Sunday, August 26, 2012

God Revealed in Creation – Part 8

Generations

4 This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5 before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; 6 but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.

The history or the generations begins a narrative that will expand an add details to the days of creation that we have studied thus far. The use of day or "yovm" in verse 4 is interesting because it's not clear if it refers to the first creation day or all of them collectively; but as we have covered the word is flexible enough to support either meaning. Verses 5-6 describe the early earth conditions, there was not yet a stable water cycle so the vegetation was not everywhere, but in specific places where God had made water springs to feed rivers and water the ground. The best example I can think of is the mist that surrounds a waterfall as the cascading water puts tiny water droplets in the air.

What this suggests to me is there was a dramatic difference between the land God had prepared for man in Eden, and the wilderness that lay outside the boundaries of the great rivers. This is an easy application for us, as the place God prepares for us in his will is preferable to the wilderness of sin that lies beyond the will of God.

7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

We see that God's creation of man was more intimate than with the other creatures. Our life is a gift, formed and breathed by God. Some want to rewrite this verse to say "God evolved man of the ancient primates" or worse yet "nature evolved man from the ancient primates", but that is not what is says, it's not our history nor is demonstrated by science, as some will claim.

The more we learn about creation the more we see how distinctive mankind is. Only man is capable of abstract thought and written language, and it's unclear how things like art, music and religion could have evolved as they would not be evolutionary advantages while those traits were developing, and there is no evidence of these traits among the extant primates, only in mankind.

Life in God's Garden

8 The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The Babylonians called lush green land flowing with water edenu, in English we might call it an oasis, God called it a garden on the eastward side of Eden. There God made a home for man, and gave all of these wonderful fruit and nut trees to make food abundant for man. In the midst of the garden with all the food trees there were two special trees, one by which man could obtain the knowledge to judge good and evil, and another by which man could live forever. So the trees would be their greatest blessing and also their greatest temptation.

10 Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Hiddekel (Tigris); it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

So four great rivers emerged from one spring and watered the whole region. Some have looked at the Tigris and Euphrates. In modern times two of these flows through Iraq and two are unknown. Skeptics point to this and say there was no Eden. But rivers change course over time and studies of ancient river beds have located a place where 4 rivers once met in what is now the Persian Gulf.

Studies of the topology in that region confirm that during times of low sea levels a Gulf Oasis would appear, and there are even plans so search underwater for remains of ancient civilizations in the Gulf. One again the more we learn by science the more the Bible is confirmed.


 


http://www.reasons.org/articles/lost-civilization-beneath-the-persian-gulf-confirms-genesis-history-of-humanity


 

15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

We see that man is not intended to be idle but God gives him work as a gardener. Here also Adam receives his instructions regarding the "tree of knowledge" along with the promised judgment of this transgression was death. So if we remember the "tree of life" you see Adam literally had a choice of life and death, there in the garden. What an interesting choice since Adam already knew good in the presence of God and in his garden home, so really the only thing to be gained by disobedience was evil.

18 And the Lord God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." 19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

If you remember our study of the sixth creation day there were already all kinds of primates and hominids but God says none of these is comparable to Adam. So God brings all the created animals to Adam to name, I don't know how specific this was did he name every species or just every genus I don't know, but he was certainly familiar with all the land animals and birds and their general characteristics. This is an exercise for God to demonstrate to Adam that he is distinct among creation and that there is no other animal comparable to him.

21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

So God performs the first surgery putting Adam to sleep to be spared the trauma of this surgery, then God takes bone and flesh from his side and fashions the woman from this flesh and bone. This is a good time to recall that God instructed Adam regarding the "tree of knowledge" back in verse 17 before the woman was made.

23 And Adam said:

"This is now bone of my bones

And flesh of my flesh;

She shall be called Woman,

Because she was taken out of Man."

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

So Adam is a sentimental guy and when he is presented with this woman he responds with a poem or a song naming the woman and rejoicing over her. In verse 23 the Hebrew word for man isn't "adam" but "iysh" and he calls the woman "iysha", these together should be understood to mean husband and wife. So Adam did not look at Eve (not named as such until after the fall) as just a female but as a part of himself, his own wife. This explains their comfort with being naked and unashamed. There was no disappointment, nothing to hide; everything was the way God has provided.

