Doctrinal Value of First Chapters of Genesis
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(1) (2) The Unity of God; in contradiction to all the poly- theisms and dualisms of ancient and modern pagan philosophy. The Personality of God; in contradiction to that pantheism whether materialistic or idealistic, which recognizes God’s immanence in the world, but denies His transcendence. For in all its multitudinous developments, pantheism has this peculiarity, that it denies the personality of God, and excludes from the realm of life the need of a Mediator, a Sin-Bearer, and a personal Saviour. (3) The Omnipotence of God; in contradiction, not only to those debasing conceptions of the anthropomorphic dei- ties of the ancient world, but to all those man-made idols which the millions of heathenism today adore. God made these stars and suns, which man in his infatuation fain would worship. Thus in contradiction to all human conceptions and hu- man evolutions, there stands forth no mere deistic abstrac- tion, but the one, true, living and only God. He is named by the name Elohim, the name of Divine Majesty, the Adorable One, our Creator and Governor; the same God who in a few verses later is revealed as Jehovah-Elohim, Jehovah being the Covenant name, the God of revelation and grace, the Ever- Existent Lord, the God and Father of us all.- (Green, “Unity of Genesis,” pp. 31, 32; “Fausset’s Bib. Ency.,” p. 258.) One df the theories of modernism is that the law of evo- lution can be traced through the Bible in the development of the idea of God. The development of the idea of God ? Is there in the Scriptures any real trace of the development of the idea of God? There is an expansive, and richer, and fuller revela- tion of the attributes and dealings and ways and workings of God; but not of the idea of God. The God of Gen. 1 :1 is the God of Psa. 90; of Isa. 40:28; of Heb. 1 :1; and Rev. 4:11. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” Here in a sublime revelation is the doctrinal foundation of the creation of the universe, and the contradiction of the an-
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