The Contribution of the Book of Psalms to Biblical Worldview

The culture war between Christianity and secularism represents a ‘collision’ between competing cosmologies.

 

The study of biblical worldview encompasses a host of subjects from the origin of the universe to the meaning of man.  A key question in the study of worldview is, “Is the universe open or closed?”  Our secular schools are increasingly teaching the latter—that the universe is closed.  A ‘closed’ universe is self-originating; self-contained; self-sustaining; and self-interpreting.  By contrast, biblical theism teaches us that we live in an ‘open’ universe.  God is its Author, Upholder, Ruler, Definer, and Interpreter.  Yet, He is not part of the creation—He is not bound by the time-space-mass continuum we call our universe. 

 

Well, it is easy to see that these two cosmologies are absolutely antithetical.  There is no middle ground between them.  Both claim to explain reality.  That means there is an immense ‘train wreck’ occurring in our Western world—a deafening collision between these two worldviews.  This morning we are going to look at the contribution of the Psalms to life view against the backdrop of erroneous worldview. 

 

Biblical cosmology is that branch of philosophy which deals with the origin and structure of the universe.  At the heart of biblical cosmology is the Creator-creature distinction.  Biblical cosmology includes the creation of male and female as the image of God (with the sub-themes of the dominion mandate; and biblical anthropology). 

 

Central to biblical cosmology is that God is Creator and ‘Definer’ of what He has made. As Creator He gives designations, definitions, categories and relations of what He has made.[i]  God’s defining role over His creation has established the creation structures of male and female and marriage and family.  These creation structures are foundational and ontologically real—they are at the core of your being (which is why social contract theory, sexual perversion, and abortion constitute a radical overturning of biblical cosmology).[ii]

 

The absolute truth of cosmology is essential in interpreting the universe.  God’s relation to the creation is the ordering principle of the universe and of reality.  Because God is the sustainer and definer of all that He has made; there is no such thing as a reality greater than God—or a reality in which God is but a component (note this error in deism and pantheism).

 

Thus, biblical cosmology is the sole vantage point ‘high enough’ to provide the foundation for a unified cohesive worldview (the alternate is pluralism, diversity, and hopelessly fragmented knowledge).  Cosmology alone provides a wide angle lens broad enough to see man’s place in the universe.  Biblical cosmology is a totally unified ordering principle—without it, worldview has no foundation.  (Reason without divine revelation ultimately leads to intellectual suicide.)

 

Consequently biblical cosmology is the foundation of the gospel—for the gospel only makes sense in a world in which our omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God is Creator, Owner, Upholder, Lawmaker, Ruler, Redeemer, and Judge.   The gospel has no point of contact in a world in which pagan cosmology has replaced biblical cosmology.  This is why there is an increasingly desperate need to define categories as God does—that He is Ruler, Sustainer, Owner of His creation—and that the designations and definitions He has made concerning His creation are absolutely essential for accurately interpreting reality.  

 

God has authoritatively set forth His ‘blueprint’ for His creation.  His blueprint, found in His Word, is not only our moral map; but also our ‘metaphysic.’  In other words, God’s relation to what He has made is our fixed point of reference which provides our understanding of the nature of reality (Ps 96).  Only by what God has said in His infallible Word do we know what is true, real, right and wrong.[iv]  We are utterly dependent upon God’s revelation in order to accurately interpret ourselves and our existence.[v]

 

Like an immense wrecking ball, secular humanism has been moving through society for the better part of a century.  It has left destruction in its wake.  The ‘wrecking ball’ of naturalism has systematically broken down the boundaries set by God. (Note that humanistic cosmologies seek to destroy the distinction between God and man; man and animal; man and woman; and right and wrong.)  Philosophic naturalism has so thoroughly permeated our culture—it has for all intents and purposes become our national worldview. 

 

Students imbued with Darwinism find themselves ‘metaphysically lost’ in a materialistic/chance universe without a fixed point of reference (75% of American college students are looking for the meaning of life).

 

The secularists have used the above philosophy of materialism to target the divine ‘blueprint’ given by God by which His creatures are to interpret the world, and order their lives and society.  Naturalism has been ‘shredding’ the divine blueprint.  Secularism views man as a biological machine and not the image of God.

 

Secular humanism’s wrecking ball has redefined creation as a mass of raw material awaiting our efforts to shape it.  The secularists think of the creation as matter, motion, and impersonal forces with no rational purpose—as if we import all rationality and superimpose it on creation (consider the folly of assuming that mankind has no personal origin—but then demanding that life be based upon rationality, purpose, and significance in a meaningless and irrational universe). 

 

But, go the Psalms and (all of biblical wisdom literature) you’ll see the attitude that creation has an order about it that we are to attend to. God has filled the creation with ‘sermons’ about His power, wisdom, and goodness (note the content of Solomon’s surpassing wisdom—according to 1 Kings 4:33, it was not only proverbs which characterized his wisdom but an advanced understanding of fauna and flora.  Solomon diligently studied the creation.  He was the greatest naturalist of his time.  He spoke of the cedar, the hyssop, and the fishes of the sea).[vi]

 

With the rise of modern science there was a fascination with quantities—with measuring things.  Accompanying philosophies suggested that all reality may be reduced to a kind of mathematical formula.  Concreteness, empiricism, and precision became the most valued attributes of knowledge.  In other words, people began to think that the scientific method was the only really valid way to understand the world around us—“real knowledge” was scientific.  “Real knowledge” was empirically verifiable, measurable, and quantifiable.[vii]

 

Says author, Ken Myers, church leaders, in an effort to remain relevant, and worried about losing their market share, began to reframe traditional Christian teaching in terms that fit the times.  The church pushed its message through the grid of science.  In essence, “[t]he belief became common that only science could make the world intelligible. . .”[viii]  (Ken Myers, Contextualization). 