Recent events have caused some to ask how we should define marriage.  Some seek a revised standard of marriage to cope with contemporary reality.  In Matthew 19 Jesus was also approached by those seeking a more flexible standard of marriage, and this was His answer:


 

"Haven't you read the Scriptures?" Jesus replied. "They record that from the beginning 'God made them male and female.'" And he said, "'This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.' Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together." (Verses 4-6)


 

Jesus quotes Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 and defined marriage as heterosexual, monogamous, and permanent. To those unaccepting of such a restrictive covenant, He went on to say that they should not be married. To those who had broken this marriage covenant he said go and sin no more. Just like the garden that God made we can see a dramatic difference between the marriage that God provided, and the "wilderness" of sin that lies outside of God's provision.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

God Revealed in creation – Part 7

With the establishment of mankind as the crowning accomplishment of creation and his appointment as the custodian of this earthly domain the act of creation is concluded but God has one for creation day to share that will complete His creation week.

Genesis 2

1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Each phase of creation ensured that what God has made is sustainable. He does not have to keep creating for creation had been equipped with all it needed to persist for a long time, it is a quality product that does not need a do over. This reminds of the lesson of Jesus' atoning sacrifice; it was so effective that He laid down his life once for sinners and the quality of the sacrifice still satisfies the price of all sin. So God does not need to keep creating to keep life on the earth so His work can be finished. This self-sustaining and adaptable force God endowed to His creation is often mistaken as a creative force itself, but we have shown at each phase of creation how that nature cannot produce itself it needs God to act.

Verse 1 tell us the heavens (sun, moon, and stars), the earth, and all that is contained therein was finished. Everyone can exhale at once because the heavy lifting is done. On the 7th day God rested not to say the he was tired, but that his work was done. So in this context if your Bible translation says "rest" understand that to be ended or stopped.

Now for most of us if we had six work days with all kinds of creative work we probably wouldn't say much about the day when we didn't make anything. But God has a special purpose in mind for the 7th day a special blessing for us to slow down from the struggles of daily work and reflect on the grace of God and all that he provides. Now this isn't completely revealed at this stage of creation but we can draw from other scriptures to more fully explore the idea.

The truth is most of us get pretty busy at work, and it's easy to get so involved in our own work we really forget to look around and notice all the things around us that are not provided by our work but by God. To me that's what the 7th day is really about, reflection and appreciation. Our culture has gotten so filled with events; many of us have lost the art of rest.

The idea of a Sabbath rest for man is introduced in Exodus Chapter 16 when God feeds the children of Israel with manna in the wilderness. God wants them to learn to trust Him and His daily provision so he had commanded that you could only gather as much manna as you needed for a day. When this started some did not believe and gather too much saving some for the next day but overnight it rotted so in the morning was worm filled and stinking. So Moses reminds them to only gather for one day at a time, trusting that God will provide each day; but on the sixth day they could gather enough for two days and would not spoil .

22 And so it was, on the sixth day, that they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. 23 Then he said to them, "This is what the Lord has said: 'Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil; and lay up for yourselves all that remains, to be kept until morning.'" 24 So they laid it up till morning, as Moses commanded; and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. 25 Then Moses said, "Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord; today you will not find it in the field. 26 Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none."

27 Now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none. 28 And the Lord said to Moses, "How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws? 29 See! For the Lord has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you on the sixth day bread for two days. Let every man remain in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day." 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.

So you see how some people struggled with trusting God, Moses tells them God has given you the Sabbath, it is a gift for mankind, and should not be regarded as a burden.

It was funny to me as we were studying the different ideas for the length of creation days that some argued that they had to be 24 hour days because the law of the Sabbath told us to work six days not thousands or millions before we get a day off; and this was from Gentiles who do not keep the Law.

The Law of the Sabbath was codified in Exodus 20 as the 4th of the 10 commandments:

8 "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Now I didn't have many Jewish friends growing up in Everman but I had a neighbor that attended the Church of God that like the 7th day Adventist observed some of the Old Testament Law including the Law of the Sabbath. I knew what the Sabbath meant to Jews but for my neighbor it mostly meant he could never go to our High School football games because he had to be in the house by sundown on Friday nights. To him the Law of the Sabbath was burdensome, and I'm not sure how "don't work on the Sabbath" became don't go anywhere on the Sabbath. For the Jews I know the Talmud has you counting every physical activity to make sure it doesn't cross the line, into work, but that kind of legalism seems to miss the point of rest, worship, and reflection.

