Doctrine For Difficult Days

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Doctrine of Origins

Then there was the Newtonian science that came in, and you’ll find that not only Sir Isaac Newton but other intelligent men of his day held that theory. While some of his hypothesis was true, the absolutes such as time, mass, and space have been rejected. Even men like Albert Einstein have rejected part of it. Later research has shown its application to sub-atomic particles to be an impossibility.

Now if you want to know the main reason that I would not accept biological evolution, it is that in the final analysis it’s merely a theory that attempts to explain the origin of life, and especially of man. I do believe that eventually evolution will go out. It’s the popular thing right now, and we’re down in that trough today where we are branded unscientific for not going along with it. It has always been said that you are not intelligent if you don’t follow the theory that’s in vogue. Well, brother, I’ll just have to appear unintelligent. I refuse to accept any theory just because it happens to be popular today. Biological evolution is a theory, not a proven science at all.

There are certain things that science does not know, and we’re going to make reference to that. But I want to make this statement right here. The reason that we as Christians reject biological evolution is threefold:

First, we believe that biological evolution has no explanation for from nothing to the inorganic. In other words, where did matter begin? I honestly believe that this universe is far more vast than is thought today, as far as expanse and time are concerned. I believe that it has been in existence literally trillions of years. You see, we have a God of eternity. And He is an infinite God without limits of any kind. But evolution must be able to fill in the gap from nothing to matter, and its proponents have no explanation for that at all. It’s one thing to say that a little cell developed and eventually became a man over a long expense of time. Granted, if that were true, where did the little cell come from? How did it begin? You have to go back to the time somewhere in the past and tell how it came into existence.

Actually, my friend, the only way that you can explain matter is by creation. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) — that’s the only logical explanation there is. Biological evolution has no explanation for from nothing to the inorganic. And therefore we reject it because the Bible has the only record that will explain from nothing to the inorganic.

The second problem is going from the inorganic to the organic. Now up to today neither evolution nor science can bridge that gap from inorganic to living organisms. How does life begin? What is behind it? And how can you take that which is inorganic and make it live? There are several foundations that are supplying millions of dollars for research in this area, but they haven’t come up with the explanation for the origin of life. Biological evolution has no explanation for that. Just to push our thinking out there in the ocean and claim our ancestors came from seaweed millions of years ago doesn’t answer anything at all. If you want to know the truth, no theory has solved the problem.
____________________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Doctrine of Origins

Then there is the third step — going from organic to man. God created the whales. God created the fish. God created the animals. But the creation of man is a separate creation. And there is no natural transition from the animal to man. The very fact that man has a chassis that is similar to an animal’s does not prove that they have a common ancestor. It merely proves that they move in the same environment. We live in the same world that the animal lives in, and therefore we have to have feet, and we have to have a head — we must have many things that the animal has. Likewise the animal has to have many things that we have. But there is no such thing as a bridge between man and animal.

There are many questions biological evolutionists have not answered. They have not proven anything. Therefore you will find that in the Word of God is the only explanation:

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. (Genesis 2:7)

God created man from the dust of the earth, and He breathed into his breathing places the breath of life. My beloved, that’s the only explanation of life.

Evolutionists have never been able to bridge that gigantic gap between inorganic dust and human beings. Even the old Piltdown man, which was found in Great Britain, you’ll remember, was proved a forgery. How do you know that the others are not forgeries? How do you know that other so-called missing links, the Java man for instance, are genuine? Years ago I visited the Field’s Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where they had all the steps of the evolution of man set up. Their story of the development of man is all myth, it’s fairy stories. When we came to the Java man, I asked the curator the question, “How do you know that the Java man is not really a myth?” He said, “If you want to know the truth, we don’t know.” When you come down to facts, evolution is all something which has just been constructed. You see, when you start out with a certain thesis, it’s amazing how men’s imagination can fill it in.

Now there is no question but that there is development within phyla or families in which the members are assumed to have a common descent. In other words, I am of the opinion that all horses came from one pair of horses. I’m of the opinion that probably all monkeys came from one monkey and its mate. But I don’t think any of you came from a monkey! But there are certain great families, and their development within the phylum can be found in many, many places today. However, friends, there is no transition from animal to human here at all. Homo sapiens is a separate creation of God.