 

Modern science had been originally ‘birthed’ by biblical worldview; but now the ‘child’ was turning on the parent.  Modern science’s attempt at patricide was actually an act of suicide—to erode all confidence in the Bible, the foundation of Western civilization, is in reality a choice for the loss of civilization.[ix]  (We’re going to consider the effect that this expanding philosophy of scientism has had upon biblical cosmology.) 

 

In the minds of most, God as personal, transcendent, involved with creation was eclipsed and demoted.[x]  God’s direct involvement in the lives of His creatures was increasingly ruled out.  God was no longer linked to all the details of reality.  God had been marginalized—retired to a private or sub-cultural role (God had been eradicated as a shared basis of thought and experience). The bulk of modern thought simply dispensed with God.  In contemporary culture God has been marginalized as a figure doing nothing of real significance.  

 

Though evangelicals stressed personal faith and piety, evangelicals also began to bifurcate God’s role—they saw Him as active in redemption; but allowed science to define the creation.  And we all accept this as benign as long as we have Jesus in our hearts.  But the fallout is deadly serious.[xi]

 

When one allows the Bible to describe salvation and science to comprehensively describe the creation; it produces a tear, or rend, in our thinking.  The reason why is the salvation-science dichotomy pictures God as having two radically different faces—the side of God that dealt with creation was far less personal than the side of God that dealt with salvation.  As a consequence, the Jesus of salvation became very other worldly and sentimental. 

 

Peter Jones notes how this dualism has affected the witness of Christians on college campuses, “Believing students on university campuses are able offer Jesus as ‘friend’ but have no clue how to proclaim Him as Lord of the cosmos.”[xii]  This prevalent dualism welcomes Jesus as ‘mascot’ but cannot conceive of Him, or proclaim Him, as majestic Lord of the universe.  This is precisely the dilemma our Christian students face today on the secular university campus.  The loss of biblical cosmology forces them to live with an immense ‘disconnect’ between faith and life. 

 

Modern culture has encouraged and deepened this dualism.  The yawning chasm which has divided creation from redemption has separated the physical from the spiritual in the minds of many believers.  Through popular culture our youth are bombarded with this dualism.  The wonder of creation as the revelation of God’s majesty has been erased, and with it God’s rule and reign.  Reality is nothing more than what you make it.  The creation is but raw material by which one may construct the self.  

 

Peter Jones warns that popular culture is relentless in its attack on biblical cosmology.  The over-arching ‘sacred canopy of biblical worldview’ which hangs over the entire human race is being swept away.  Culture once held together by shared religious notions is slowly disintegrating and, at the same time, opening itself up to pagan ideas about spirituality.  Americans are embracing the idea that one can be ‘spiritual’ without believing in the God of the Bible.  Non-theistic spiritualities are ‘all the rage.’[xiii]

 

The electronic media is dead set on having us forget our Christian worldview.  Nearly every television program operates with an agenda of displacing Christian worldview.[xiv]

 

The net effect of the above is a palpable separation of our everyday life from our spiritual life.[xv]  Spiritual truths are regarded as only abstract expressions of our inner life.  They are divorced from objective reality. 

 

According to the contemporary view, all cultural institutions are just merely social constructions which exist for human needs and desires; but do not, and are not, sustained by any kind of ‘given-ness’ in the created order.[xvi]

 

Redemption tends to be viewed as a private, subjective, personal, preference without an objective basis.  Redemption exists in the mind and the heart—as if concrete reality is the physical universe and salvation belongs to the subjective (salvation is less real than the physical universe). 

 

How does this dualism manifest itself in evangelicalism?  Evangelicalism’s accommodation to the modern, or dualistic view, has pushed redemption further into the ‘upper story.’  Christians are living in a state of détente with the open ‘gash’ of dualism.  Consequently the majority of professing Christians have lost the cosmological foundation for redemption. The resultant attitude in much of evangelicalism could be stated as follows: “Facts in the created realm shouldn’t get in the way of bringing people to Jesus.”

 

Christian students often live with an immense ‘disconnect’ between their professed beliefs and their life experiences.  Nancy Pearcey shares the following account: “At a Christian high school, a theology teacher . . . drew a heart on one side of the blackboard and a brain on the other. The two are as divided as the two sides of the blackboard, he told the class: the heart is what we use for religion, while the brain is what we use for science.”[xvii]

 

This dualism leaves knowledge utterly fragmented—spirituality is partitioned off from the remainder of life.  Says Pearcey, the secular/sacred dichotomy tends to restrict Christianity to the realm of religious truth—this creates double minds and fragmented lives.[xviii]

 

There are critical dangers associated with the loss and rejection of biblical cosmology.  To set aside biblical cosmology is to turn to a pseudo-integration point which tends to further mangle the unity which is the image of God.  Central to cosmology is the truth of mankind created in the image of God—this truth gives us our meaning, purpose, dignity, ‘job description,’ and destiny.  Thus to reject the truth of mankind created in the image of God, is to commit intellectual idolatry in one’s attempt to unify knowledge and provide meaning (Rom 1:21-23).   

 

How do the Psalms refute these destructive cultural thought forms? 

When we study the Psalms we find a perfect co-mingling of the physical created order and the moral order in the universe (Ps 19).  The Psalms are given to us to sink our foundations deep into the truth of God’s relation to the world.  These truths are meant to control our understanding of reality.  God is active in our lives; He is active in nature; He is active in history. 

 

Throughout the Psalms are the twin themes of creation and moral order.  There is no dualism—they operate in tandem.  Creation has order to it that is maintained by God (Ps 96).  God is the ruler over what He has made.  This is the polar opposite of the deist picture of a prime mover who is detached and who allows mankind to invent its own morality (as if moral order can be divorced from Gods creation structures).[xix]

 

The Psalms assert that the fixity of creation is simultaneously physical and moral. Rather than depicting the creation as awaiting our exploitation; the Psalms describes the whole creation as the worshipping chorus of God.  

