Yes, there are spiritual things that are hidden from the natural man. But that doesn’t give the spiritual man the right to make things up, misrepresent evidence, or teach demonstrable falsehoods about things that are visible to everyone. Acknowledging things that cannot be discerned naturally is faith. But misrepresenting things that can be discerned naturally is lying.
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Greetings, @Shannon, and welcome. The problem I have with using that passage in that situation is that I am a Christian; and you are. Which of us would you say is the natural one? Do you see the problem?
There are actually many Christians on this site, and they don’t all have the same impression. Maybe that means it isn’t one of the areas that God thinks is too important, if it’s not clear enough; or else that it doesn’t relate to the issue at hand, as @KJTurner notes. . Thanks; and welcome.
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James,
Are you saying that YEC is lying according to your interpretation? We are not the only ones believing in a YEC. We walk by faith and not by sight. We do not need to see with our physical eyes.
2 Corinthians 5:6,7 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: 7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) So he says we have confidence even though we are away from the Lord and we are in this physical body, and we walk by faith not by sight. One of the major verses in the Bible. Paul says again that connecting this with what he had said at the end of the other chapter, that we don’t go by what we see, we go by what you don’t see. We go by the spirit realm not the physical realm.
What is a Christian according to your interpretation?
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This debate is in two parts. One is interpretation, which is human and fallible and therefore can’t be said to be a lie. The other is the view of God’s creation. This is an area in which some YEC aren’t always being completely honest. As an example, arguing that all of the animals in a fossil bed must have been alive at the same time without mentioning that the resulting population density would have the animals living shoulder to shoulder which is obviously impossible.
Very true when talking about the spiritual. But we have to be willing to accept what God’s creation says when we view it with our physical eyes. We shouldn’t be using the Bible to justify changing what we actually see.
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Are you calling into question his faith? What is a Christian according to your interpretation?
Shannon asked James a perfectly valid question, which he can answer if he chooses. Let’s not be so abrasive or defensive, please. James can take care of himself.
[I have thoughts of my own to share, later perhaps, after James gets a chance to respond.]
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Romans 10:9:
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.”
It’s all about Jesus, Shannon. The age of the earth, or who did or didn’t evolve from what, have nothing to do with it.
Yes, Shannon, you’ve made that point already. And it is a valid point. But, as I’ve already said, going by what we cannot see is not a licence to make untrue claims about what we can see.
It’s nothing to do with “my interpretation,” Shannon. It’s about sticking to the rules. Honesty has rules. Rules that are the same for everyone, whether you are a Christian or not, whether you walk by faith or by sight. If someone knows what the rules are but doesn’t stick to them, then I’m sorry, but they are lying.
So is YEC lying? It depends on who is espousing it. If you finished compulsory science education at the first possible opportunity at age sixteen and haven’t set foot in a laboratory since, then no, you’re not necessarily lying, because you don’t know what the rules are. But YECs with PhDs in science do not have the luxury of that excuse. They know fine what the rules are, but do not stick to them.
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We could point to many YEC’s who are lying and/or deceiving, and well meaning and honest YEC’s pick up on what they say and repeat those lies. Until proven otherwise, I always assume YEC’s are the latter.
But we do have sight and we do have physical eyes, and what they see is inconsistent with a young Earth and a recent global flood. This is a matter of fact, not faith. If YEC is true, then the creation should be consistent with YEC, but it isn’t. Having faith in an interpretation in the Bible does not make these facts go away. Some of the earliest geologists in the 18th and 19th centuries ran into this very quandry, and the humble and honest ones admitted their error. A perfect example is Adam Sedgwick who was chair of the Royal Society at the time he said this:
Notice the date, 1831. This was well before Darwin and Wallace published their theories. Before the theory of evolution was a thing it was already obvious that the Earth was not young and that there wasn’t a recent global flood. The evidence has only further cemented this conclusion over the last 180 years.
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Romans 10:13
For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
What are we saved from?
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(Meaninglessness)
Driving a wedge between soteriology (doctrine of salvation) and our view of creation creates a dichotomy when there should be a dependency . The good news of the gospel is only good because of the bad news recorded in Genesis—that sin and death are intrusions on what was God’s glorious and perfect creation.
Is there a more deadly, more devastating, a more destructive, a more ungodly act than to openly and purposely and publicly denounce the veracity of the Bible? Is there a worse crime? Is not that the crime of all crimes? Because if you can’t believe what the Bible says, all is lost. And if you think because you have a Ph.D. in microbiology that you are the judge of all the earth and you have a right to edit what God has revealed by His Holy Spirit, then we better run over to wherever you are and bow down, because we need to worship you since you’ve got it right and the writers of the Scriptures, though inspired by the Holy Spirit didn’t get it right. I mean, there is no more serious crime than that. That is the ultimate crime, is to attack the veracity of Holy Scripture at any point.
Comment:
If people won’t accept the testimony of Paul or Christ Himself in the New Testament, about the veracity of the Old Testament scriptures, I don’t know what they’ll accept.
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I’m not denouncing the veracity of the Bible. Young earth creationism is not the Bible. It is a cartoon caricature of the Bible with a thick layer of science fiction slathered on top of it.
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The dependency is on the truth, and YECism denies it with respect to creation. This is by a Christian, about ‘girdled rocks’ – new evidence always supports the antiquity of the earth, and it continues to build:
You are misjudging what the veracity of the Old Testament means. Parables are true, not because they literally correspond to physical reality but because they are about spiritual realities – they are metaphors. You are mistakenly insisting that passages that are are intended to be spiritual truths and metaphors be actual physical and scientific truths.
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Over the top! If you conflate the Christian Faith with Answers in Genesis I would say you’re in a cult.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
YECism belittles the import of Psalm 8:4, not only because of the vastness of the size of the universe, but also because of the vastness of its antiquity, and both speak to the vastness of our God.
Was God so short of time that he had create the universe in only 144 hours? Why didn’t he do it instantly?!
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The good news is good because it tells us God loves us so much he is willing to condescend himself and allow his only begotten Son to die on a Roman cross. If the Gospel required a 6,000 year old earth then it would not be good news at all because it would be completely and unequivocally wrong. We need the gospel because we sin, not because Augustine concocted the doctrine of original sin based off of a mistranslation of Romans in the Vulgate or because two people ate magical fruit at the urging of a talking snake in Never Never land.
Vinnie
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