Therefore, for these three reasons we reject what is known as naturalistic or biological evolution. And I believe that Christians today ought to stand on their two feet and say they reject it and be able to give a reason why.

Listen to this statement by Swedish botanist Dr. Heribert Nilsson, who is an evolutionist:

My attempts to demonstrate evolution by experiment carried on for more than forty years have completely failed…. At least I should hardly be accused of having started from a preconceived anti-evolutionary standpoint…. It may be firmly maintained that it is not even possible to make a caricature out of paleobiological facts. The fossil material is so complete that it has been possible to construct new classes, and the lack of transitional series cannot be explained as due to the scarcity of material. Deficiencies are real. They will never be filled…. The idea of an evolution rests on pure belief.

May I say to you, he is moving into the realm of religion! My friend, to be an evolutionist you have to take it by faith. Evolution is speculation and always has been. But, unfortunately, a great many folk have accepted it as fact.
_______________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Doctrine of Origins

Theistic Evolution

We come now to the second view, which is the most illogical one that anyone can have. In our day a group of theologians (young theologians, for the most part), not wanting to be called intellectual obscurantists, have adopted what is known as theistic evolution. They are trying to run with the hare and the hounds, and they take the position that God created the amoeba to begin with, but from there on He went off and left the little amoeba and it did its own developing. That’s theistic evolution.

Unfortunately, the men who hold this view have gotten into many of our so-called Christian schools. They have been able to worm their way into an amazing number of places. I could tell you many places where you’d really be surprised to know that theistic evolution is held as being the teaching of the Word of God.

Now I want to pass on from that because I do not think that you can logically believe in theistic evolution. You’re either going to accept the Bible account or you’re going to reject the Bible account. I can understand how an unbeliever can reject the Bible account, but I cannot understand how a so-called Bible believer can say, “I’m a theistic evolutionist.” It’s impossible. You either believe the Bible or you don’t believe the Bible, and these two views are certainly in conflict. This idea today that you can reconcile them — well, it’s a sad thing.
 
Progressive Creationism

Now here is a third viewpoint which is to my judgment dangerous. It is known as progressive creationism. Probably ninety percent of our Christian schools are teaching progressive creationism. I will be giving you quotations from Dr. Bernard Ramm. I knew him when we taught for a time at the same school. I consider him a friend, and I think he is a fine Christian gentleman who has, in my opinion, very high principles. But I do not agree with his viewpoint of progressive creationism. Several times in his book he makes the statement that this is the view he holds. It’s called, and this is his definition, “development from vacancy.”

Dr. Ramm takes the position that Genesis 1:2 does not refer to any kind of a cataclysm or catastrophe, but actually speaks only of vacancy. That is, God started off with a lot of raw material, which He developed by evolution — or you can call it something other than that if you want to. Dr. Ramm uses the illustration of an artist who gathers his canvas, brushes, and paints, and then he starts painting. Likewise God first created all the materials, and then He began to work them over, and after a few thousand years, a million years for that matter, He came out with man. That is the view, generally speaking, of going from raw materials to finished product. It would be a very difficult viewpoint to defend.

Someone has made the statement that progressive creationism is disguised theistic evolution. It’s very close to it. The fact of the matter is, you have to be an intellect like Dr. Ramm to make the distinction. And there are not many able to make the distinction today. As a result, most of them end up in theistic evolution. I have found that many who are coming out of even our so-called Christian schools today are really holding the theistic evolution view rather than that of progressive creationism.
_________________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Doctrine of Origins

Now having said that, may I go on to say that the theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist both believe that the soul and the spirit of man were created. But they think the physical, or the body part of man, was evolved. And they see the six days of Genesis as being long aeons of time and periods in which that took place. I believe the Scripture makes it clear that this is not what happened but that man was created not only soul and spirit, but also body, and that he was fully created at the same moment. It was not something that developed over a period of time.