 

Not only does the creation praise God for His power, wisdom, goodness, and handiwork, the creation praises God for His justice.  The Psalms proclaim God as establisher of an unbreakable continuity between the physical world and moral order—the world is pictured as delighting in His righteousness (Ps 50:6; 72:3).[xx]

 

This inseparable coherence between the physical order of creation and the moral order of creation is behind Paul’s declaration in Romans one.  The creation gives ample evidence concerning God’s character and moral expectations.  Those who disobey are without excuse.  Because there is an unbreakable coherence between the structure of the world and the moral order of human life; men have no alibi for rejecting the glory of God and the duty of man—both of which are evident in creation.[xxi] (According to Romans 1-2, every person knows that God is their transcendent Creator; He is righteous and good; and He will judge them someday.) 

 

The loss of cosmology makes folks forget that they are living in Yahweh’s world.  This is Yahweh’s world.  He created it; He owns it; He rules it by His goodness and for His own good pleasure.  The world operates in a particular way because it is God’s world and He rules it and guides it.  God delights in the exhibition of His glory—this is the chief end for which all things exist, including knowledge.  The aim of all creation is that God’s glory and excellent perfections should be known, esteemed, loved, and delighted in by His creatures (Jonathan Edwards).[xxii]

 

There is no wisdom and no understanding and no counsel against the Lord (Prov 21:30).  It is impossible that God’s ‘glory purpose’ for His creation should be frustrated by human and demonic rebellion.  When sinners create an illusory world in their imaginations—it does not produce new reality.  Their experience is always testifying to the fact that this is God’s world.  They find themselves ‘bumping up’ against God’s creation structures everywhere they look (beauty, majesty, conscience, law, justice, etc.).

 

God’s precepts keep us from self-destruction.  Yahweh’s commandments are the safeguard of love to God and neighbor.  Wise travelers don’t fret at the guardrails along the highway—they are grateful for the protection they afford from the cliffs below.[xxiii]

 

To fear and reverence God is to hate sin and turn from it.  The proportion of our fear of God is revealed in our level of our hatred of sin (Ps 119:9-11; 53, 38, 45).  The Psalms tell us that the Word of God that produces fear of God.  Wise is the man who immerses himself in Holy Scripture.  Because this universe is Yahweh’s creation, there is a common ethical system for all humans.  Moral and physical order permeates every part of the universe.  Therefore the ridiculous advertisement that one may take a ‘moral holiday’ in Las Vegas is patently absurd    (Ps 97:6).[xxiv]

          

To live wisely in Yahweh’s world is to live according to His justice; and not by fleshly desires, and amoral pragmatism (situation ethics).  A life of wisdom is a life of conformity to God’s norm of righteousness—His law (Ps 94:12).[xxv]  Obedience is to be universal—a whole life response to Yahweh.  We are to please Him in all areas of life by respecting the divine order He has constructed in the world.  Without this there will be moral failure and failure to please God (Ps 86:11-12).[xxvi]        

 

 God’s Word was given to us to allow us to recall during times of temptation the boundaries God has set.  To be conversant with these boundaries helps the man who fears God to do what is right and what pleases God in times of temptation (Ps 25:12-15; 101:3).[xxvii]

 

When we embrace God’s blueprint and standard it is not simply an attempt to master a moral code—it is submission to God’s holiness; His loving purposes for us.  It is submission to God Himself who is our Source of life.  For God’s commands constitute His character in code.  Knowledge of God’s holiness and obedience to His precepts are bound up together (Ps 119:18, 38, 66).  

          

The fool insists on directing his own life.  He demands autonomy at all cost; even if it results in his eventual destruction.  The fool makes personal undefined freedom his chief value.  By these rebellious choices his folly is evident; for he opposes his own welfare; he hurdles toward destruction as a result (Ps. 10:3-15; 50:16-22; 107:17).

 

The wise man seeks what is best in Yahweh’s ordered creation by revering Yahweh; thus the wise man has skill in living within the world.  By contrast, mockers disdain wisdom, they tear down with scoffing and sell themselves to pleasure-seeking (Ps 37:8-22).[xxviii] 

          

Wisdom is moral maturity.  Wisdom is living life in Yahweh’s world as He intends that it be lived.  Wisdom results in stability without fear of harm or misfortune (Ps 4:4-8).[xxix]  The highest goal of wisdom is the knowledge of God (Prov 3:32).  To fear Yahweh is to receive and live by His knowledge and wisdom.  God’s purpose; His design in the world is to make us like Him in holiness.[xxx]      

 

It is impossible to make a fool out of God (Ps 92:6-9; Gal 6:7).  The sowing and reaping principle is built into the very fabric of the universe.  Moral cause and effect is ineffable.  The wheels of God’s justice grind slowly but they grind exceedingly small.  God’s justice is more comprehensive than a sinner can possibly imagine; it extends to the thoughts, intents, and secrets of the heart (Ps 73:18-20; 91:8; Heb 4:12; Rom 2:16).

 

In a moral universe sin is irrational.  This is Yahweh’s world; that’s why secret sin is ‘a lie lived out’—there are no compartments in our lives that are not in Yahweh’s world (Ps 26:2; 90:8;139:7-23).  

 

In Psalm 17 David prayed that God would protect him from men who lived the lie that reality exists apart from Yahweh’s world.  Arise O Lord, confront him, bring him low; deliver my soul from the wicked with Thy sword, from men with Thy hand, O Lord, from men of the world, whose portion is in this life; and whose belly Thou dost fill with Thy treasure; they are satisfied with children, and leave their abundance to their babes (Ps 17:13, 14).

