The Bible as Part of Creation

8/9/2019 The Bible as Part of Creation

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Reading the Bible as Part of Creation, and ReadingCreation as Part of Prophecy

I hope to say things you haven't heard before.If you find it interesting, download the free commentary from

http://sites.google.com/site/freecommentary

It's not sensible, as a scientist, to ask 'What is the meaning of scripture?' unlessyou are prepared to know what scripture says.Equally, as a Bible student, you can't ask 'what Creation means', unless you knowwhat creation says.Nor can you look at science alone or the Bible alone, in isolation from the realworld.

READING CREATIONYou can't just interpret creation without reading the given explanations -- Try

discussing 'sex' without reference to the Bible!

And you can't just interpret the Bible without reading creation. Try discussing'sex' without reference to life around you.

You can't just read the Bible without interpreting creation from it -- Trydiscussing being 'born' or 'begotten' by the Spirit via a 'covenant', withoutrecognising the sexual and marital analogy of the Bible, or without seeing sexand marriage in a new light.

And you can't just read creation without interpreting the Bible from creation.

Try looking at ancient strata without puzzling over Genesis 1.

Don't be surprised when we leave behind rocks and mountains, and immerseourselves in death-issues. God's words focus on life and people, not leaves andplanets.Geology seen through 'creationist' eyes, distracts us from the real debate. (Thecommentary has a diatribe against such creationism-literalism.)

What is there left to talk about? Beauty and music? Yes, but No. Analogies innature? Yes, but No. I want to be more convincing.

It is, however, easy to see 'analogies' for good & evil, for resurrection, forJudgment, etc in nature around us.We wake up to a new dawn -- That's a lot like awaking from the dead to a newlife. And Jesus said so.But it's 'only analogy' unless you can base it upon something more substantial,more logical, more convincing. Yes?

Well, I want to spell out several more logically based reasons for 'reading God


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into creation' if you like. I hope you haven't heard most of them before -- so thatit opens up quite a new scope for reasonable belief.

For instance, 'The Bible teaches a localFlood' is something you won't hear frommost Christians! But if I can prove it from scripture, you would have food for

thought. Yes?

Well, there are a dozen or so such new perspectives to consider and explore. Theimportant re-interpretations have a dedicated article in the commentary, and youwill have to read the full story there. E.g. Topics on Hell, Heaven, and Earth;Questionable Doctrines about Sex; Imagery of Creation as a 'House'; Verse notesat each verse in question; the commentary on the Koran.

Let's start with the rocks and mountains, and leaves...

Firstly, we open our eyes to what is evident, and see 'Creation' -- any believer canread 'a Creator' into that evidence. But more logically we should firstreadonly 'existence' from the evidence -- it's more convincing to say 'I see,therefore there is something to see'. And build up from that. No scientist canrule out a creator for what exists. You don't need the appearances ofintelligent design to see the possibility of it, merely because there issomething there.

Pick up a freshly fallen leaf, and you hold the evidence for both good andbad. It is beautiful, yet it is dying, doomed even. It probably is already partlymoth-eaten and sick, and certainly will soon be eaten by microbes. You seethings building themselves up, only to be pulled down by gravity, byincreasing entropy and by the forces of decay. So what? Are these mereanalogies or symptons of God? Don't we need more, before physical lawsimpress us? Yes?

Well, beyond rocks and water, and even beyond plants and organisms, you needto acknowledge that to 'read about God' in what is created, we really ought toconcentrate onpeople, on life, on death -- on things like sin and sickness --much more than on inanimate physics or explainable biological laws. Yes?

Well, in that case, we see good and evil. We see a moralexistence. Scientistscan't well explain that away.Wars are an embarrassing paradox for an atheistic scientist. Homo sapiens ismad it seems, and madness is not a medical condition fully plumbed byneurophysiology, psychology, biochemistry, etc. It just defies ourunderstanding. So does the brain.To deny the existence of good and evil, would only be evidence for how crazyhumans can be. Yes?

Well, if you want to allow good and evil as evident, as evidence for being able to


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interpret the Creation through the Bible, then a remarkable observation ispossible, which a child can understand:Evil has not won yet. Good has notwon. They seem locked into a stale-mate, an unresolved conflict. This almosthands victory to evil as the Great Spoiler. But it also shows up the greatstrength of good, to push on despite the awesome power of easy-spoilage.

Now if good is to emerge victorious, according to prophecy, that demands a Dayof Reckoning against evil, also according to prophecy. You can actually read'Judgment Day Coming' into creation, without much fear of being provenwrong. It positively begs for it. Yes?Or again, it is part of the common sense of mankind that injustice isdisliked, and fair justice is accepted. Tit-for-tat justice is the standard offairness. We read of God's promise of fair and final justice -- and we canagree, from what we already know. Yes?