Here is Dr. Ramm’s view in his own words: “We believe Genesis 1:2 is not referring to ruin and destruction but to vacancy awaiting in forming.” According to his theory, “in forming” means that the Holy Spirit worked from within and developed man from within — that God did not form him from without, but that the Holy Spirit formed him from within. And, of course, that viewpoint takes the position that the six days of Genesis are not twenty-four-hour days, but that they are aeons or periods of time which cover thousands, perhaps millions, of years.

Now I feel that many keen-minded professors, in attempting to hold an intellectual position with their counterparts in the universities, adopt this viewpoint because they feel it will enable them to answer the evolutionists. Certainly they do have an interpretation for the gap theory, because the minute the evolutionist finds a gap, these folk come along and say, “Well, that’s where God stepped in and created.” The only difficulty with this is that we don’t always have a specific Scripture to answer all the different gaps that are found in the evolutionary theory. You can see progressive creationism as a desperate attempt by intelligent people today to give a scientific explanation for creation.

To summarize: May I say, we totally reject evolution. We reject it for three reasons. We reject it first of all because it is unscriptural. You cannot reconcile evolution with the Word of God. The idea of being a theistic evolutionist is as inconsistent with the Word as any position can possibly be.

Actually, evolution is more of a philosophy than it is a proven fact. It is a system of the interpretation of origins. Evolutionists do have a certain amount of information, and because of this they have applied that philosophy to all walks of life.

We also reject evolution because of the fact that all theories of the past have eventually been proven untrue. The Scientific Bureau of Paris lists seventy-nine theories for the origin of this universe which at one time were considered scientific, and all of them are rejected today. Therefore, evolution, though it may be popular now, and it may be the thing in our universities, if it runs its course as other theories have, it will be as dead as a dodo bird. So I don’t want to hang onto a theory that will be as much of a back number as that. It, too, will be exploded, just as these other theories have been.

Now we reject evolution for another very definite reason: It has no explanation in three fields. That is, evolution cannot explain going from nothing to the inorganic. It has no explanation for the origin of matter. Neither can it bridge the gap between the inorganic and the organic — that is, how life began. And then, this third, from the organic to mankind. There are too many gaps in that, so we reject it altogether.
__________________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Doctrine of Origins

Fiat Creation

We come now to the fourth viewpoint, and the one that I hold, which is that of a fiat creation — that God spoke, and when He spoke, matter came into existence! And I believe that God brought into existence an original creation.

Now I do not think that man was in the original creation in any form whatsoever. And I hold that when you come to the first six days recorded in Genesis 1, you come to a time actually of renovation rather than creation, and when you come to the creation of man, he is something brand new. Physically man was created of the ground. But man is more than dust. God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). He became something new that had never before been on this earth.
 
 —  —  —  —  —
Who? When? Why?

There are three questions we want to investigate about creation, and especially the creation of man: Who created man, when was he created, and why was he created? I think any intelligent person ought to be able to answer these three questions. The interesting thing is, I believe God has given us reasonable answers.

Actually the last question is the most difficult, so let’s ask the question of who first. And we believe the Scripture offers the only explanation. Let’s go to Genesis 1:1, the very first verse of the Bible.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

“In the beginning God” — in the Hebrew, Elohim — “created,” bara, which means He created out of nothing. The other word that is used later in Genesis 1 is God “made,” asah, and that means out of existing matter. And you’ll find that is true of many things. I do not think God created the plants at this time. The seed was already in the earth, we are told. All it needed was the proper kind of atmosphere and climate in which it could fructify and grow. And I think that’s exactly what happened as far as Genesis is concerned. But the interesting thing is that when you come over to Genesis 1:21 and see the word create, there the Hebrew is bara again — but you don’t find bara between verses 1 and 21.

We could spend a week or more just talking about Genesis 1:1. I had the privilege of hearing lectures by Dr. A. B. Winchester of Canada, and I heard him speak for one whole month on the first chapter of Genesis, speaking three days a week for a period of fifty minutes. And he apologized at the end of the series that he had not finished the first chapter! He said he had hoped to be able to do it in one month. Oh, so much can be said about this!