 

The world says that there are a host of paths and ways to follow.  God’s Word says that in Yahweh’s world, there are but two ways to live—only two paths—only two destinies (Ps 1).  The human soul was created to worship and adore.  Every person was designed to be an enthusiastic spectator of excellence.  In our souls we are always worshipping, drinking, eating, sowing, and building—if not worshipping God, then idols; if not drinking from the water of life, then from stagnant cisterns; if not feeding upon the Bread of life, then eating bogus bread; if not sowing righteousness, then thorns; if not building upon the Rock, then upon sand.  We cannot escape the principle of transformation—we will be transformed into the likeness of what we worship (Ps 115:8).            

 

All of our soul’s activity amounts to sowing; we are moving toward an inevitable harvest.  It’s a comforting or disturbing thought that a harvest is coming that is far greater in magnitude than what we have sown.  Will it be fruit; delicious, nourishing, beautiful, fragrant, and glorifying to God? Or, will it be thorns; ugly, cursed, painful, and useless?  The wise man loves and reveres God; therefore he lives sensibly and righteously in Yahweh’s world.  At this very moment the character of every living individual is being formed and confirmed—eternal destinies are being fixed and set (Ps 58:11; 109:20). 

 

In addition to cosmology, what other themes crucial to biblical worldview are taught in the book of Psalms?

 

The Creator-creature distinction – In secular humanist, postmodern, and pagan circles, this foundational doctrine is under attack today.  God’s ownership of us and claims upon us flow from the Creator-creature distinction.  Biblical theism is anchored in the Creator-creature distinction (Ps 39; 50; 92; 100; 146).

 

The fiat creation of the universe – “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made” (Ps 33:6).  God spoke the universe into existence.  Henry Morris states that these verses in Psalm 33 are the strongest affirmation of fiat creation in the Bible.  It was not just by the Lord, but by the word of the Lord that the heavens were made.[xxxi]

 

The conflict of the ages—between truth and error; sin and righteousness; godly and ungodly; chosen nation and heathen; God and Satan – This present world is filled with groaning, temptations, oppression, conflict, and suffering.  The righteous are ever aware that God is their only refuge and that God will assuredly bring to pass His final victory and purposes (Ps 17; 31; 150).[xxxii]

 

The linear nature of human history – Increasingly the philosophies of this age are embracing a philosophy of history that is cyclical, “the circle of life” as the song goes in the movie Lion King.  But God’s Word is clear.  All history is moving toward a predetermined end in which God will judge the world in righteousness (Ps 37; 40; 58; 98).  History is the record of the honoring and the dishonoring of God and the consequence of each in time and eternity.  Every person cannot escape the fact that he or she will be an object lesson for ever (Ps 50:16-22; 119:119; 149:4).  

 

Man was made for God.  Man was created to be a worshipper. God is our only true home – Man is always looking for that which is worthy of his praise—the reason why is because God created man to be an enthusiastic spectator of excellence.  We cannot stop worshipping—it will either be God Almighty or idols that we worship (Ps 135:14-18).   

Regarding God as our home, Tom Wells notes, “A pilgrim feels strange in a foreign land . . . he finds his mind repeatedly returning to home.”  Many of the Psalms emphasize the theme that God alone is our true home.  “Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (Ps 90:1).  “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God” (Ps 42:1-2)?[xxxiii]

 

What is the creation?  The creation is a theatre for the glory of God (Ps 19); the ‘stage’ for God’s works – God’s awesome works in creation, redemption, and providence reveal the excellence of the Creator and move the redeemed to praise (Ps 33; 95; 96; 98).  God’s works are diligently studied by believers because the works allow us to ‘see’ and tell of God’s perfections (Ps 66; 67; 105; 145).  It is a sin to forget God’s works (Ps 106).  We study God’s works to know God, to worship God, to be wise, and to fear God (Ps 111).  Creation, God’s ‘general revelation,’ is joined to the written Word, God’s special revelation (Ps 19).  How a person treats general revelation determines how they will treat special revelation. 

 

What is redemption?  It is the condescension of the Creator of the universe – Salvation is due to the infinite condescension of the Creator in His incarnation (Ps 40) and His crucifixion (Ps 22; 69).  The Son of God is Mediatorial King, installed by God (Ps 2)—He reigns over and represents His people (Ps 110).  Says Chantry, “Psalm 110 exudes tranquility; . . . the writer of the psalm is confident that Messiah reigns. . . [M]ay we too become composed and placid [and patient with the events of our lives as we study] what Martin Luther called ‘the crown of all the psalms.’”[xxxiv]  God shows His redeeming love by bringing His righteousness near and forgiving those who trust in Him (Ps 32; 51; 65; 130). 

 

God has annexed the honor of His Name to the veracity of His Word (Ps 119:89; 138:2).  His Word is so important—our very faculties were created to receive His revelation (Ps 119) – God’s Word must be the constant occupation of our attention.  The psalmist saw his need to be constantly animated by God’s Word lest he stray, displease, rebel, and distrust (Ps 119:11, 105, 118-119).  The believer is eager to have his life constantly conformed to God’s will.  Therefore he studies God’s Word that he might be filled with the knowledge of God’s will.  Ongoing repentance means that our lives are always being ‘aligned’ to God’s Word so that we love His truth and have our affections continually conformed to His truth (Ps 101; 111; 115).  Since God’s reputation is joined to His Word, our response must be unconditional trust in Him (Ps 33-34). 

 

God is our Sovereign King; He is to be feared – The Psalms convey a supreme vision of God clothed in majesty, reigning, splendor, awesome in holiness.[xxxv]  Says John Piper, “People are starving for the greatness of God.  But most of them would not give this diagnosis of their troubled lives.  The majesty of God is the unknown cure.  Show me thy glory!”[xxxvi]  God is constantly active in His involvement with the creation.  He rules over the nations—He appoints their time in history as well as their destruction.  No one can thwart His sovereign decree.  He creates, controls, judges, wars, blesses (Ps 47:2-3, 7-9; 98:2-9).[xxxvii]  God does whatever He pleases in the entire universe (Ps 135). 

