Finding Jesus in Genesis 1-2

Genesis 1-2 — “The Creation”

Key Verse: Genesis 1:1 — “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Explanation: This verse, dictated by God to Moses, provides the foundation for all that follows. God created. As an act of His own sovereign will, He formed all that is “ex nihilo” — out of nothing. John 1:1-2 further reveals that Jesus was there in the beginning as well. In fact, He was the agent of Creation — fulfilling the will of the Father from the very beginning.

There’s an old tale that has Satan watching God create. Seeing the snake, Satan envisions rolling them out like a child does with Play-Doh. He asserts as much to Almighty God, who says, “All right, give it a try.” But, when Satan stoops down to pick up a handful of mud in order to craft his imposter snakes (like Pharoah’s magicians), the Lord says, “Not so quick. Find your own dirt.”

The importance of understanding that God created everything cannot be overstated. Our universe is not some cosmic accident, and man did not evolve through some process of random evolution. We are here because the omniscient and omnipotent God created us.

He knows you better than you know yourself — down to the hairs on your head and the number of days in your life. Surely, He is worthy of our praise!

Other Important Verses

Genesis 1:27 — “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

Explanation: We should not get sidetracked by the singular word “man” or “him” in this verse. In spite of our current cultural confusion regarding gender and human identity, God clearly testifies that Mankind was made distinct from all the other created beings.

Unlike the animals, who have instincts and minds and emotions, men and women were given a spirit. We are conscious and able to understand what God has revealed through His Word. We can also interact with Him and worship Him in ways the animals cannot.

Also, this verse clearly states that men and women themselves were made distinct from one another, but equally conforming to the image of God. That should discredit any attempt to ostracize one or the other, and should put an end to the satanic deception of gender dysphoria and insistence on a non-binary gender fluidity.

Genesis 1:31 — “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

Explanation: The only time God said something in His created order was “not good” was in Genesis 2:18, where He declared that is was not good for man to be alone. That statement does not represent an intrinsic mistake in God’s original plan; it simply affirms His intended provision for human thriving: man was to be partnered with woman. The glory of our vertical relationship with God was to be complemented by the blessing of our horizontal relationships — the most important of which is the marriage of one man and one woman.

Only when all the parts are working in harmony is this world proclaimed by God to be “very good.” The sad reality is that none of us — not one living person — has witnessed Creation operating in the harmony God intended. As we’ll discover in Genesis 3, the Fall brought about the Curse that has led to ongoing disharmony and strive throughout the created order.

One other point is made within this verse. The sixth day — the day in which God created all the beasts of the earth and His penultimate creature (man) — consisted of an evening and a morning. That clearly indicates a single 24-hour period of time. Such clarity should put an end to speculations about vast eons of time involved in the creation (or supposed evolution) of animals or man himself. Such speculative timeframes were proposed in an attempt to make credible the incredible theory of evolution. In other words, Christians are given a choice: believe God and His eye-witness testimony regarding His act of Creation (including the timeframe and order), or disbelieve God and follow after man-made theories that lead inevitably to nihilism.

Nathan Jones: Genesis documents the beginning of history, His story. We know about the Creation because God, who is the only eyewitness to the Beginning tells us, “In the beginning God created…” Although there could be no more credible source than Almighty God, His account of Creation is dismissed as too spectacular and supernatural. Self-acclaimed experts would rather put their faith in the theory of Evolution with its random processes and untold eons of time. Or, lately, in the wild idea that life was planted on earth by some unknown alien civilization.

Tim Moore: Nathan, I don’t have enough faith to believe in those man-made schemes. Today we will explore Genesis 1 and 2. We’ll discover that Jesus was there, from the beginning, fulfilling the will of the Father.

Interview of Dr. Randy Guliuzza at the ICR Discovery Center

Tim Moore: We’ve come to the Institute for Creation Research here in Dallas, and to the wonderful Discovery Center. And I’m very glad to be able to sit down with Dr. Randy Guliuzza and talk about Jesus as our Creator God. Randy, thank you so much for welcoming us to the Discover Center.

Dr. Guliuzza: Oh, thank you very much for coming.