Now in Genesis 1:1, we have all of the actual creation with the exception of the creation of animals and man as we know them today. However, there is abundant evidence that there were animals at the beginning of creation which have disappeared, for instance, the dinosaur. Perhaps they were in this original creation and then disappeared off this earth. In fact, verse 2 indicates that the entire creation of that time disappeared. During that period did God have an intelligent creation on this earth? I do not know, but there seems to be evidence that there was an intelligent creation on this earth before man was ever put here.
___________________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Doctrine of Origins

Creation’s Three Bridges

And all of that is in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” — there is the creation. And when you get to the creation of animals and of whales and of fish, that is a separate creation. The Hebrew states it very carefully. Bara is the word for “create.” Asah is the word for “make.” And all the way through the six days you have, “God made this, God made that.” On the first day, He made light appear. He didn’t create light on that day. Light was already in His universe. He made it break through the darkness on “the face of the deep.” And you do not find the word bara until you get to the creation of animals — life, you see.

Then, when you come to the creation of man, bara is used again, so that there are three acts of creation in Genesis 1, and only three acts of creation. They are very important because they bridge the three gaps. They bridge the gap from the nothing to the inorganic: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” — matter. Then from inorganic to organic, life — “God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves.” God created the animals — life appeared.

Then from organic to man:

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27)

You have here in Genesis that bridge which evolution cannot find. That bridge in the Book of Genesis in chapter 1 is in the word create, you see. This is a reasonable explanation of the origin of things, my beloved. And may I say that I think it’s God appealing to the intelligence of man.
 
The Big Bang Theory

The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:2)

Some years ago I was very much interested in this news item: “The universe began in a mighty atom blast, British scientists believe.” It goes on to explain that a team of six British scientists say they’ve obtained proof to explain how the universe began. They say that the positions of unknown stars and planets far out in space, and the way they’re receiving radio signals rushing in every direction, means that at some time in the past there was a great blast. Well, that’s what Genesis 1:2 says. The earth was “without form, and void,” tohu wa bohu in the Hebrew. Some great catastrophe took place. The earth “became” without form and void, if you please. But Isaiah says God did not create the earth tohu wa bohu “without form and void.” This is very interesting. Since God did not create it without form and void, something happened to make it so. “Without form” is the Hebrew word tohu, meaning “a ruin,” “vacancy.” “Void” is the Hebrew word bohu, meaning “emptiness.” Notice this statement in the prophecy of Isaiah:

For thus says the Lord,
Who created the heavens,
Who is God,
Who formed the earth and made it,
Who has established it,
Who did not create it in vain,
Who formed it to be inhabited:
“I am the Lord, and there is no other.”
(Isaiah 45:18)

_______________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Doctrine of Origins

Here God says that He did not create the earth “in vain,” and the Hebrew word is tohu, which we find in Genesis 1:2. God did not create the earth without form and void. God created this universe a cosmos, not a chaos. This is what Isaiah is attempting to make clear. He created it not tohu wa bohu, but the earth became tohu wa bohu. God formed the earth to be inhabited, and it was God who came to this wreck and made it a habitable place for mankind.

Our current study and exploration of space has revealed, so far, that you and I live in a universe in which only the earth is habitable for human beings. I believe Genesis is telling us that this earth became without form and void, that it was just as uninhabitable as the moon when the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

I believe that the entire universe came under this great catastrophe. What was the catastrophe? We can only suggest that there was some pre-Adamic creature on this earth. And it seems possible that all of this is connected with the fall of Lucifer, “son of the morning,” who became Satan, the devil, as we know him today, but God has not given us details. The fact of the matter is that He has given us very, very few details in the first chapter of Genesis.

Why didn’t God tell us more? I think primarily because it’s none of our business. The second reason I think He didn’t tell us is because He’s attempting to give us a Book for guidance so that, though we are fools and wayfaring men, we needn’t go astray (see Isaiah 35:8). God is giving us the way of salvation, not a book on geology or origins. Yet He gives enough to appeal to the intellect of man. So in Genesis 1:2 we are told what the earth became. Something happened to this earth, and it became without form and void.
 
And God Spoke!

Now into this picture God moved. And when He moved into the picture we find the Spirit of God brooding or hovering over it, and He moved upon the face of the waters. It is a picture of a mother hen getting her little chicks under her wings. And the Spirit of God brooded in that darkness over the face of the deep.