 

The Genesis Flood is the single greatest force to shape the earth since creation week – The deluge was a judgment for man’s sin.  Because man is the ‘crown of creation’ and the steward of creation (Ps 8); in the flood the creation suffered for man’s rebellion.  Noah’s flood radically altered the surface features of planet earth—mountains and oceans rose and sunk according to Psalm 104:5-9.  God sat as “King” at the flood (Ps 29:10).   

 

The Psalms are ‘real to life;’ they speak to every joy and trial – Says Lawson, in the Psalms we find the godly man dealing with the heart-rending crunch of life.  He is chased by enemies, he faces death, and he struggles with depression.  Psalms speaks to every season of life—they are utterly realistic about suffering.[xxxviii]  As Calvin said in his commentary on the Psalms, “[It is] an anatomy of all parts of the soul.”  Psalms takes the attributes of God out of the realm of abstraction and into a glorious interface with the believer (Ps 146).  The believer in covenant with God discovers that God has “harnessed” His own attributes for the welfare of His redeemed child.  God’s dealings with His people are seen in concrete ways such as forgiveness, protection, guidance, provision, refuge, and hope (Ps 78; 103; 147).

 

The Psalms open up the subjects of the resurrection and the coming Kingdom of God – A day is coming when all of creation will be unified in the praise of God—including the inanimate creation (Ps 147; 148).  Rivers will ‘clap their hands’ (Ps 98).  Trees will ‘sing’ (Ps 96:12-13).  God’s coming Kingdom will be involve a celebration of eternal victory and a restored creation that worships God from one end of the galaxies to the other (Ps 150). 

 

Regarding the resurrection, Psalm 16 stresses that bodily resurrection is the future hope of the redeemed all because of Messiah’s resurrection.  Says Henry Morris, we are justified in using Psalm 16 to support the resurrection.  The apostles used this Psalm as the keystone of their preaching that the Scriptures foretold Christ’s resurrection (Acts 4:33; 113:5-37).[xxxix] 

 

 

 

 

 

Endnotes:

 

 

[i] Dave Doveton, “Paganism in the Church” (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, think-tank, 2007).

[ii] Jay Wegter, “Worldview, Apologetics, and Evangelism, BCW363A” (Newhall: The Master’s College, 2007).

Jay Wegter, “Worldview.”

[v] Vishal Mangalwadi, “From Development to Deconstruction” lecture from Book of the Millennium, 2004.

Ken Myers, “The Problem of Contextualization in a Decadent Culture,” Gheen’s Lectures, Southern Baptist    

   Seminary.

James C. Turner, Without God, Without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins

   University Press, 1985) in Ken Myers, “The Problem of Contextualization in a Decadent Culture.”

Peter Jones, “Framing the Issues; Finding our Voices” (Escondido, CA: Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet,    

    think-tank, 2007).

Joel Belz, “Spirits of the Age” (World Magazine: February, 9, 2008) 1.

Peter Jones, “Who Stole our Sacred Canopy?” Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, (www.cwipp.org, newscwipp  

    # 42, ).

Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2004) 19.

[xxii]  Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, (Banner of Truth, 1974) 1:104.

  Randy Alcorn, The Purity Principle, (Multnomah Publishers, 2003), pp. 28, 29

  Daniel J. Estes, Hear My Son, Teaching and Learning in Proverbs 1-9, (Eerdmans, 1997), pp. 22-26

Steve Gallagher, At the Altar of Sexual Idolatry, (Pure Life Ministries, 1986), pp. 257, 258

[xxx] Ibid., pp. 84, 98

Henry Morris, Sampling the Psalms (El Cajon, CA: Master Books, 1978) 49-50.

[xxxii] Ibid, pp. 11-12.

Tom Wells, Come Home Forever (Darlington, England: Evangelical Press, 1992) 57.

[xxxiv] Walter Chantry, Praises for the King of Kings (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1991) 49. 

Steven Lawson, “Expository Preaching of the Psalms” (2004 Winterim, The Master’s Seminary) Lesson one, pp.

     1, 7

[xxxvi] John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1990) 9, in Lawson, 7. 

[xxxvii] Lawson, lesson one, p.17; lesson. two, p. 62.

[xxxviii] Ibid, lesson one, p. 22. 

[xxxix] Morris, p. 119. 

The Edenic Lie

I. The message of the Edenic lie.

A. What kind of lie, if believed about God, would break fellowship with

God, cause unbelief in the revealed Word of God, flood man’s soul

with darkness and cause eternal death and separation from God?

 

1. Scripture indicates that the LIE THAT MURDERED OUR FIRST

PARENTS was sown by Satan, the father of lies (Jn. 8:44). He

was a murderer from the beginninghis weapon was the LIE

perpetrated in Eden (GENESIS 3:1-7).

2. The lie was an attack upon the character of God and upon the

veracity and absolute authority of His holy Word. The premise

and conclusion found in the lie may be expressed in the

following expanded paraphrase:

The lie suggested that to make God’s glory one’s highest goal and

obedience to Him one’s life direction, would be to miss out on one’s

true potential for fulfillment, advancement and freedom. The lie

impugned God’s character – it called into question His goodness

and intentions toward mankind. As the lie suggested, if God’s

glory is not joined to man’s highest good, humans have a rationale

or justification for self-determination.

 

You may choose what you deem is best for yourself and you may

choose right and wrong for yourself – for God is not absolutely

trustworthy. If you choose this path of self-direction, your world

will not fall apart, you will succeed and you will not face death and

damnation in hell. God’s will expressed in His commandments is

not really in the best interest of your happiness. God’s threats are

exaggerated – actually they are idle threats to keep you under His

control.

