From the Beginning of Creation...

Because we are in week two of our Discipleship Institute classes at my church, I'm going to digress with this post from my "Choosing Gratitude" series.  Discovery Discipleship Institute classes are Bible classes that we hold in lieu of our Sunday evening service.   Two to four classes are usually offered.  They run for four weeks.  We take one week off for Mother's Day and then we run them all over again so we have the opportunity to take two different classes.  I've come to really enjoy our Discipleship Institute.  Two years ago, Tim Arsenault, the friend who introduced the prewrath position to me and my husband, taught the prewrath position as one of the classes.  I was thrilled he was given this opportunity since I am convinced this position on the timing of the rapture is the most biblical.  I'm in another of Tim's classes this spring.  This time around he is teaching a class called Our Earth and Cosmos: Ancient or Recent Creation?  In other words, old earth or young earth? 

In Christendom, you find people on both sides of the coin.  There are some Christians who say that eons of time or billions of years passed between the six "days" of creation.  Not sure how you can come up with that view when you take Genesis 1 and 2 at face value.  You've got wording such as "and there was evening and there was morning, day one."  How else should this be taken other than a 24 hour period?  My husband recently heard progressive creationist Hugh Ross give his perspective on the age of the earth.  His view is that billions of years passed between the creation of light and the creation of man.  Isn't Jesus, the Creator, the authority on whether or not eons of time passed between when He uttered the words, "let there be light" on day one of creation and "let us make man in our own image" on day six of creation?  Take a look at this little nugget in Mark 10:6, where Jesus answered some Pharisees regarding some questions they had on divorce.  "But from the beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE."  Do you see it?  What Jesus is saying here supports a face value rendering of Genesis 1 and 2.  Creation didn't take eons of time.  God made man, male and female, from the beginning of creation.  Light wasn't created first and then 14 billion years later man was created.  It was in just a span of 144 hours!  To say creation took billions of years is to have a compromised hermeneutic, in my opinion.  It just opens up the door to pick and choose where you will accept taking scripture at face value.  If the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense.  In this case, the plain sense in Genesis, that creation took six, twenty-four hour days, makes sense, and is supported by Jesus Himself, the Creator, when He was God incarnate, here on the earth, speaking to some Pharisees and His disciples on divorce.  I think we better leave the Genesis account of creation alone, and not tamper with the plain sense.

One of the reasons I now hold to the prewrath position on the timing of the rapture is because of this very same principle of hermeneutic.  Matthew 24 is pretty simple and straight forward.  And, when you compare scripture with scripture, Matthew 24 lines up perfectly with 1&2 Thessalonians.  (See this post at Prewrath Rapture Dot Com for a great comparison chart.)

Tim says he has a couple of other nuggets as well.  Can't wait to hear what they are!