Will you notice now the thing that happened on the first day,
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (Genesis 1:3)

Candidly, they can’t tell us much about light even today. They don’t quite know what light is. But God said, “Let there be light,” and in light there’s tremendous energy and sometimes heat. When God spoke, these things came into existence. Oh, the power of the Word of God! And this is the thing which answers the old nebular hypothesis which opposed biblical teaching.

The nebular hypothesis says that matter is indestructible and therefore Genesis is wrong. The Bible says God spoke and matter came into existence — but that can’t be if matter has always been here. Well, what do they do today with atomic fission? They take matter and translate it into energy, and poof, it’s gone! You see, they reverse God’s process. They did find out His secret. He took nothing and spoke and made energy into matter, and today man takes matter back out through energy, and that’s atomic fission. Do you see that it has upset man’s nebular hypothesis? Let’s wait till they get something permanent, something that’s satisfactory today. A great many theologians at that time tried to reconcile the nebular hypothesis with the Word of God. Well, they couldn’t do it then, and you can’t reconcile evolution with the Bible today.

Dr. Werner Von Braun, who worked in developing space travel, said that space is revealing the hand of a Creator. That is interesting. I think one of these days they are going to move into a pocket that will upset evolution and tear it to pieces. Then you’ll find another theory coming along to replace it. That’s the reason I’m not hanging onto evolution, nor am I hanging onto this theory of progressive creationism, because I do not believe they offer satisfactory explanations.
__________________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Doctrine of Origins

Six Days of Renovation

Genesis began with six days of renovation, and I personally believe they were twenty-four-hour days. If you think they were longer periods of time I won’t fall out with you, but I can’t understand what “the evening and the morning” mean unless they are twenty-four-hour days. Oh, I know they say that morning is the beginning of a period, and there was an evening of it, of going down, and then a morning of it coming back. Well, Genesis says, “The evening and the morning were the first day.” I understand it as a twenty-four-hour day.

Notice, if you will, that in the six days only two things are created: One is life and the other is man. What you have is God beginning to make a place for man to live. To me that’s the most wonderful thing in the world. He begins to separate the firmament or expanse. He divides the water above from the water beneath. He was making air spaces here for man to live. He was preparing the way. And we are told that plant life appeared.

Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:9-10)

Notice in verse 11 that He did not create plants at this time. All they needed was for water to be brought, and then they would come up again.

Honestly, when I’ve traveled across West Texas and have seen that barren land, especially around Sera Blanca, I never believed that anything would ever grow there. But when I went back the other day after they had an abundance of rain, it was as green as a golf course! That’s what Earth needed — only rain, a favorable environment for growth.

Looking back at verse 2, when presumably this great catastrophe had occurred, all life had disappeared, even the plants couldn’t grow. But when God separated the waters from the waters, then gathered the waters together, and the dry land appeared, then plant life began to grow.

Then on the fourth day the sun, moon, and stars became visible. God didn’t create them at this time. They probably had been created billions of years before. He simply made them shine through at this time.

Then we find in verse 21:

So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind.

There is the word for create, bara, again. It appears also in verse 27:

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

May I say that it makes it very clear here that God created man as a separate creation. Progressive creationists and theistic evolutionists come along and say, “That means God created the soul and the spirit, but the body was already here.” Let’s see if you can draw that conclusion from what is said:

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. (Genesis 2:7)
__________________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Doctrine of Origins

He didn’t make man’s soul out of dust, and He didn’t make his spirit out of dust. Notice that God created the physical part of man at the same time He created the spiritual part of man. It was all one operation.

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. (Genesis 2:21)

(And that has been a rib-tickling story ever since!) The Hebrew means God took a side of man. (And that’s the reason some believe a man is just half a man until he gets married!) That’s also the only time that a woman has been taken from a man. Now it’s the other way around, the man comes from the woman. But here it’s different; this speaks of the creation of a man and a woman.

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. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said:

“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh.”
(Genesis 2:21-23)

She wasn’t just a rib, she was one-half of him. “Here’s my other half — she belongs to me, she’s part of me.”

Adam, I think, understood that there was no development. Will you notice verse 23: “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.’” Not evolved, but taken out of man.