 

B. Satan defamed God’s character before he made his offer to Eve.

1. Satan’s question, “Indeed, has God said . . . ?” casts doubt upon

God’s motives. Satan’s question also divorces the original

prohibition from its context.

2. The context of the prohibition was God’s bounty (Gen 2:16, 17).

By removing it from its context, Satan implies that the

prohibition is unreasonable.

3. Satan depersonalizes God into an uncaring abstraction. (It is

the personal covenant-keeping God who judges sin and

rebellion. Those who know God to be personal, revere Him as a

just God who is serious about the retribution of sin. Satan

denies that sin results in judgment.)[i][1]

C. Four aspects of Satan’s temptation:

1. Satan promised instant gratification. The satanic philosophy of

blessing views reward as independent of God’s power and

determination. Eve is to grasp “blessing” immediately through

her own power. The satanic mindset is fulfillment through

disobedience to God’s law, rather than the biblical way of

obedience and submission to God and trust in His providence.

2. The promise of “eyes opened” offered an expanded consciousness

that was not limited in knowledge, understanding and

perception.

3. Satan promised dominion through going beyond creaturehood

and finitude. The satanic way cancelled out obedience and

submission. The temptation offered metaphysical advancement;

Eve would be equal to God. She would no longer be dependent

upon Him for meaning, ethics and truth. With “divine” self-

sufficiency would come personal sovereignty; Eve would

determine reality for herself.

4. The promise to be like God involved the knowledge of good and

evil. The first couple would be like God in that they would

determine good and evil for themselves (Gen 3:22). Eve followed

Satan’s lead in that she assumed she lived in an impersonal,

non-determined environment. Based upon this assumption, her

method for achieving truth in a reliable fashion was to exercise

human autonomy.[ii][2]

II. Upon believing the lie, man ridiculed the truth of God. Man’s

reasoning processes became a function of pride.

A. All human pride is based upon ignorance.

1. Once the lie was believed and acted upon, our first parents

became alienated from the life of God. Their thought processes

were no longer capable of thinking correctly about God and

themselves. The lie obscured the true knowledge of God and

man.

2. Self love replaced love for God, for our first parents no longer

believed that God was trustworthy. They also ceased to believe

that God had their highest good in mind and that He loved them

perfectly. (Upon believing the lie, the life of God in their souls

and the knowledge of God in their minds were extinguished –

darkness replaced the light.) (See Rom. 1:22-25.)

B. The lie feeds man’s pride.

1. Satan’s self-deception regarding his creaturehood and

dependence upon God was in essence “passed on” to the human

race when the lie of Eden was believed.

2. Though the lie is based upon gross ignorance, it fuels man’s

pride because it allows man to live as if he is not a creature

utterly dependent upon God.

The natural man sears his conscience (1 Tim. 4:1-3).

The unbeliever is arrogant (2 Tim. 3:1-5).

The natural man is an enemy of God (Rom. 5:10).

The sinner does not seek or understand God (Rom. 3:11).

Man’s problem is ethical and moral, not intellectual (Jer. 9:6;

Luke 13:34).

3. Man’s ignorant pride is demonstrated in his view of creation:

 “It’s not enough to know that cows eat grass. True apprehension

of cows and grass reveals the providential power and care of God

and the task which was given to man to subdue every other

creature to God’s glory (Gen. 1:28). The distance between the

earth and the nearest star is truly to be understood only as its

disclosure of God is recognized, for the multiple light years of

distance is the mere work of God’s fingers ad displays to man his

need for humility before God and thanksgiving for His grace

(Psalm 81:5).”[iii][3]

III. The “Eve theory of knowledge” is now the way that man’s

darkened intellect is used to determine knowledge.

A. The non-Christian’s approach to knowledge.

1. The unbeliever does not want to talk about where he came from.

He avoids the subject of the source of his existence. He is

opposed to God’s moral authority and does not wish to admit

that he is accountable to God.

2. This refusal to retain God in his thoughts directly affects his

approach to knowledge.

3. The unbeliever seeks to answer the question of knowledge

without addressing the question of being. He claims to know

independent of God. (“If the Being of God is what, on the basis

of Scripture testimony, we have found it to be, it follows that

our knowledge will true knowledge only to the extent that it

corresponds to His knowledge.” [iv][4]

B. By believing the lie, Eve placed herself and God on the same level.

1. Eve sought to gain knowledge while ignoring the question of

being. She erased in her own mind the infinite distance between

Creator and creature – she forgot her creaturehood. (God is the

self-existent great “I am.” All existence is upheld every moment

by His thought and power. Eve was dust and clay, taken from

her husband’s side.

2. The lie functioned as Eve’s method of determining what was true

and false. (The lie became her working epistemology – her

method of determining and knowing truth.)

C. Every unbeliever duplicates Eve’s approach to knowledge.

1. Instead of seeing God’s revelation as His unbreakable,

authoritative Word and as life itself for the creature, Eve

accepted Satan’s prevarication.

2. The structure of Satan’s lying “logic” was as follows: there were

two “beings” with two differing opinions. God had one “opinion,”

the serpent had another. Therefore, it was up to Eve to decide

for herself (she would be an autonomous interpreter). She could

decide who was right. She would be the final court of appeal.

Her mind would be the final authority.

3. Eve assumed equal ultimacy of the mind of God, of her mind,

and the mind of Satan. Her reasoning excluded the exclusive

ultimacy of the mind of God. She denied God’s absoluteness

epistemologically.[v][5]

4. By reasoning and experimentation (by eating the fruit and seeing

its effects and reflecting upon those effects), she would

determine what was “true for her.” (Note what a clear picture

this is of modern man’s approach to moral choices.)