Another obvious piece of evidence, is that 'God and evil' is a live debate. The

more deeply thoughtful a person is, the more likely he is to have a well-thought-out opinion on the supernatural. This shows that it is an unresolvedissue, relevant, deep, and important, and furthermore, that the Biblical world-view is not something to be dismissed lightly, or even after thoughtfulconsideration. There is something innately unresolved in prophecies of afinal spiritual judgment. If religion were not a living part of our creation, Iwould not be talking about it.

We now need to point out: that the Bible is not from Mars. It is part of thehistory ofthis planet. It is there as evidence. To treat 'religion' as aseparate world is nonsense. Yet Homo sapiens is silly enough to do that mostof the time. 'Abraham, Moses and Jesus' do not belong to fantasy-land, but tohistory. There is no split between 'religious vs real' or 'evidence vs words'. TheWords are evidence. Yes? Israel lives in Israel and speaks Hebrew, Yes?

The upshot of that last point about logically evident evidence is crucial: It islogically crazy for a scientist to say 'I only want to study the visible evidence;Don't give me all those mere words about invisible realities -- Show me theevidence of God'. That would be like writing a book about the history ofdemocracy without mentioning Greece, revolution or America. Or like lookingat 'creation' but not at 'people'. If someone wants to ignore the written,publicly documented, historicalevidence, then they are wilfully blind and notworth talking reasonably to on that issue. The Bible is also a record of 'God'sdeliberate explanations and interpretations' of the world around us, pastpresent and future. That sounds comprehensive so far as it addresses theissue, Yes? Wouldn't you like to read and admit as evidence, God's ownopinion on this topic? Yes?

As promised, we have progressed beyond rocks and leaves, to people and spirit,and on into God's words of interpretation. We are still exploring the evidence.


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Well, continuing on with the evidence, part of the ongoing, eternal evidence isconsistent reports of 'spiritual' experience. Things like religion andconversion are undeniably part of the evidence of what we can see around us.It won't go away by ignoring it. Evidence is not proof, but it is evident. Peoplereport and record miracles, supernatural visions, and they do predict the

future. Now it would be nice to prove that they get it right, by design not bychance, Yes?

Well, That's what prophecy is. Proof. It is on the public record. It was recorded as'prophecy by a prophet' because the 'prophet' first made some correct predictionsand performed some public miracles, until people wereforcedto retain his wordsword-perfectly. Such recordspassedcontemporary real-time public scrutinywithout being gain-said by other contemporary writers. The records themselvesrecord a sad story of skepticism, unbelief and opposition, of false-prophetscontradicting all that was prophesied. Be realistic and reflect that what survivedthen, running the gauntlet of enemies, must have been powerful stuff -- divine.Society was as antagonistic to God then, as it is now; worse even, since theenemies of God gather their forces right where God threatens to break out.

Andthe prophets got it right. For instance, the Middle-East is still thecentre of strife. Yes? And The Old Testament predicted someone who wouldlive, serve, die and rise as Messiah (The Dead-Sea community hadcommentaries saying so, dating to before Christ), Yes? And more prophecy iswaiting for the End-times, Yes?

Well prophecy is more than prediction. Much more. There is an undeniablecoherence from Genesis through to Revelation. Yet because prophecyis ill understood, and consequently poorly translated, and kept mysteriousanyway until final fulfilment, and because it comes to us out of the distantpast, and from an alien culture, and in a reworked and foreign language, andis about uncertain history, and there is lots of it... Yes, we get put off. Butprophecy does explain itself, and cleanse itself from wrong interpretations,and does succumb to simple things like knowing the history of the times. It's agold-mine of understanding our human condition, and fate.

Understanding humanity starts with the Garden of Eden 'myth', and seems torun into problems right there, when a skeptic simply can't swallow it.However, the garden of Eden story is more comprehensive than logic orscience or philosophy or religion. What! You seem surprised, bemused, stillskeptical? But look at it; at the very point where we think it drifts off intospiritual fantasy about strange trees and talking snakes and such fable-likenonsense, it is actually... ..addressing the most important issues weface -- moral ones, for instance; false truth, for instance, opposing truewisdom; the war between good and evil; law, sin and death; sex, shame andclothes; and, yes, those constantly recurring 'spiritual experiences' which wecan't suppress. It is accurate, that these issues will last the distance. Didn't Isay that prophets got it right? Yes?