From my viewpoint you cannot support theistic evolution or progressive creation from the Genesis account. And I have concluded that the creation of man was an act of God that took place. But I’m not through. Let’s look at Genesis 3:

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” — therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. (Genesis 3:22-23)

Man, created in the Garden of Eden, is now sent forth from the garden into an altogether different environment, if you please.

Now there are other Scriptures we could give — you remember the Lord Jesus made this statement:

And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female’?” (Matthew 19:4)

He made them male and female. Our Lord, when He was here among us, put His seal upon the creation account in the Book of Genesis that, separate from everything else, it was a creative act of God that brought Adam and Eve into existence. May I say as a Christian, I hold to that. And I think it’s to run down the flag to yield to any kind of theory — and after all, that’s all evolution is in its final analysis. The theory of evolution has problems. It’s the flimsiest sort of thing, yet they are holding on with the idea that all the gaps will be filled in time.

We reject it, therefore, because Scripture makes the fact of creation clear. Note this additional Scripture penned by Paul the apostle:

All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. (1 Corinthians 15:39)

Paul says there are several kinds of flesh, flesh of animals, of birds, of fish, and the flesh of man. One did not evolve from any of the others. I do not see how you can hold to any kind of theory that the physical part of man has evolved. It has not evolved according to the Word of God.

When did God do all this? I cannot date it. May I say that I think the biggest problem before theologians is to try to arrive at a more satisfactory dating of the origin of man. I do not know this, but I believe that man has been on this earth a lot longer than originally was thought. Any dating before David is difficult. Any dating before Abraham is hazy, and dating before the Flood is pure guesswork. So we cannot do anything but speculate, and my speculation is as good as anybody’s. Some Bibles print a timetable dating creation at 4, 004 b.c., but no one knows about dating back that far. There’s plenty of room in the genealogies to move man as far back as you need to take him.

And now we leave the questions of when and how to discuss why God created man. And here is the real problem. Why did God do it? Well, I think there are several reasons, and we will discuss them in the next chapter.
..........
TO BE CONTINUED....

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Purpose and Nature of Man

We’ve been investigating the great questions of the creation of man — who created him, and when? We want to look now at the question of why man was created, and this last question is the most difficult one of all. Man is here today but the question is, why? And that’s hard to explain. Why would a perfect God, a God who loves, continue with the human race the way He has in this world today?
 
 —  —  —  —  —
Why Man?

So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27)

The greatest blow man’s ego ever received was when he found out that this little earth was not the center but on the side of this galactic system in which we are. We’re just a sideshow. Nevertheless, we are here because we are the beloved of our God, and we are here for His good pleasure.

For His Pleasure
You are worthy, O Lord,
To receive glory and honor and power;
For You created all things,
And by Your will they exist and were created.
(Revelation 4:11)

God does not exist for our pleasure. We exist for His pleasure. He created us because He wanted to create us. The explanation is found in Him, not in us. We think we’re the center of this universe. We are not.

God has created everything for His pleasure. This universe is not, as early scientists thought, geocentric, that is, earth centered. Now they’ve found out that the universe is too big to even be uranocentric, that is, heaven centered. The heavens are too big. My friend, this universe is Theocentric, it is God centered. This universe exists for Him.

I looked last night at the evening star. Have you seen the evening star recently? And then the other morning I got up early before the sun came up, and the morning star was there. It was really bright. Do you know why it is there? (By the way, our Lord is called in Revelation 22:16 the “Bright and Morning Star.” He uses that title.) The morning star is in that position because that is where He wanted it. If the Lord Jesus wanted it moved one inch, He would move it one inch! Man needs to learn that. God didn’t create this universe for man. Man was created for God. We exist for Him. We were created for His pleasure.
__________________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Purpose and Nature of Man

If you take the position that the God of this universe has no right to do whatever He wants with that drunkard who is going down the street blaspheming Him, then, my friend, you don’t know much about God. This universe exists for Him, and for His pleasure.

“You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things” (Revelation 4:11). Why? “For thy pleasure they are and were created” (KJV). That is one of the songs we’ll sing in heaven when we get there. God didn’t need a universe to juggle. He didn’t create it for a utilitarian purpose. He created this universe for His pleasure. And, friend, that’s a good enough reason.

