Is John Piper Reading Genesis 1–2 Through Paul’s Eyes?

Recently John Piper’s organization, Desiring God, published an article by Dr. Jonathan Worthington. His abstract begins, “Learning to read Genesis 1–2 through Paul’s eyes cuts through the stalemate of contemporary debates about the age of the earth and mode of its creation, for Paul turns readers’ attention instead to the glory of the triune Creator and the given goodness of what he has made.”

So, according to Worthington, Paul is not concerned about when and how God created the world. The implication is that Christians today shouldn’t be concerned about those questions either. I beg to differ and here’s why.

Paul taught that all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for our learning (2 Timothy 3:16–17). In it, God never lies (Titus 1:2). His words are always true, unlike man’s (Romans 3:4). And he believed everything in the Scriptures (Acts 24:14). He treated the details of Genesis 1–11 as literal history just like he did the details he cites in the rest of Genesis and elsewhere, even where miraculous events happened (e.g., Romans 4:9–22; Galatians 4:22–24; 1 Corinthians 10:1–112).

He taught that all people descended from one man (Acts 17:26), who was Adam, the first man (1 Corinthians 15:45–47). He believed that Adam was made from the earth (dust) first, and then Eve was made from Adam (1 Corinthians 15:47, 11:8–9; 1 Timothy 2:13).

He believed that God created different kinds of creatures to reproduce after their kind from the seed in them (1 Corinthians 15:36–39), just as Genesis 1 teaches.

He warned that Satan would use the same strategy on us that he (in the form of a serpent) used on Eve when he deceived her and led Adam into sin (2 Corinthians 11:3; 1 Timothy 2:14—he undoubtedly shared John’s understanding that Satan used the serpent: Revelation 12:9).

Most importantly, Paul taught that Adam brought sin and death into the world (Romans 5:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:21–22) and that Jesus, the last Adam, came to undo the damage caused by the first Adam. That rebellion of Adam precipitated God’s judgment on the whole creation. Paul taught that the creation would one day be liberated, just as Christians will be, from all the suffering and corruption at the return of Christ.

And if all that doesn’t help us to see Genesis correctly through Paul’s eyes, he tells us in Romans 1:18–20 that all people are inexcusably guilty for not thanking and worshipping our Creator God. That is because “since the creation of the world” all people have seen the witness of creation to the existence and at least some of the attributes of the Creator (his eternal power and divine nature). This clearly indicates that Paul believed man was there when the heavens and earth were made (days, not billions of years after they were made). Paul clearly had David’s words (1,000 years before Paul) in Psalm 19:1–6 in mind when he said that everyone has heard about God from looking at the heavens, which reveal the glory of God (Romans 10:17–18). He would have remembered the declaration of Psalm 97:6 that the heavens reveal the righteousness of God, at least from the orderly movement of the heavenly bodies, which Paul knew guaranteed God’s faithfulness to Israel (Jeremiah 31:35–37). And as a Pharisaic student of Scripture, Paul would have remembered Job’s declaration about the time of Abraham (about 2,000 years before Paul) that the animals and the earth point to God’s existence and creative work (Job 12:7–10).

We should also remember that Paul was an obedient slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, who also believed Genesis and was a young-earth creationist. Jesus taught that Adam was at the beginning of creation (Mark 10:6, 13:19), not 13.8 billion years after the beginning as old-earth Christians believe, as they follow the secular scientists.3 He linked the global flood of Noah to the global judgment at his second coming (Matthew 24:37–39). He believed that Abel was murdered (Luke 11:50–51). Jesus also taught that Jonah was in the belly of a fish for three days, using that fact to predict his own resurrection (Matthew 12:39–40). He warned his listeners to repent or face judgment, referring to the destruction of Sodom (Matthew 10:15) and to Lot’s wife being turned to salt (Luke 17:28–32). He affirmed the historicity of God feeding the Israelites in the wilderness with manna and of the miracles of Elijah and Elisha (Luke 4:25–27). And he called Nicodemus to repentance and faith as he reminded him about the bronze serpent that Moses raised in the wilderness, as he pointed to his own atoning death on the cross (John 3:14–15).

Paul’s writing and faithfulness to Christ give us strong reasons to conclude that Paul was a young-earth creationist, and so we should be too.

https://answersingenesis.org/bible/genesis-through-pauls-eyes/