Tim Moore: Yes, Sir. Randy, I am very fascinated that your own background that led you to become the ICR President is really fascinating. You started off as an Air Force Officer, and a doctor, but it was your study of God’s Word that led you to understand that the Creation is foundational to our faith, and to everything that is revealed after, including the Gospel itself. So, tell us a little bit about how you came to understand that the Creation, and the Lord’s testimony about the beginning itself is so foundational to Christian faith.

Dr. Guliuzza: Right. Yeah, the Lord really led me on kind of a long path to come to be the President of ICR. And it all started decades ago when I was a student at Moody Bible Institute. You know I grew up believing in Evolution myself. And I even went to Moody believing in Evolution because what they really wanted to know, did I have faith in Jesus Christ? And believe it or not nobody ever talked to be about that. I never had anybody talk to me about the importance of Creation. And one day, by the Lord’s providence, in the library at Moody Bible Institute, I picked up a magazine called, Acts & Facts.

Tim Moore: I am very familiar.

Dr. Guliuzza: Very familiar. And I was an engineering major before I went to Moody. So, it was, this kind of relates to science. So, I took it back to one of those little cubicles in the library, and I read that. And it wasn’t a slow gradual change, it was like, bang, an instantaneous conversion. What I read in that magazine; this was true. And there were articles about the origin of life. And there was one about how creatures had not evolved. And they were so clear, and so concise, and so biblical, that they convicted me right then and there on the spot. And that’s when I knew the Lord was calling me into creation science ministry. I called the founder of the ministry, that I now work for, Dr. Henry Morris, and he said, “Well, I encourage you to go back and finish your engineering degree.” Which I did because he wanted me to get a little science education. Anyway, chopping ahead several decades after spending some time in the Navy, actually I was a naval officer for a decade before I went into the Air Force as a Civil Engineer. Under the advice of Dr. Duane Gish, I went to medical school. The Air Force paid for that. So, I spent a time in the Air Force until I retired. Then went to work with ICR the day after I retired, which was the first step to becoming president here. I spent a lot of time in the trenches doing talks, and research, and things like that, until just about a year ago taking over this new job. So, it was kind of a long path, but I was picking up skills, and things that the Lord wanted me to have all along the way to get here. But it was the conviction that this is true, the Bible was true, and I could believe the Word of God which was foundational. And ICR was actually helpful in doing that.

Tim Moore: Well, I think you and I resonate so well together because we have so much in common, not the least at which is our understanding that the Word of God is true from beginning to end. And really it informs everything else that we know. I’m fascinated, when I go to Israel and lead pilgrimage groups, we drive through or pass Cana, now known as a little Arab village of Kfar Kana. And I point out that Jesus’ first miracle demonstrated at the wedding of Cana, proved His authority over creation. And as a matter of fact, when He changed water into wine, it also proved His authority over time itself. So, how does that bear into the creation story, and Jesus as our Creator?

Dr. Guliuzza: Yes, it bears right into the fact of the deity of Jesus Christ, and because it ties to the fact that He is God come in the flesh. And the Bible makes it very, very clear that it isn’t necessarily, as we say, that God is the Creator, the Bible begins with, “In the beginning God created.” The Creator is God. And so, it is setting out actually the foundation for the doctrine of theology that there is a God. Who is that God? Not necessarily as what He is like, but who is He? And the Bible says He is the highest authority. It is almost like a position of rank, which you and I can relate to.

Tim Moore: Yes, Sir.

Dr. Guliuzza: You know we had wing commanders, and then there was the Secretary of Defense, and then there was the President of the United States. But the highest One is God. Nothing goes higher than that, and it sets forth the deity of Christ because He is the Creator, which ties right back to John chapter 1, verse 1, where it says, “In the beginning God created.” In Genesis 1:1, that the Bible begins in John 1:1, it says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him without Him not anything was made, that was made.” So, it is tying the fact that Jesus is God come in the flesh, and the fact that He is the Creator.

And as you mentioned that very first miracle at the wedding of Cana, where the Lord turned water into wine, it demonstrates the fact that He is the Creator, and He is Lord over time, as you mentioned, He turned it into very good wine, that would appear to be aged. But, the chemical composition of wine is very, very different than water. So, He is Lord of time, space, and matter, in all of those areas, which is exactly what Genesis 1:1 says as well, “In the beginning” time, “God created the heavens” space, “and the earth” matter. So, He ties it all back, and it’s just a testimony to the inspiration of the Bible, it goes right back to that wedding of Cana.

