Doctrinal Value of First Chapters of Genesis 81 And so with regard to the subsequent verses. Genesis is admittedly not a scientific history. I t is a narrative for man- kind to show that this world was made by God for the habita- tion of man, and was gradually being fitted for God’s chil- dren. So in a series of successive creative developments from the formless chaos, containing in embryonic condition all elemental constituents, chemical and mechanical, air, earth, fire, and water, the sublime process is recorded, according to the Genesis narrative in the following order: 1. The creation by direct Divine act of matter in its gas- eous, aqueous, terrestrial and mineral condition successively. (Gen. 1:1-10; cf. Col. 1:16; Heb. 11:3.) 2. The emergence by Divine creative power of the lowest forms of sea and land life. (Gen. 1 :11-13.) 3. The creation by direct Divine act of larger forms of life, aquatic and terrestrial; the great sea monsters and gigan- tic reptiles (the sheretjim and tanninim). (Dawson, “Origin of the World,” p. 213; Gen. 1:20-21.) 4. The emergence by Divine creative power of land ani- mals of higher organization, herbivora and smaller mammals and carnivora. (Gen. 1 :24-25.) 5. And finally the creation by direct Divine act of man. (Gen. 1:26, 27.) Not first but last. The last for which the first was made, as Browning so finely puts it. Herein is the compatability of Genesis and science, for this sublime order is just the order that some of the foremost of the nineteenth and twentieth century scientists.have proclaimed. I t is re- markable, too, that the word for absolutely new creation is only used in connection with the introduction of life. (Gen. 1:1, 2, 27.) These three points where the idea of absolute creation is introduced are the three main points at which mod- ern champions of evolution find it impossible to make their connection. Next we have in this sublime revelation the doctrinal foundation for the beginning of mankind.
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