Blog

by Charlie Wolcott

It is difficult to be around me and not hear my talk about Genesis in some way, shape, or form before long. I have a reason for that: Genesis is the target for this generation’s assault on Scripture, and that assault is to cut off the need for Jesus. Satan knows the Bible well, and it doesn’t take long in Jesus’ ministry to see that Jesus held a supreme authority, and it wasn’t merely His Father’s voice. It was Scripture. Jesus memorized Scripture as a boy, knew the prophets, knew the history of Israel, and not just the statements, as all the Pharisees and scribes did. He knew the purpose and meaning behind it because He knew the original Author, His Father, and He had the same Holy Spirit who came upon those authors in Him.

There are multiple occasions in which Jesus goes back to Genesis, and He treats each moment with the very same authority and clarity as He claimed to have. Jesus was challenged on the topic of divorce, so He went to Genesis to get the definition of marriage and its purpose. Jesus was lambasting the Pharisees and cited the bookend martyrs of the Old Testament: Abel and Zechariah, son of Jehoiada (take note that for Jesus, the Old Testament ended with 2 Chronicles, and though Isaiah was martyred after Zachariah was, that was not recorded in Scripture). Jesus warned about the end times being like Noah’s day and like Sodom and Gomorrah – people living their sinful lives without any care for God before sudden judgment.

Jesus’ audience was Jewish, and they all grew up knowing Scripture and its history. He did not need to reinforce the things everyone already knew and practiced. Jesus hardly ever talked about Creation because it was never challenged by the Jews. Neither was homosexuality directly. It was an abomination to the Jews, so it did not need to be brought up. But in every instance where there was an issue, where the scribes would “interpret” passages to go well beyond what they actually said, Jesus would go straight to the plain reading of the text of Scripture and explain the true meaning and intention of it.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus took two of the Ten Commandments against murder and adultery and pointed out that it wasn’t enough to not do the physical deed, but that the issue was whether the desire to do the deed was in the heart. Jesus wasn’t concerned if you actually killed someone, but by some will of the flesh, you refrained. He was more concerned if the very thought of murder was in the heart. Because if you got to the point that there were no consequences for the deed, sin would show up, and you would do it. Jesus did this with any reference to Scripture. He showcased the point and purpose of the passage, and it was often something they weren’t getting at “church.”

In this snapshot of Jesus, I want to emphasize two things: first, the false teacher is always going to make things confusing by removing clarity and adding things totally not intended, even with good motivations. The regulations the Pharisees had added were no different than what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. God said, “Do not eat of the Tree.” But Eve added, “Do not touch it.” That wasn’t what God said, and that was how the Serpent got her. She didn’t stand on what God actually said. Another part of the deception of a false teacher is that God’s Word truly wasn’t that clear and didn’t mean what it said. This is far more rampant today. So many in the Church want to be seen as believers, but they always seek to muddy the waters and make Scripture unclear so their opinions can be allowed to stand. It’s a terrible form of logic. If Scripture is not clear about something, we have no right to speculate and hold it to ANY value other than speculation. But the false teacher is going to make his speculations both equal to Scripture and often superior to Scripture, often purposefully making very clear passages unclear and with fancy words, arguing over technical definitions, and trying to sound smart, making it sound like they know more than you do. Don’t listen to that. Any teacher who actively promotes “old earth creation” models does this. They always seek to add their opinions about nature, always from a worldly, naturalistic perspective, to creation and make sure that Genesis could not mean creation was in 6 days, with only a few thousand years of history, and especially not describe a global flood.

Instead, look to Jesus and those who walk after Him. Jesus’ model was to provide clarity. A true teacher will bring clarity and confirm the message that has always been. We see this in the Councils in the 300s AD regarding the deity of Christ, in the Reformation with salvation being of grace and not of works, and we are seeing it today regarding origins and what is called “young earth creation.” All three of these movements were not new teachings but a return to original teachings and an emphasis on the clarity of Scripture and the original purpose of its message.

Jesus brought clarity, and unfortunately for most, that is what they did not like. They loved His works, His miracles, His kindness, and His compassion, but they did not like His words. They did not like His drawing the line in the sand with, “This is what God says and requires.” In every instance, Jesus took the clear reading of Scripture, stated its true purpose, and raised the stakes from what the people understood. Those stakes include intentions, not just actions. And when Jesus noticed the difference between the claims of belief and the motivation behind them, He did not hold back. He told people who professed to believe in Him that they were actually trying to murder Him. Instead of directly answering how, He just hit the point harder as though He was trying to drive them away.

Jesus didn’t want fake followers. He didn’t want crowds who made a lot of noise but had nothing real to show. He spoke the raw truth, as intended, and let those who wanted it stay and let those who didn’t want it to walk away. Jesus held Scripture as His authority. While He absolutely listened to the Father through the Holy Spirit, it was Scripture that was His anchor, and He held it as the authority from Genesis forward. That is my authority over anything else as well.

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