Tim Moore: It certainly does. I think it is a beautiful demonstration of Christ as, not just our Savior and Lord, and I say just, but He is the instrument of creation. He is the person of God, that will of the Father manifested through the Son, and completed even in that creative act.

Dr. Guliuzza: Amen.

Tim Moore: You know when you look at those first two chapters of Genesis, the focus of this episode of “Christ in Prophecy” God really did lay a foundation for all of human thriving. As a matter of fact, He revealed Himself as the Creator. He marked the separation between Himself and the Creation. He demonstrates the separation of Man from all of the other created order, all of the other animals. Man was made in the image of God. And then He provided woman to be a companion for man, but obviously separate from man. So, man and woman He created them. And then He established the covenant of marriage. So, of all the other relationships that we enjoy as human beings, that relationship of a marriage is special, and unique, separated by God Himself. And yet, today, we find so many people, and so much of our culture attacking all of those separations that God established to make sure that we as His image bearers could thrive. How have we gotten to where we are?

Dr. Guliuzza: Wow, well, you lay out a lot of good points. Genesis 1 is very, very foundational to establishing that there is a God. Who is God? He is the Creator of all things. That He is able to do the supernatural. That He intervenes in His creation. You know these are things that the secularists all deny. There isn’t a God, and if there is He is not involved, or He’s not concerned about the creation. The Bible says that is not true on all levels of that.

But as you also mentioned the first chapters in Genesis, particularly chapters 1 and 2 set forth other foundational things as well, other than the fact that there is a Creator. That He did create man and woman. That He did give them together in marriage. And another one that was very important, that you mentioned, that begins actually in Genesis chapter 1, beginning in verse 26-28 is that God created man in His image. In His image. Now, that is really important because we know that human beings, and other animals, we share a lot of the same physiology. We eat some of the same foods. Our chemical processes are very, very similar. Some people could say, well, maybe we evolved from animals? Or maybe we are related in some way? And you know we even share some of the same behaviors. Some animals have emotions very similar to human beings.

So, if we have some of the same emotions, we have some of the same physiology, what really makes us different than animals? What is it that makes us human? And what makes us human is what you mentioned, we have the image of God. The image of God is really what makes us human. Animals don’t posses that. And it is something that is probably immaterial, it is a quality that we have that we can actually know and understand our Creator, we can enter into a relationship with Him. As, much as we love our dogs they can’t know and understand their Creator. They cannot enter into a relationship with Him, like we can. That’s what makes us human. And that’s what gives us our value. You know in Genesis chapter 9 it says, “You will not kill because we are made in the image of God.” And the book of James picks it up and says, “Don’t even curse your fellow man because they are made in the image of God.” So, it is what makes us human, and it really is what establishes our worth, and value that we are not to misuse and abuse one another.

Tim Moore: Beautifully said. You know it is fascinating to me that to understand that concept that we are more even than our material selves. I asked my children as they were growing up, “What makes me, me or anyone of us who we are?” I said, “If I cut off my arms or my legs, or if I was disfigured is it still me?” And they grappled with it, and they said, “Yes, Dad it is still you.” And I said, “So, what makes me, who I am is not just what you see, or just what you interact with. There is something special, a quality of that relational that we have.”

And that’s exactly what we have with God when we are in a right relationship with Him, obviously. And yet, those are the foundational truths that are being undermined again in our culture. And it’s so sad that our Christian nation has become a post-Christian society, and the secular humanists want to proclaim that there is no Creator God. Perhaps we descended either from apes or were planted here by aliens, that is one of their latest theories. Crazy as it is. And they would assert that man is no different than the animals, and actually descended from them. Which is an affront to our God and His testimony of Creation. And as you said, men and women are not necessarily biologically unique in every way shape and form, but how have we gotten to the point of saying that marriage is optional? That functionality of men and women can be interchanged? Again, how have we strayed so far from what was once universally understood, at least in the Christian West.