When I was a boy, my dad was the authority. I know today we’ve moved away from that principle, but in my home he was the boss. He used to make me cut wood, especially on a Saturday morning, and I’d say I wanted to fish if it was summertime, and in the fall I wanted to hunt.

“Cut wood!” he’d say.
“Why do I have to do this?”
“Because I want you to.”

That ended the argument for me. I did it because he wanted me to do it, and that was satisfactory. Ooh, boy, I never talked back! I went to get the ax and I cut the wood. I did it because he wanted it done.

Now today we have a lot of people, even Christians, who ask “Why?” about all manner of things. Well, it’s because God wants it, that’s the first reason, and that’s good enough.
 
For God’s Glory

The second reason God created the universe was for His glory. “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy …” (Job 38:7). Way back yonder at the beginning when God created everything, all creation was singing praises to Him, all creation was for His glory. And that’s exactly what God intends for all eternity. He’s working today on a plan whereby, through redemption, He is going to bring this little earth on which we live — now in rebellion against Him — back into line with His program, which is:

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11)

You see, God the Son came down to earth and became the man Jesus so that at the name of Jesus every knee must bow and every tongue must confess that He is the Lord. Creation is for the glory of the Lord Jesus.
_____________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Purpose and Nature of Man

For Fellowship With God

The third reason for creation is, and I think this is the most wonderful one of all, for God’s fellowship. We see this throughout the entire story of God’s relationship with man. It’s a lovely thing that’s said here, and I think we miss a great deal of this because we rush over Genesis too hurriedly.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:8-10)

It says that in the cool of the day God came down into the garden. Imagine, the God of this universe condescended to visit the garden! Why did God come? He had creatures there who were precious to Him. And listen, man is a little lower than the angels, but he’s different from the angels. God summons the angels — they are His servants — and they respond immediately. He says, “Bow,” and they bow. But this little man, he has a free will of his own. He’s different. God wants to have fellowship with him. So God came down every day to have fellowship.

I don’t want to appear sentimental, and I hesitate going beyond Scripture, but I wonder — that day when God came down, and Adam hid himself from Him — I wonder if God felt lonesome. He called out, “Adam, where are you?” I say it reverently but I want to say it: I think God is lonesome for you and me sometimes. I wonder if this was His feeling, I created him so as to have fellowship with him. I wanted to share, and I can’t share with him. Why? Because he is over yonder hiding. He’s out of fellowship with Me.
 
 —  —  —  —  —
The Nature of Man

That brings us to the nature of man. Philosophy and psychology have their explanations for man. Philosophy today says that man is essentially good, that he is innately and inherently good. He can be improved upon, but he’s good. And psychology brings in the human factors of heredity and environment, and they contribute unlimited possibilities to what you can do with man. The fact of the matter is, it is the same old story that Adam and Eve heard in the Garden of Eden: “You can become as gods.” That is the same story you find today. In fact, it is the whole theory of communism and socialism — which are essentially the same. They seek to improve man. They say, “Man can be improved, and we want to improve him.” And look at the results!

Some forms of theology imply that man can assist in his own salvation because there’s a spark of good in him, and man can be improved. The do-gooders and liberal politicians said that we ought to get rid of the slums and put people in a nice environment. Now you see what these eggheads accomplished. The new areas that they built to get rid of old slums have become new slums. A newspaper clipping tells of one woman on a committee who thinks the mistake they made was failing to put candy stores and ice-cream parlors on the corners — they forgot to do that! You see, they are still working from that old theory that you can improve man.
______________________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Purpose and Nature of Man

A liberal who switched to the conservative view over in Chattanooga, Tennessee, told me, “I used to head up the Community Chest program, and I remember that one of our projects was ‘a bathroom in every home.’ So we went down to the slums and put in those bathrooms. The next year we went back to see the results. Do you know what had happened? The bathtubs had served as coal bins. They stored their coal in them to build their fires. Some of the tubs had never been used for a bath! We thought if we just put bathtubs in we’d get a bunch of clean people, and all we did was provide some very expensive coal bins.”