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke each record Jesus challenging a legalistic view of the Sabbath, first when His disciples were condemned for picking grain to eat as they were hungry, and Jesus was condemned for healing on the Sabbath; leading Jesus to conclude this in Mark 2:27 And He said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 28 Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath."

It should be obvious that we don't achieve rest by worrying about the number of steps we take or the weight of the water poured into your coffee pot. The real point was that much like the tithe; you are trusting God, that you will not perish because you worked six days instead of seven.

But there was more to the Sabbath than a day off each week. Look at Exodus 23:
10 "Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, 11 but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove.

Beyond taking a day off each week, there was a Sabbath year when the farmers did not harvest nor plant, and anything that grew on its own was for the poor and the animals. To those who say creation days must be 24 hours each or there is no Sabbath, I have to ask is the Sabbath year, less of a Sabbath, than the Sabbath day?

And there are other Sabbaths: In Exodus 21 a Hebrew bond servant that was sold to pay a debt would serve for only 6 years before going out free in the 7th year.

And finally in Leviticus 25 after restating the Sabbath years, we are introduced to the Jubilee: Seven Sabbaths of 7 years followed by the Jubilee year. The significance of the Jubilee was to declare that it is God who owns the Promised Land, and each possession of land that is sold is returned to its rightful family in the year of Jubilee, even a Jew who was sold to a stranger would be released in the year of Jubilee.

What does this mean to Gentiles like us who generally worship on Sunday instead of Saturday the seventh day? Take a day off from your usual commerce, rest, worship; meditate on the grace of God and all he provides, not by our own labor, but just out of His mercy and goodness. Realize that God can bless six days of work to provide all that you need, better than you can do with seven days on your own. The 7th day of creation "yo·vm ha·she·vi·'i" gives us a pattern of work and rest.

Unlike our work week, God's did not start another creation week after He rested. If you look at Genesis 2:3 what is missing from the story are the book marks of the first 6 creation days that each concluded with "the evening and the morning". These were there to mark a definite period of God creating. There was nothing new to see on the 7th day but just a quiet appreciation of what we already had been given. The lesson for us is that God's Sabbath day has not ended and we can still enter into his rest when we receive what he has graciously provided.

Remember when Israel first approached the Promised Land but would not enter because of fear? Psalm 95 gives the curse of their faithlessness in not receiving what God has provided:

8 "Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion,

As in the day of trial in the wilderness,

9 When your fathers tested Me;

They tried Me, though they saw My work.

10 For forty years I was grieved with that generation,

And said, 'It is a people who go astray in their hearts,

And they do not know My ways.'

11 So I swore in My wrath,

'They shall not enter My rest.'"


 

For us God's provision is not only the endowment of the natural world, but the forgiveness of sins for all who trust Him and receive the gift of God, eternal life, through Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Sabbath. Matthew 11:28 Jesus said "Come unto me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest".


 


 

Saturday, August 18, 2012

God Revealed in Creation – Part 6

"yo·vm ha·shi·shi"

The self-existent, maker of heaven and earth, has divided light from darkness and dividing surface water from water vapor in the clouds. He caused the dry land to appear and on the same day created life. The 4th creation day brought forth the sun moon and stars giving us regular seasons, tides, and the ability to track them by watching the heavens, while the 5th creation day gave us every living thing that primarily moves by flying through the sky or swimming in the seas.

Genesis 1

24 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind"; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Here because the birds were made in day 5 and plant-life in day 3, there was already abundant life on the land, but the 6th creation day gives us all the animals that move primarily on land. Wild animals as well as herd animals that are more easily domesticated; even "creeping" things like bugs, and lizards that move along the ground. Each category of animal was portioned out according to its kind and like other life before it only has the genetic material for one specific kind, rather than a universal common ancestor that could evolve into every kind. What is remarkable is that in this age of genetic science many are abandoning the evolutionary belief in a universal common ancestor, and instead proposing a common ancestor for each major group of animals more like the "kind" asserted by scripture. We see God again assessing creation and finding that it meets His specifications just like the 5 prior times in Genesis (verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21), and declares it as good.