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Well, here's an important viewpoint: spiritual reality (such as is part of the Edenstory) is not 'instead of' physical reality, nor even a 'parallel reality', but 'inaddition to' this realm, and part of it. It's like the dimensions we can't (yet)see into, yet someday may be able to. 'Reality' won't 'change' from one into

another, but we will -- like waking up from a dream -- so what is here now willcontinue, but we will be initiated into a newer appreciation of it -- able to seethe invisible, the future maybe, angels and all that stuff. Man doesn't yet havehis eyes fully open to the future, like they were partly opened for Eve, but thatleaves room for a God who can predict the future. Have we drifted from 'theevident'? No. I am filling in the publicly available explanatory background.Eden talks about 'that stuff', does it not? Agreed? And part of the Eden storyincluded a prophecy of the human conqueror of the Serpent, at the cost ofbeing bitten? Yes?

Well, Here's the next important viewpoint: God's. What I mean is a 'Top-

down' view. Scientists take an analytical approach -- cut it up into bits andpiece it all back together. But you need to play 'If I were God'. If you were God,you would probablywantto drop some written hints down into themysterious life below. He's the one who blinded us from the future, and He'sthe one who says He wants to bring us out of it into something better. So Hewouldprobably dojust what He said He has done -- and deliberately placephysical images of invisible realities right in front of our nose, and say so.'Man in My image' is a famous one, referring tothe Son of Godto come andrule creation. Night&Day is another visible and vivid one, which images thelight and darkness which existed from before He made the Sun, stars, Earthand Moon. Yes?

Well there are dozens of similar images explored and expanded throughouttheBible . The distinction between clean and unclean tells us about spiritualjudgment. Stars can represent angels and Birds can represent demons; andpredators eating prey is used for nations at war -- it says so itself. My point isabout their deliberateness.You cannot sensibly 'read creation' withoutreading the instructions for interpreting it.Yes?

Just one example: Sex. God has a fetish about 'multiplication' from page one,filling the land seas and skies with His creatures, to filling the banqueting hallwith His Glory. He didn't have to design life to require the death of one seed-form to give life to the next generation. But He did. And from then on there islots of sexual imagery as an illustration of God getting His spirit into yourheart, and as a deliberate picture of the resurrection. It's the continuingprophecies over centuries which make it very evident that they carry adeliberate message drawn from the things in our physical life. Thuswe seean intertwining of physical reality, moral facts of life, words ofexplanation, laws of religion, and prophecies of the future. Yes?


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Well. Yes. So here is how to read scripture: Any way butstraightforwardly. Surprised again? Haven't I just described the divineprocess, top-down, ofdropping a puzzle in front of our blind eyes? Hasn't itgot us all speculating, arguing, trying, puzzling -- confused? Yes! And that'sjust exactly how prophecy works. It's a mystery until it comes about. It's a

paradox until it is resolved. It's a puzzle until it is solved. And it catches ushook line and sinker. When you read something unusual, paradoxical,internally incompatible, outrageous, nonsense, upside-down -- That's justGod doing itHis way -- teaching us unforgettably. You just keep reading onand expect Him to explain Himself, and keep waiting to see it all come true.Jesus will say 'Eat my flesh and drink my blood' to the Jews, but explain it tohis disciples as 'spirit, not flesh; words not meat'. Paul will say 'Jews disobeythe commandments', but explain it as refusing the words of the Messiah. Yes?

Well, the point is that there is a huge need to come to grips with the wayscripture talks -- in picturesque idioms; in arresting figures of speech; in

images from this life about the next; in mystery and revelation, wonder andinterpretation. These are our clues to read what God has planted in ourcreation, to lead us into His.

The next point is well, evil. It's the Koran. The Koran is part of the evidence. Theevidence is helping to prove that you can and should read God and Judgment,spirit and resurrection, into creation and from creation. You can't know yourBible and miss that the Koran sets out to destroy and replace the Bible,prophecy, Spirit, Christ, God and all 'good' things. Its replacement versionsare evil, and not a word in the whole book is trustworthy. It is war, lies,extortion, coercion, distortion and much more. It is the Serpent still trying todeceive Eve. Well, since it has an evil author, why would Satan spend so muchenergy trying to destroy lies and nonsense? He wouldn't. He wants to destroysense and truth. Satan wishes that scripture weren't there on thepublic record, so he tries to take it off their reading list.

One upshot is that you should refuse to believe in Hell-fire for ordinary sinners-- That's the Koran's version, opposite to the Bible. That's just an example ofbeing careful how you read the Bible's version of reality. In view ofthe veryreal campaign of disinformation, distortion and confusion aboutthings in the Bible, you should attempt to shed old stereotypes about whatthe Bible teaches. The Koran sets out to simplify the 6 days of creation, tooverliteralise the imagery of the Bible, to personify the inanimate things, focuson the physical object-lesson, at the expense of the spiritual lesson, andgenerally wreak havoc with the public perception of scripture's teaching. Ihope that's a new and fruitful perspective for you.