Dr. Guliuzza: Yes, that actually goes right back to the beginning as well. In this particular case we would turn to the book of Romans chapter 1 where Paul is going to tell us that invisible things of God are clearly seen being understood by the things that He has made, or in other words, His workmanship. When I look at you, and you look at me we see evidences of engineering, we see evidences of design, we see evidences of that workmanship which is very, very clear, it is very clearly seen. That’s in verse 20, but then by the time Paul gets down to verse 25 he says, “But, they exchanged the truth of God for a lie.” In other words, they exchanged something, as you mentioned, it was right, they exchanged the true Creator God, that Paul was talking about, for literally in the Greek the false, the false god. And in this particular case the false god is nature, where they begin to worship nature. Because they begin to worship and serve in a religious sense, the creation more than its Creator God. That’s where we strayed today. And there is like scientific backing behind this that somehow nature, in some way, gives life. Nature somehow gives life to everything that has been on this planet. And then nature brings about the diversity of life. So, rather than God creating nature, the view that dominates the scientific world today is that nature somehow creates itself. Nature created itself in the big bang, nature creates life, nature creates the diversity of life. Therefore, why shouldn’t we worship nature, and look to nature? And the moment we begin to look away from the Creator God to worship and serve that which He has created, we have gone down a major path of rebellion. In which the fruits: the rejection of marriage, the rejection of all the standards that we have for society.

Tim Moore: The rejection of biological differences.

Dr. Guliuzza: The biological differences, especially today. That all stems back to this militant rebellion against the Creator, in this particular case the Creator is the Lord Jesus Christ. So, you have a worldview which is dead set opposed to the Lord Jesus Christ. And that goes back scientifically to what they argue for the creation of the world, through big bang, and then through the evolution of life.

Tim Moore: But in the Gospel Jesus affirmed the validity of all these foundational truths that we’ve just been talking about. And Paul left no doubt that Jesus Himself fulfilled the will of the Father by creating, He is the agent of Creation.

Dr. Guliuzza: You better believe He is. In the book of Colossians, chapter 1 sets that forth very, very clearly that by Him all things were created. And Paul concludes that He is the image of the invisible Father by the fact that He is the Creator and Redeemer of all things. And the Lord Jesus Christ, as you rightly recognized, God come in the flesh, He affirmed these foundational truths, that there was a creation, that there was a worldwide flood. You remember in the book of Matthew when the Pharisees came and said, “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? Is it lawful for this kind of divorce? And the Lord takes them right back to the beginning and says, “Have you not read? Have you not read that from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.” And that is going right back to Genesis chapter 1. And then picking up in Genesis chapter 2 He says, “That He brought them together, and what God has joined together let not man put asunder.” That is in Matthew chapter 19. Then a few chapters later in Matthew chapter 24, when He is talking about the end times, your area of expertise, He says, “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the end times when the Son of Man is coming back.” He refers right back to Noah. Paul referred to the first Adam, the second Adam. Whoever wrote the book of Hebrews, which I think it was Paul himself.

Tim Moore: Many do.

Dr. Guliuzza: He in chapter 11, he talked about Noah built an ark to the saving of his house. Peter picks up on that same thing in 2 Peter chapter 3, he says, “That the world that then was being overflowed with water perished.” So, you have the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul, Peter, other apostles all affirming these foundational truths.

Tim Moore: All testifying. And you know the Lord Himself is the testifier to the beginning. Many people say, “Well, we can’t know what happened at the beginning.” If we believe God who was there, and who testified throughout the totality of Scripture, then we will understand. And yet, it is a rejection of God. And so, I’ve been speaking lately about Abraham and how he was credited with righteousness because he believed God. Well, God has given the testimony not only in Genesis, but throughout the New Testament and through the mouth of Jesus Himself, that He is the creator, here is how He did it. Do we believe it? Well, I personally love the materials that ICR distributes, and the insights you offer, from Acts & Facts to all the other wonderful products, and publications and even the video series and everything else. And you stress that acceptance of God’s own testimony regarding the Creation is critical for those who claim to follow Christ. In fact, the Creation account is absolutely linked to the Gospel itself. We will talk about the Fall next week, but tell us how does the Creation become foundational to understanding the Gospel?