26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

In verse 26 we again have the plural word for God "elohiym" speaking for the second time in one creation day just as we saw in the 3rd day when life began. This time God makes man or "adam" but this creature is distinctive from all life in that he is made in the image of God. The "Imago Dei" as the Latin phrase is said is one of the richest theological topics in the history of man. It is an interesting paradox that a physical being is said to be made in the image of a spirit, an unseen God. The Hebrew word "tselem" means shadow which makes us think of the outline we see of our body when we stand in the sun. But given that God is a spirit we are led to think of something deeper than a physical outline. Moreover the word for likeness can also be used as an adverb meaning "like as". So we understand mankind to stand in the shadow of God, and to have dominion over the living creatures "like as" God.

In ancient times rulers would make statues of themselves and set up those statues at the boundaries of their territories declaring dominion over all the land were his shadow falls. It is no accident that when modern man appears on earth he appears complete with art, language, music and religion. So the imago dei refers to certain moral, ethical, and intellectual qualities that were not found elsewhere among any of God's creation. What the Bible asserts here is largely confirmed by artifacts of earth's history, that these attributes that are uniquely human do not appear to have evolved among the other animals of earth but appear suddenly only in Adam, or man.

Evolutionist tend to be reductionist thus they try to reduce humanity to simply large brained primates, who walked upright and used sticks and stones as tools, but none of this really reflects the qualities unique to humanity.

Kingdom – Anamalia

Phylum – Chordata

Class – Mammalia

Order – Primates

Family – Hominidae

Genus – Homo

Species – H. Sapiens


 

The Taxonomy classification is a model which assumes the evolutionary story is true. Under this structure the Hominids or great apes have 4 extant genera: Homo – man, Pan – chimps and bonobos, Gorilla, Pongo – Orangutan. Using a common mutation rate and comparing chimps to humans evolutionist say that pan and homo diverged from a common ancestor 6 million years ago. Some say the human and chimp DNA is 90 something percent the same, considering only the protein coding DNA. All this means is that humans and chimps are made of 90+ percent of the same proteins. Evolutionists now admit that almost none of our human qualities are reflected in those gene differences. For instance the remarkable difference in brain size is controlled by gene expression reflected in the non-coding portions of our DNA, originally thought to be evolutionary leftovers or junk DNA. In reality your DNA is not just the 30,000 genes that make proteins but 3 billion base pairs containing 40 million genetic differences between humans and chimps.

So we don't look for the image of God in those 40 million genetic differences, but rather understand humanity to be more than reductionist biology. But to those who try and explain humanity from fossils there are many challenges. First of all this pan-homo common ancestor from 6 million years ago has never been found but is presumed to have existed because he must, for us to be here now. Next of all in the hominid fossils that have been found there is no clear evolutionary path. Homo Neanderthalensis was thought to be the most direct human ancestor until they found some bones frozen long enough to preserve some DNA, then genetic testing showed homo-sapiens did not evolve from them.

If you look at the pictures provided you can see Neanderthals had the same football shaped heads still common among several species of monkeys. But if you have seen some artistic models of Neanderthals they look like Eskimos using the long straight hair to cover the football head, and they give them human faces and clothing to support the evolutionary story. The drawing at the bottom of the page shows how they drew Neanderthals to look like Bigfoot, before it was common practice to humanize these extinct hominids.

How they name these hominids is also subjective usually based on the age of the rocks rather than some clear evolutionary line of physiological features. The skull of Red Deer Cave people from 15 thousand years ago have some more arcane features than the Homo Rudolfensis from 2 million years ago, and they look remarkably like the picture on the last page I gave you showing Australopithicus Sediba from 2 million years ago. So where is this clear evolutionary pathway from species to species in the fossil record? In reality it does not exist. If you looked at all the hominid fossils you would have no chance of making them into a coherent tree, and in reality you would see them as nothing more than extinct primates.

It is only the evolutionary assumptions that make these into a story of the descent of man. If you went only by the evidence of paleoanthropology you would agree with the Bible that mankind is a distinctive creation of God not an evolutionary byproduct of other primates. But as we have discussed before for a scientist to find an extinct primate gets no attention, but to find a supposed human ancestor gets you research money, a book deal, a History Channel special, and a worldwide museum tour. So what we see is every few years someone finds a fossil and we are told this rewrites the evolutionary history of humanity, which should not surprise us considering the last evolutionary history was also a work of fiction.