Take a relevant example: The Bible teaches a series of end-times calamitiesduring over a thousand years, with many chances to repent, and centred onthe Middle-East; The Koran teaches a single and single-day disaster on all the


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worlds with no chances to repent. Custom-made destruction, of the Bible.

Take another relevant example: The Bible teaches a local Flood, but thetranslators make it sound global, following the melodrama of the Koran,rather than the internal evidence of the Bible. Since most of us can't or don't

or won't see past the English translated wording, we don't stand much of achance to appreciate this. I hope you find this a fruitful field ofreinterpretation.

E.g: from the notes at Gen_7:19, 'under the whole heaven' refers to the peoplein the land of Canaan, only:

Deu 2:25 This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of theeupon the peoples that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the reportof thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee. 26 And I sentmessengers out of the wilderness of Kedemoth unto Sihon king of Heshbonwith words of peace, saying,... 34 And we took all his cities at that time, andutterly destroyed every inhabited city, with the women and the little ones; weleft none remaining:

Now let's mention the 'local creation'. Yes that's right, in Genesis 1, 'heavens andearth' refers to the sky and land of Israel, specifically Mount Zion. Talk ofCreation is overlaid with promises for the future. This is sustained throughoutthe Bible. For instance...

Rev 21:1-2 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven andthe first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more. 2 And I saw the holycity, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven of God, made ready as abride adorned for her husband.

It is hard to read a coherent story in both the creation and the Bible, if theBible's picture is muddied by misinterpretation and deliberate confusionsourced from its enemies. How can you interpret 'war' without graspingreligious differences? And how can you cope with good and evil if someviewpoints deny the existence of good and evil? And how can you evaluate'sacred' scriptures, if the ones you read deny the existence of evil inspiration?

There is coherence in the Bible to be discovered, where there seems to outsidersto be disparity: When we die, does our soul 'go to be with Jesus' or not? Adozen verses seem to paint a soul-life after death, like the thief being withJesus in Paradise, or Moses and Elijah reappearing, or Samuel coming upfrom the grave. The apocryphal Book of Enoch taught it. Koran teaches it. Yetif you try to defend the alternative (the Biblical, visible,sensibleview, that weare dead in the grave until raised to life at the resurrection) you can do it,explaining away why Jesus talked of the rich man in Hades, and can explainallsuch difficulties. It should be a journey of enlightenment to rediscover ahidden coherent world-view in what the Bible actually does teach, quite


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different from church dogma and public perception.

Looking at the Creation teaches you just how serious God is about resurrection.The fact that Creation shouts to us of Resurrection, is mirrored in the Bible.The Bible is His book of Resurrection. It is the handbook accompanying the

Creation. Resurrection is a crucial Biblical claim on the future. Wewould like to see evidence for it in creation, Yes?

Here's an example of coherence in prophecy. Just list the images of resurrection-- Spring after Winter; an apparently dead tree-stump resprouting; awakeningfrom sleep every morning; dawn flushing away the darkness; the chosennation returning from exile and captivity; emerging from the dungeon;rescued from the land of tombs (Egypt); rising from a sick-bed as if from thedead; the birth of a baby out of darkness into light -- and more. But they areall intertwined in prophecy and vision. You won't find them all at once, butyou will keep discovering previously unsuspected references to Genesis, or

Revelation, to Messiah, to previous prophecy. It's a phenomenon which isbeyond human capabilities to design. It demands that you look atcreation with resurrection glasses on.

O.K. So I've run out of sensible things to say. But I hope you have fuel for your re-interpretation engine.

In summary, let it sink in a bit deeper, that 'Creation' is a package deal. Ourcreation includes the history of spiritual experiences, of religious prophecies, ofJesus, Moses and Abraham, and of false prophecies like the Koran. Creationcomes with people and wars, good and evil -- not just rocks and plants andphysics.And it comes with the Bible.The Bible itself is a package deal, claiming creation, appealing to creation,prophesying de-creation and re-creation. It projects a continuing, coherent, andcomprehensive account of creation, past present and future. It is a top-down,masterful, ever-relevant record, and its prophecies are evidently accurate. It is atthe centre of controversy, and has fierce competitors and critics.Yet it has no real competition. Science, for instance, failed at the start of my list,lost out in the middle of the list, and can't claim final relevance.The other sacred world-views bomb out on evidence and inconsistency. I know ofno viable alternative moral codes. The imitation scriptures simply mimic God's.

Creation and the Bible are unavoidably interlinked-- history and prophecy, forinstance, are mated. Religious experience and scripture, for instance, are hand-in-glove. Sexual morals and law, for instance, can't be divorced. Evidence andinterpretation, for instance, need to be 'read' together.

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The Bible as Part of Creation