Genesis Chapter One contains the very first words of God recorded in the Bible. It describes how God created the cosmos – the seas, earth, firmament, and sun, moon, and stars. As such, it is of primary importance.
The battle of the ages is being fought over Genesis because, if it can be shown that it is not literally and actually true, there is no reason to assume that anything else in the Bible is true.
This is why Satan has worked so hard to convince the people in the world that evolutionary astrophysics is real, making the Bible an archaic fairy tale.
I have conversed with numerous Bible-believing Christians who insist that it is not necessary or even correct to accept that Genesis is literally true. These friends believe that Jesus rose from the dead. They believe in the primary importance of the gospel message and tell me that insisting on a literal interpretation of Genesis is an unnecessary obstacle to people’s accepting the gospel claims.
Without fully realizing it, those who reject the literal truth of Genesis have set foot upon the slippery slope of deciding which parts of the Bible are true and which merely contain truth, which is exactly the position of the more liberal denominations which have departed from the faith.
Why do any of us feel that it is necessary to reject the literal truth of Genesis? Is it not because we regard the claims of what is called science to be of greater import than God’s Word?
If we accept the proclamations of theoretical science above God’s Word, we have become idolators who worship at the altar of a new religion called “Scientism,” which has its own high priests, scientists, who tell us what we must believe.
I admit that people come to faith in Christ without believing that Genesis is literally true. I did. But this does not mean that believing Genesis is true is not important. Jesus said the the scripture cannot be “broken,” (John 10:35) meaning that every word of God is true. He said in another place that we are to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). People who already believe in Jesus will continue to do so regardless of whether they accept a literal interpretation of Genesis. To them, it is non-essential. However, those who are in the process of exploring the claims of the Bible and who read Genesis are faced with a huge obstacle to faith. Everything they have been taught from infancy rejects the creation account of Genesis. They must decide what to do with the Bible. Many decide that Genesis is not true and therefore reject all the Bible’s claims.
The goal of evolutionary astrophysics, geology, paleontology, and biology is to convince us that our universe and all life sprang from nothingness by absolute random chance without any influence from a Creator.
We have to admit that Satan’s plan has wonderfully succeeded. He has successfully eliminated the Bible from public education and the halls of what is called science. Any reference to a Creator is rejected. Science must be able to explain things entirely using mechanistic processes. Nothing divine is allowed.
It stands to reason that the best way to combat the lie of evolutionary “science” is by reestablishing faith in the literal truth of Genesis.
It is impossible to accept the Genesis account as true and end up with a heliocentric view of what is called the ever-expanding universe. Until we are willing to repent from our rejection of the literal truth of the Genesis account, our ability to win over atheists and agnostics to the gospel will be limited.
But when we come face to face with the truth about the heavens and earth that God made, we can only arrive at one conclusion. There must be a Creator. No matter how truth is twisted, evolutionary processes cannot explain the existence of the firmament.
It is not a far jump to show those who acknowledge the Creator that the one who made them is named Jesus, the Eternal Logos who became a man and died for our sins and then arose as Lord of Lords, who will come again in glory when God dissolves the firmament. (2 Peter 3:12)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. John 1:1–5 (NKJV)