What humanity is supposed to be is the shadow of God, covering the entire world asserting His dominion over all creation. But as the rest of Genesis teaches us mankind is long ago fallen from our first estate but this was not a surprise to God. One of the unique qualities of humanity is the ability of abstract thought, which means we can comprehend an unseen God. It also means we are capable of delaying reward for some unforeseen time even to a life after death. This makes man the only creature capable of understanding God's plan of redemption. That the world is the temporary domain of God's image bearers, and faith can lead us to a permanent dwelling in the presence of the God who made us.

29 And God said, "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food"; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Now the 6th creation day stands alone as God speaks for a 3rd time to instruct man on the food that God has provided. As we learn in Genesis 2 God had made a special garden home for man far more inviting than the wilderness covering most of the earth. yo·vm ha·shi·shi represented the final chapter of the creation epic summary of Genesis 1, and God looks on that day and calls it very good.


Homo Neanderthalensis

Red Deer Cave People (15 TYA)

Homo Rudolfensis (2 MYA)

Australopithicus Sediba (2 MYA)


 

More reading on hominid fossils and evolution:

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/later_hominins_062891.html

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/the_fragmented062681.html

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/uprooted_trees061481.html

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/06/au_sediba_anoth061491.html

http://www.reasons.org/articles/the-unreliability-of-hominid-phylogenetic-analysis-challenges-the-human-evolutionary-paradigm

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/03/gorilla_genome_057391.html

Thursday, August 2, 2012

God Revealed in Creation – Part 5

"yo·vm cha·mi·shi"

The self-existent, maker of heaven and earth, has divided light from darkness and dividing surface water from water vapor in the clouds. He caused the dry land to appear and on the same day created life. The 4th creation day brought forth the sun moon and stars giving us regular seasons, tides, and the ability to track them by watching the heavens, but still no animal life on the earth.

Genesis 1

20 Then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens."

If you wonder about the order of creation why the 4th day was about the heavens and not new forms of life on earth, the answer is most likely oxygen. Evidence shows the earth had very little oxygen when the land first appeared, but the autotrophic life of day three began to fill the great oxygen sinks of the ocean. Scientist say the over 2 billion years ago a great oxygenation event occurred where the oceans became saturated with dissolved oxygen setting the stage for a new kind of life, essentially anything that swims or flies.

That word "abound" in other Bible translations is "team" or "swarm". Anyone who has been near the ocean has observed this teaming, swarming or schooling of fish and other aquatic life. Fishermen look for these great schools of fish. Some professional tuna fishermen use planes to spot dark patches on the water as those are schools of bait fish because they know the larger game fish like tuna will find the large schools of bait fish. My best day fishing ever was with my Dad and my Uncle off Galveston Island. We found a swarm of brown gulf shrimp, and a large school of gulf trout found them to. All you had to do is put a shrimp on your hook and throw it in and a gulf trout would jump on it.

This same behavior is why fishermen can use nets to catch great numbers of fish. The Gospels of Matthew and Mark both record that four of Jesus disciples were two sets of brothers, fishermen by trade, and they were hard at work when Jesus called them to leave their nets and become Christ followers. Jesus was calling them first to learn, then to help and finally to teach and preach.

Later in Luke chapter 5 Jesus has Simon Peter use a boat as a floating platform from which Jesus can teach, then when Jesus is done he rewards them with a quick catch of a great school of fish.

21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

In addition to the smaller schooling fish, God also made some bigger ones. The Hebrew word for sea creature is "tanniyn" which is translated as whale, dragon, serpent, some translations even say sea monster. So "sea creature" is probably as good of a translation as we can get. I can't tell you exactly what they are, but I know they were big.

Verse 21 also reemphasizes that these animals abounded or reproduced according to its kind. If you remember our study of the 3rd creation day we had this same language used for plant life. The Hebrew word translated kind is "miyn" which means to portion out. In terms of DNA this a means fish will always produce another fish, a bird will always produce another bird, and a crab can't produce anything other than another crab. Of course we know this conflicts with current evolutionary theory. Some say that this fifth creation day corresponds with an event known as the Cambrian explosion which was known to Charles Darwin when he made his theory, and he felt that the Cambrian fossils represented a great challenge to his theory, but he hoped it was just a puzzle that science could later solve, but it still hasn't happened.