5. By being in control of truth and knowledge, she would be

number one,” she would be in the driver’s seat. Thus, the lie

was an offer to rise above creaturehood. It offered independence,

it offered autonomy, it offered omniscience, it offered divinity. In

seeking to have the impossible – what belongs to God alone – the

human race lost the glorious blessings they did have. They lost

their life in God and they lost their unity in God.

 

D. Through original sin, mankind lost unity in God.

1. By man’s apostasy from God, he has cut himself off from the

source of unity. Man’s unity has been ravaged by the

separations caused by sin.

2. There are four major separations that occurred as a result of the

fall. They are as follows:

a.) Theological – man became separated from God.

b.) Psychological – man became separated from or within himself (there is no unity in his thought nor in the components of his soul – conscience, will and intellect are antagonistic in the unbeliever).

c.) Sociological – man became separated from others.

d.) Biological – man became separated from nature (the curse).

3. Only through the redemptive work of Christ will these

separations be ultimately healed. False religion and manmade

philosophies attempt to find lasting solutions to these divisions

but they all ultimately fail and end in destruction because they

do not look to Christ’s Lordship over the universe.

E. The non-Christian’s god is a false god because he is finite like

himself. Like Eve, the non-Christian in his sin wipes out the

distinction between absolute and derivative thought. He makes

God a corroborator with man. Instead of thinking God’s thoughts

after Him, he, together with God, “thinks out thoughts that have

never been thought by God or by man” (as if God is stuck in time).

1. Non-Christian thought interprets reality in terms of an

existence independent of God (e.g. the non-Christian would

insist that there must be succession of moments in the

consciousness of God in order to think of God as appreciative of

the passage of time in the universe. As if God cannot relate to

time without being subject to it. The unbeliever explains God in

his own way).

2. A sinful conception of God is chosen by man in order to blunt

the truth of man’s utter dependence upon Him.

The unbeliever can’t think of a God who is above His creation.

He cannot conceive of a God who is transcendent and not part of

His creation.

3. By contrast, Christianity interprets reality in terms of the

eternally self-conscious divine personality. Truth and reality

have been eternally joined in the mind of God. By rejecting God’s

authoritative revelation, sinful man tears truth and reality apart

and plunges himself into irrationality.

4. The unbeliever holds to the ultimacy of the created universe and

of the mind of man. He denies the necessity of thinking God’s

thoughts after Him in order to interpret the creation accurately.

In this context, mistakes in the interpretation of God, man and

the creation are thought of as natural and to be expected – not

as sin.[vi][6]

IV. The lie sown in Eden was an expression of Satan’s own

sentiment toward God.

A. The lie was a version of Satan’s own deception.

1. He had tried to sin his way to independence, he had tried to

outgrow his creaturehood by rebellion against God. But the

result was that he corrupted himself, degraded himself and

deceived himself. He cut himself off from the love, light and life

of God.

2. He and his kingdom are now careening (like an accelerating

avalanche or meteor) toward eternal shame, destruction, ruin

and torment. (Jesus warned that those who remained in the

kingdom of darkness would share its founder’s fate, Matt 25:41).

B. Satan’s lie offered independence, but delivered death and bondage

(Gen 3:1-19).

1. In the garden, Adam was denied the fruit of the tree of the

knowledge of good and evil to test his obedience and prove that

he was willingly under God’s command.

2. The serpent contradicted God (“you shall surely not die”) and the

Creator-creature distinction (“you will be like God”).

3. When Adam ate the fruit, his sin was rebellion against

recognizing his dependence upon God. In reality, Adam was no

less dependent, but simply refused to acknowledge his

dependence. – “thinking themselves to be wise, they became

fools” (Romans 1:22; Proverbs 28:26; Ephesians 4:17,18).

4. Through this act, Adam’s sinful condition passed upon all men

(Romans 5:12-19; 1 Corinthians 15:22). The human race is

under the influence of Satan (Ephesians 2:2). Judgment day will

expose the great lie; sin did not create a new reality nor did it

produce human independence from God.

V. The lie our first parents believed is now reproduced in the minds

of all of their unbelieving offspring.

Note the passages that teach the present universality of the lie – John

8:32-36; Rom. 1:21; 3:10-18; 2 Cor. 4:3,4; Eph. 2:1-3; 2 Tim. 2:25-

26. (The lie is the darkness spoken of in the Scriptures.)

A. The lie drives the present world system with its philosophies of

human autonomy and rebellion – Col. 2:8; 1 John 2:15-17; 5:19.

(The lie provides the “justification” for loving the world and for

living a self-directed life.)

B. The lie sits enthroned in the sinner’s reasoning processes. The lie

drives the present reign of sin – Romans 5:12, 17, 21. The present

satanic world view bears a close resemblance to the lie sown in

Eden:

· The Word of God is vague and untrustworthy.

· Man can only achieve truth by forsaking the Word of God and pursuing truth autonomously.

· Freedom and blessing come through casting off God’s law-word.

· The path to power is not by submission to God but by determining right and wrong for oneself.

· Man’s problem is not ethical, but metaphysical. The solution is to become like God and shed one’s finitude.

· Man deserves godhood, blessings, power, enlightenment and salvation by right, not by grace.

· Sin and rebellion against God will be without consequences in history and the hereafter.[vii][7]

C. To repent is to acknowledge that we have been of the lie.

1. Repentance involves intellectual submission to the Word of God

– it is a turning away from self as the authority for our moral

choices.

2. Those who die without repenting of the lie shall die in their sins

and be eternally condemned (Mark 16:16; John 8:24). (God will

forever hang error on the gallows. The lie and those who

stubbornly remain subscribers of it will be an eternal object

lesson to the universe.)

 

VI. No one is delivered from the lie except by the power of the

gospel.