Dr. Guliuzza: Yes, you have to go right back to the book of Genesis, actually Genesis chapter 1, 2, and 3, where in a nutshell it says this, “Man was created, man disobeyed so there was a real man who brought in real sin, bringing in real death and judgment, meaning that we needed a real Savior on all of that. That is what is foundational. And then you pick up in Genesis chapter 3 where the serpent came in, deceived Eve, Adam rebelled, it brought that judgment in. And it is foundational to the Gospel.

Tim Moore: And the fact is everything was good in the beginning. There wasn’t evolution with billions, and millions of years, millions and billions of years of death and destruction, all was good when created by God, and that belies the false claim of Evolution.

Dr. Guliuzza: Exactly. And so, you bring in the fact that yes, there was death. So, the Bible says, the Lord said, “The day you eat of that tree you will surely die.” And that is when death was going to come to human beings. Paul picked right up with that with Romans chapter 5 for he says, “For as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men for all have sinned.” So that is the beginning of death. And of course, you can hear someone say, “Well, that might have only been human death, maybe it wasn’t animal death.” But Paul extends that in Romans chapter 8 where he says, “The whole creation was subject to vanity, and is awaiting this adoption and glorious liberation from the curse, just like human beings are as well.” Paul picks up on that in 1 Corinthians 15 he says, “There was the first Adam who brought death,
and the second Adam the Lord Jesus Christ was a life-giving spirit.”

So, in terms of the Gospel, Tim, there is really only two groups of people, those who are still in Adam, lost and without hope in this world, and under the condemnation of Adam’s sin, and those who are in Christ, redeemed, born again, and their sins have been paid for by His work on the cross. You are either still in Adam, or you are now in Christ.

Tim Moore: Randy, obviously coming here to the Discovery Center is such a thrill for me and for anyone who loves to see all the beauty of the creation as God intended it, and how the Creation story bears on our faith as believers. So, I would encourage our viewers to bring their children, and their grandchildren here to the Discovery Center, it is very close to the airport here at Dallas. But how can our viewers connect with ICR to get your materials and to stay plugged into all of the things that
you are sharing on a day-to-day basis?

Dr. Guliuzza: Wow, thank you very much. Well, I would encourage you to go to our website, that is the easiest way, ICR.org, that is kind of like the gateway to finding anything that you might want. There are two things that would help you to get to know us better, one is the little tab called publications. We send out as you have received for many, many years, a free magazine, donors make it available, it is a free magazine that talks on current issues of science and faith, it is absolutely essential for you, your children and for older ones, your grandchildren to keep them equipped. And if anybody would like us to come to the church they can go to our webpage and click on the events tab, and that will get you in the door to setting up an event that we can do at your church. ICR.org is the link to getting in.

Tim Moore: Well, I can’t share with enough enthusiasm how much I have appreciated ICR throughout the years. Dr. Henry Morris wrote a tremendous book on Revelation. And as we even like to say, “Henry Morris himself said, ‘Revelation isn’t hard to understand, it is hard to believe.'” Just as the Creation account is for those who do not have awareness through the Holy Spirit. But once you believe, once the Lord illuminates your heart then it is much easier to understand. The critical aspect is belief, whether in the Creation, whether in the final culmination of human history as revealed in Revelation. So, we testify to the Lord Jesus Christ as our Creator, and we encourage all who are watching today to put your faith in Him and believe God’s own testimony. So, I just want to thank you again, our hearts are in a common mode because not only of our Air Force heritage, and our love of the Lord, but for our love of His revealed Word. So, Randy, for you and your team here at ICR, again for the wonderful Discovery Center, I am very grateful, and I just praise the Lord for all that you are doing.

Dr. Guliuzza: And for you too. Thank you so much.

Tim Moore: Yes, Sir. Godspeed.

Signs of the End Times: The Great Lie of Evolution

Nathan Jones: The Great Lie of Evolution scoffingly contradicts God’s testimony about Creation.