Cambria is an ancient term for Wales, a part of Great Brittan where this geological period or rock layer was first discovered. But the greatest collection of fossils from this period was actually found in British Columbia. What these fossils show is the sudden emergence of practically every known phenotype of aquatic life. Fish, crabs, clams, worms are all found for the first time in this one rock layer. While the evolutionary story is one of slow random change over time, this fossil record is more consistent with massive waves of creation like those found in Genesis.

What do scientists say when the evidence doesn't match their theory? Well the evidence is wrong of course. First they say the fossil record is incomplete, this is their favorite defense for the untold millions of transitional species which had to exist according evolutionary theory, but are almost never found in the fossil record. Now everyone agrees that fossilization is an unusual event, most things that die don't make a fossil. But the more animals you have a more likely it is that one will make a fossil. So pay attention again to this idea of swarming ocean life, if all of these creatures existed before this time in earlier transitional form, then they would likely make a fossil, but sudden appearance, not slow evolution is still what the evidence shows.

Others have suggested that there are conditions under which rapid evolution is possible, but again this is theory without evidence. Chaining together millions of positive mutations to make more advanced creatures, is the story, but what geneticist find in the lab when studying mutations just doesn't agree with the story. Starting in the 1980's with Japanese geneticist Motoo Kimura there has been a growing tension between geneticist and old school evolutionist because the statistical reality of genetic studies still don't support the requirements of the evolutionary time line. We will have more to say about this in regard to the 6th creation day. This era of the fossil record is so important to earth's history some even refer to it as the "Biological Big Bang". All forms of sea life made all at once, is the claim made by the Bible and it is substantially verified by nature in the fossil record. In the words of former Oxford Zoologist and current atheistic author Richard Dawkins: "It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history."

For anyone interested in a comprehensive essay on the theories and challenges of the Cambrian explosion I recommend a paper by Microbiologist Stephen C. Meyer, along with P. A. Nelson, and Paul Chien : "The Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang" http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/Cambrian.pdf

While the sea creatures of Genesis 1 are well documented as fossils, the birds are not. Given the vast numbers and diversity of birds we see today their poor representation in the fossil record is curious. But that answer is pretty simple and very logical when you consider the distinctive quality of birds specifically that they fly as verse 20 points out. What that means is that birds have a unique design among the animals of the earth. Because they have to be lightweight in order to fly their bones are mostly hollow, as you might imagine this bad news if you want a bird fossil, as they decompose very quickly. This also points out the silliness of the Jurassic Park theory that great dinosaurs became birds. As they would have to evolve hollow bones long before they could fly, that adaptation would be disastrous for any land animals trying to survive this slow evolutionary change.

23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

"yo·vm cha·mi·shi" like the creation days before it brings strong evidence for supernatural creation. Each day draws a sharp contrast between what nature can do with the sustaining and adaptive features God has given it, versus the supernatural action of the Creator unmeasured in intellect and power. Scientists look at the Cambrian rocks and wonder at the sudden explosion of life revealed there. Creationist look at the same evidence see the tremendous correspondence with the Genesis 1 revelation which has the same supernatural Author as the birds and fish of the 5th creation day.

We should remember as we dig into the details of each creation day that they all begin with the same phrase "vai·yo·mer e·lo·him" – Then God said. The things we see in nature are not only what God made, but the way he chose to reveal himself to the people he will make on the 6th creation day.

When we look at the heavens we see planets with too little atmosphere and no water, planets with too much atmosphere and thus no light and still no water. We see planets with no permanent rocky surface and no plant life. Some planets orbit the wrong kind of star or one in an unstable part of its life, or simply orbit at the wrong distance. Most planets don't have a sun or moon like ours, and most reside in the wrong part of their respective galaxies. All of these things support the rare earth hypothesis, and match the expectations of Biblical creation.

We know of no other place in the Cosmos where God had intervened in such remarkable and frankly obvious ways to reveal himself to us. Why things are the way they are, is a question that will always lead anyone unavoidably to the reality of God, and supernatural creation. Natural science or natural philosophy as it was formally known, does a pretty good job answering "how" questions but it is totally unequipped to tell you why.