Now may I say that theology has another theory, first called modernism and now called liberalism. The theory they hold is that man can save himself. All he needs to do is just get hold of himself. Liberalism is sort of a do-it-yourself kit. They say, “You don’t need God, you can do it yourself. And there’s nothing that you can’t do yourself.”

Christian Science says that human nature is totally good. What you think is bad is not bad. One big difference between Christian Science and myself is this: They look at mankind and they say that bad is not really bad, that the bad is not there. And I say to them, “The good you see is not really there. If the bad is not there, the good is not there either.” But they insist that man is totally good. And that is very appealing to mankind! All he needs to do is think positively. What does that mean? Well, all you have to do is get hold of yourself. Once you get hold of yourself you’ve pretty much solved your problem.

In our day we have a great many Christians who are going to psychiatrists, thinking they can solve their problems that way. Why? Because fundamentally they are missing what the Word of God has to say. The Word of God tells us that the human family is totally depraved. The Bible says there was a fall, and in the third chapter of Genesis you read of it.

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’” Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. (Genesis 3:1-6)

If you want to know the results of that fall, turn over to the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. (Romans 5:12)

Now when Paul says all men have sinned, he doesn’t mean they’ve committed an act of sin. He means that in Adam they sinned; that is, what Adam did, they did. Adam’s sin has been made over to the human family.
_______________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Purpose and Nature of Man

Somebody says, “Well, I don’t think that’s quite right.” I’ve used this illustration at other times, and let me use it again here because it does illustrate the fact that what Adam did, I did, and what Adam did, you did. All have sinned in Adam. If that doesn’t seem fair to you, let me tell you my story, which is probably similar to yours. On my father’s side, my grandfather lived in North Ireland. He was a Scotsman, and probably had itchy feet, because he left Scotland and went to North Ireland. He and his wife walked into a lot of trouble over there. Finally he said to my grandmother, “We’re going to the new country.” So they boarded a ship and came over to Georgia.

Well, when my grandfather made up his mind over in North Ireland to come to this country, I made up my mind that I was coming to this country. Yes, I did. What he did, I did! Listen, if Grandpa had stayed in North Ireland, I would be there today. But he said, “I’m going to a new country,” and he came to Georgia. He didn’t like Georgia. He went over to Mississippi, and he had a plantation there. Then after the Civil War they lost everything and went to Texas. And that’s where I was born.

Look — what my grandfather did, I did. You see, when he left that country, I left that country. When he left Georgia, I left Georgia. When he left Mississippi, I left Mississippi. And the reason I was born in Texas is because what he did, I did. I’m glad he came to Texas. It wouldn’t do me any good if I didn’t like it, but I do approve of every move he made.

Now may I say that what Adam did, we did. Back yonder in the Garden of Eden this man sinned, and when he sinned he plunged all who came from him into sin — every one of us. Now, friend, this is what the Word of God has to say, and actually this is the thing that’s wrong with the human family today: We were born with a sinful nature that we inherited from Adam.

Let’s continue now with the historical event recorded in the third chapter of Genesis:

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?” So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?” Then the man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:8-12)

Well, that’s the sorriest thing that Adam did. And that’s the fruit of his fall, by the way.
__________________________________________

[nChrist]

Doctrine For Difficult Days
by J. Vernon McGee
The Purpose and Nature of Man

And the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:13)

That’s passing the buck, is it not!
So the Lord God said to the serpent:
“Because you have done this,
You are cursed.”
(Genesis 3:14)

Then in verse 15 we have the first prophecy regarding Christ:

And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.
(Genesis 3:15)

But God didn’t let the woman off, and He certainly didn’t let the man off. “To the woman He said: ‘I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception,’” and so on.

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:

Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.”
(Genesis 3:16-17)

That is an historical event that took place: the fall of man.

The result of the fall is that man has been brought to the place of death. That, after all, is the final proof. By man came death. In Adam all die. We are tied up with Adam whether we like it or not. And this is the reason a little infant dies who has not committed a sin. He is a sinner in Adam.

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. (Romans 5:12)

Because of Adam’s sin the little infant will die — and death has passed on to all men because all have sinned.
__________________________________________