Charles Darwin’s theory systemized a set of ideas regarding incremental changes in plants and animals based on old-earth assumptions. He postulated that all creatures evolved from lower life forms over eons of time, through countless cycles of death and what he phrased “Natural Selection.” Although he could never explain how the first life forms arose, his idea appealed to those who wanted an alternative to the Biblical narrative. Advocates still contend it offers a plausible explanation for the diversity of life. Ignoring the Law of Entropy, they think that given enough time genetic progress could happen through random mutations.

The drive toward secularism only accelerated the embrace of this atheistic theory in Western society. The belief that Nature could somehow “select” only the “fittest” members of a species gave rise to the pseudo-science of Eugenics and led to genocide, horrific racial abuse, and the Holocaust.

In recent years, scientists like the ones at ICR have proven all the presuppositions of Evolution to be false. Darwin thought individual cells were mere blobs of tissue. He did not have the technology to delve into the mechanisms within each cell that are irreducibly complex. He did not understand the complex relationships between many plants and animal species that would prevent one from surviving without the other. And he did not have all the evidence we have that the earth is in not in fact billions of years old. Real scientists have quietly moved away from this discredited theory.

And yet, Evolution is still preached at every government school, and many Christian institutions as well. Old-earth assumptions are still presented as factual, and the Biblical account is dismissed as foolish and irrelevant.

This is a tragic sign of the times because it demonstrates the foolishness of a world determined to reject God. Fulfilling Peter’s prophecy, scoffers reject the testimony of God and the promise of Jesus’s coming. Instead of worshipping the Creator, many in our own society deify Nature as a whole. Speaking of the unbelieving world, Paul said, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.”

Your children and grandchildren are being told that the Bible is full of myths, legends, and superstitions, while the science of Evolution, which educational elites don’t even refer to it as a theory any more, is the unchallengeable mantra of modernity. Many are accepting Satan’s lies and turning away from our Creator.

Take care that you guard the hearts, and the minds, of the ones you love, lest they be “given over” in the words of Paul, and led away from God to destruction.

Closing

Nathan Jones: Wow, Tim, the Discovery Center looks like a wonderful place to visit!

Tim Moore: It certainly is. You know, Genesis sets the stage for everything that follows. Before anything existed, God was. He is the eternal I AM, outside of time and above the natural cosmos.

Everything that exists began as an idea in the unfathomable mind of God. Genesis, with an authorship attributed to Moses, is the record of history as revealed by the only Witness who was present from the beginning, Almighty God.

Nathan Jones: We refer to that portion of Scripture that came before Jesus’ first advent as the Old Testament. It was written by a variety of inspired authors, but that term conveys the realization that the Old Testament is a unified testimony. In other words, it is God’s meta-narrative, His overarching story. And Jesus is there from the very beginning.

The New Testament explains that Jesus Christ was the Author of Creation, the Word of God Who was present with God in the beginning, because He was God. Scientists cannot explain why sub-atomic particles just don’t fly apart. But Paul tells us that all things continue to hold together by His power. Jesus holds the universe together.

Tim Moore: As we close this week’s episode of Christ in Prophecy, I hope you’ve selected a Key Verse that sums up the wonder of God’s creative act, and the special status of the creatures who share His image. Frankly, there are several that stand out to us from this foundational passage in Genesis. If you go to our website, you can click on a link each week where we’ll discuss each episode—for instance offering insight on the other verses that would qualify as key verses. But, for this section of Genesis we’ve chosen Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created…”

Nathan Jones: Ponder the fact that God said every created thing, from light and darkness to sun, and moon, and stars, to plants and birds and fish and creatures covering the earth, was good. In the whole, He said that the Creation He put into motion was very good. And because we interpret the Bible literally, we here are Young Earth advocates. Once again, we’re not adamant about specific years or dates, but we’d place the Creation somewhere about 6,000 years ago.

Tim Moore: Next week we will build on this Creation foundation by exploring the tragic implications of the Fall of Mankind. We’d encourage you to read Genesis 3 and 4 and consider what verse captures that earth shattering moment in human history. Look for Jesus in that passage of Scripture, and see how God telegraphs His plan of salvation from the moment Man is separated from Him by sin. For now, this is Tim Moore.

Nathan Jones: And Nathan Jones saying, “Look up, be watchful, for the “Author of Creation” is drawing near.”

End of Program