| (Editor's Note: We offer this critical evaluation of Covenant Creation for the reader's consideration. Please note how Ed Stevens provides no citations, no quotes, no references, and no sources to document his claims regarding CC beliefs about Genesis. These claims about CC are blind assertions and are simply mistaken about many key details.)
Genesis: Myth, Figurative or Historical?
Resurrection Series (Part 3)
By Ed Stevens -- Then and Now Podcast -- Sept 1, 2013
In this session we will take a closer look at the way we interpret Scripture, especially in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, in regard to the Creation week and the global flood...
To Get the Ending Right, We Have to Get the Beginning Right
...How we interpret Genesis will significantly affect the way we interpret the rest of the Bible, since the rest of the Bible is based directly on the narrative in Genesis. So, if we want to end up with the right interpretation of the Last Things in the book of Revelation, we need to start out with the right interpretation of the First Things in Genesis...
Covenant Creationism is NOT Young Earth Creationism!
There are even some preterist teachers out there who are interpreting Genesis from a non-literal and non-historical perspective, treating it as allegorical, figurative, symbolic, typological, or mythological. Covenant Creationism is a case in point. Do not be fooled by their innocent-sounding label (Covenant Creationism). They are not Young-Earth Creationists by any stretch of the imagination.
Their theological system is based on a non-literal and non-historical interpretation of Genesis. They interpret Genesis 1-11 as an allegory of the formation of Israel as a nation, rejecting Adam and Eve as the first two human beings that God created. They interpret the whole story of Adam and Eve and Noah's Flood as one big allegory about Israel. No wonder they end up in the New Testament and in the book of Revelation with such allegorical and spiritualized interpretations. We cannot start out wrong in Genesis and end up right in Revelation. So it is no surprise to see some of the Covenant Creationists end up in some of the strange Collective Body ideas of "heaven now," "immortal body now," or "perfection now." Their error begins in Genesis, as a result of their allegorizing hermeneutic.
The reason why some of the Collective Body advocates end up in those strange views is because they are following the same kind of allegorizing or spiritualizing hermeneutic as the Covenant Creationists, not only here in Genesis, but in the rest of Scripture as well. So because they start down the wrong path in Genesis, they are doomed to end up at the wrong place in Revelation.
What Does Genesis Actually Say (and Mean)?
...It matters not whether a literal historical Genesis is scientifically reasonable. The only thing that matters to a Christian is whether the Bible actually teaches it...
The Literal-Historical Interpretative Method
The Collective Body View of eschatology has a different explanation of HOW the endtime events were fulfilled. They agree with all Full Preterists on the TIME of fulfillment, but differ with other Full Preterists regarding the NATURE of fulfillment. That difference in the way we explain the NATURE of fulfillment is directly related to the way we interpret the book of Genesis. In other words:
• We arrive at different interpretations of the LAST THINGS (Revelation), because we start out with different interpretations of the FIRST THINGS (Genesis).
• And we arrive at different interpretations of Genesis because we start with different presuppositions and follow different hermeneutical methods.
• So, the way we interpret Genesis will drastically affect the way we interpret the rest of the Bible. • Every theologian knows that his theological system must be built on a solid interpretation of Genesis 1-11, or it is just a house of cards built on a foundation of shifting sand.
• That is where all systematic theologies must start: at the beginning, in Genesis, where sin and death first appeared, and where redemption from that death was first promised. • And so there is a tight connection and direct relationship between Genesis and the rest of the Bible which unveils the fulfillment of that redemption that was first predicted in Genesis.
That is why it is so important to "get it right" in Genesis before we "get it wrong" in Revelation! We cannot start out "wrong" in Genesis and expect to end up "right" in Revelation. So, let's see if we can discover the right way to interpret Genesis...
...Disclaimer: Ken Ham and his organization (Answers In Genesis) are coming from a futurist perspective, so some of their interpretations of Genesis are skewed in a futurist direction, but nothing that affects our firm belief in a literal 6-day creation or a global flood. Their futurist eschatology only affects the way they handle the origin of physical death and the interpretation of Genesis in regard to the death of Adam and Eve when they sinned in the garden, as well as how they view the restoration of a physical paradise at some future end. When we separate their futurist eschatology from the rest of the Genesis narrative, we are left with some excellent insights into Moses' intended meaning when he originally wrote the Genesis account...
click here for Full Article
back to YEC, Geocentrism, and Flat Earth Cosmology
"Theologians sometimes use 'Old Covenant' to refer to the Mosaic covenant. There is truth to this in that the Mosaic covenant published most fully the distinctive character of the Adamic covenant under curse. Yet, ultimately, the Old Covenant is the covenant of the original garden of Eden. Ultimately there are two covenants, Old and New. There are two Adams, Adam and Jesus. There are two heavens and earth, the first in Adam and the second in Christ."
James B. Jordan, Through New Eyes (1988), p. 311.
|