A. Jesus explained that He was the truth and the life (John 14:6).

Christ is the truth of God incarnate (John 1:1-3).

In Christ, all that was lost in Adam (the knowledge of God, the life

of God, the light of God and the love of God) may be recovered and

more. (Note that the justified believer has a higher status than

unfallen Adam!)

B. Consider the majesty and scope of God’s plan. By His sovereign

grace and power He will take the redeemed from dust to glory and

fashion them into a bride for His Son. In Christ, believers go from

death-bound slaves to free men (John 8:31-36).

C. The power of the gospel is necessary to restore man’s ability to

understand God (John 1:5,14,18).

1. When we see God in our nature, bleeding and dying in our place

that we may be forgiven and go free, we respond with

amazement at such infinite love and compassion.

2. The true knowledge of God comes ONLY through the Person of

Christ and His work on the cross (2 Cor. 4:6). The glorious

gospel of Christ’s substitutionary death and resurrection has the

power to dispel the ancient lie.

3. In Christ, God’s glory and man’s highest good are rejoined again

in man’s thinking – one believing look at Christ and a person’s

mind is renewed and he is saved for all eternity. (The enslaving

lie that attacks the character of God and the Word of God is

removed by faith in Christ.)

VII. The Christian view of knowledge.

A. The Bible has to be taken to be the final standard of truth. No

areas of known reality exist that may be compared to the Bible.

1. God is ultimate being and hence ultimate absolute authority. He is the final court of appeal. All we know is rooted in God’s objective truth. Because God knows about His creation, we can know about creation.

2. The question, “How do we know?” – knowledge – is based on “What do we know?” – being. The Christian’s true knowledge is only such as it is based on God’s knowledge. “In Thy light, we see light” (Psalm 36:9). “In Him (Christ) are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).

B. Knowledge with correct interpretation is truth. Things “known”

without God constitute “false knowledge,” – facts without

understanding.

(e.g. Life flourishes on earth because of the abundance of water.

The unbeliever takes this for granted – even though water is a

precious and rare commodity in the universe. In seeking a

naturalistic explanation, the natural man postulates that myriads

of snowballs (comets) slammed into a cooling planet to make our

oceans. Like the tortoise upon which Atlas supposedly stood, the

unbeliever is always left with a fanciful solution to support his

invention. The non-Christian has a “false knowledge” of the blue

planet, see Genesis 1:1-10; 2 Peter 3:5.)

C. One cannot separate truth from God. To try to separate truth from

God is an attempt to make God dependent upon an external body of

truth existing by itself, outside of God (this would be pantheism –

God existing as one of the parts of the whole universe).

1. The Bible affirms that God’s knowledge of the world is based

upon His knowledge of Himself (Psalm 139). God knows Himself,

THEN He makes a dependent universe. (e.g. a man who writes

an autobiography constructs a piece of literature based upon

self-knowledge.)

2. Our knowledge is cumulative, finite and fallible. God’s

knowledge is of a completely different kind. His knowledge is

determinative – that is, His knowledge determines what shall be

and what is real. By God’s knowledge, we move, exist, reason,

work, plan and play. God has planted every human faculty and

body part that allows us to function.

D. Man can only know and interpret aright when he does so by God’s

revelation. Only in regeneration (the new birth), when man sees

himself as God’s creature does he once again receptively reconstruct

knowledge given him by God.

  1. Regeneration reestablishes the proper order for the standard of knowledge. “Whose knowledge, man’s or God’s shall be the standard of the other.” God’s knowledge must bedeterminative and man’s knowledge must be subordinate. One must be original, the other analogical of the original. The order is obvious.[viii][8]
  1. Man is created by God in His image (Genesis 1:27). Thus, man is like God and is assured of true knowledge of God. We are known of Him and therefore, we know Him and know that we know Him (Heb. 8:11; 1 John 2:3). Regeneration puts an end to speculation about God and man.
  1. The world is ONLY meaningful when it is interpreted by man to the glory of God (Romans 11:33). The whole of man’s environment, as well as man himself, is already interpreted by God. Man must know himself in relationship to his environment which is God.

E. Non-regenerate consciousness cannot know God, creation or self

apart from God’s interpretation.

1. In the anthropocentric world of the unbeliever, man develops his

own sense-perceived-truth in an “a posteriori” manner (inductive

truth – reasoning from particulars to the general or universal. It

is futility because unbeliever because he is committed to an

erroneous world view.)

2. By contrast, Christian epistemology is ultimate rationalism and

sets forth incomprehensible knowledge about man from God.

Non-Christian epistemology is ultimate irrationalism and sets forth

comprehensive knowledge about man and God from man.

 

3. Only by God’s common grace does man have a residual or

“shadow unity.” Without these remnants of unity, man would fall

into complete disintegration in his world. The sobering warning

from God in Scripture is that when man’s faculties are used to

serve sin, the consequence is disintegration of the image of God.

Complete disintegration follows in hell (Romans 2:1-11).

4. The Christian must recognize the seriousness of the non-

Christian’s dilemma. The unbeliever’s darkness places him in a

situation of total inability. His consciousness will not allow him

to accept the Christian position. Man is NEVER epistemologically

neutral. He either loves God or hates God. He is for Him or

against Him.

Endnotes:

[i][1] Brian Schwertley, The Temptation of Eve, (www.reformed.com), pp. 5-7.

[ii][2] Ibid., p. 8.

[iii][3] Richard L. Pratt, Every Thought Captive, Phillipsburg, P&R Publishing, 1979), pp. 14, 15.

[iv][4] Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1955), p. 33.

[v][5] Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic, (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1998), p. 152.

[vi][6] Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, pp. 47, 48.

[vii][7] Brian Schwertley, p. 10.

[viii][8] Cornelius Van Til, The Defense of the Faith, p. 39.