The Great Plains Genesis Forum – Statement of Faith
The Great Plains Genesis Forum exists to uphold Biblical authority and promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While the focus of most Forum presentations helps establish the scientific underpinnings of the book of Genesis, we (the Forum team) believe that ‘all Scripture is given by inspiration of God’[1] and that the book of Genesis is critically important to the rest of the Bible and especially to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We hold to a recent, six-day creation and a literal created Adam and Eve, with all things created good at the beginning[2]. Death invaded the creation when Adam deliberately disobeyed God’s clear instruction[3] resulting in their immediate spiritual death and eventual physical death. That act of disobedience ultimately infected all mankind with spiritual death[4]. God initiated many interventions into the lives of His people to bring them to Himself, including saving Noah and his family through a worldwide flood[5], a selection of a people for Himself[6] with a special covenant[7], multiple displays of His power[8] and redemptive love[9]. After many rejections[10] by the people that God had chosen, He sent His own Son, Jesus[11], to demonstrate the fullness of His love. Jesus, being fully God and man[12], lived a perfect life and demonstrated His power through countless miracles but ‘He came to His own and His own did not receive Him’[13]. He experienced the ultimate rejection, death at the hands of His beloved people[14]. While a disastrous event, as seen by His contemporary followers, His death burial and resurrection resulted in a new beginning in God’s relationship to man, through a New Covenant[15]. This New Covenant is a redemptive plan where all sins of all men have been paid for[16] and that spiritual life that was lost in Adam can be restored by receiving the free gift of forgiveness and Christ’s Life[17] in us, the Holy Spirit[18]. This miracle of salvation brings about many changes that include a new birth into God’s family[19], translation from the power of darkness to the Kingdom of His Son[20], a fresh start as a new creation where all the old is gone and all things have become new[21]. These Gospel truths (and many more) flow out of a clear and literal understanding of Genesis and the subsequent books of the Bible. [1] 2Ti 3:16 [2] Gen 1:31 [3] Gen 2:16 [4] Rom 5:12; 1Co 15:22 [5] Gen 6:7 [6] Heb 11:8 [7] Gen 15:5 [8] Gen 21:1-7, Exo 14:21-31, Exo 16:14-35, Josh 3:14-17, Josh 6:6-20; Judg 16:29-30, 1 King 18:19-40, 2 King 2:14, 2King 6:18-20 [9] Nehemiah 9:17, Jonah 4:2, Is 43:1-3, Is 54:10, Nahum 1:7 [10] Jdg 3:7, Hos 11:1-4, Deut 32:18, Jer 31:20, Jer 2:21, 2 Chron 36:16, Zech 7:12, Prov 1:24-26, Jer 6:19, Hos 4:6, Micah 3:4 [11] Jhn 3:16-7 [12] Mar 1:1; Jhn 1:29; Mar 1:24 [13] Jhn 1:11 [14] Jhn 19:15 [15] Heb 9:13; 2 Cor 3:5-6 [16] Ro 5:8 [17] Rom 5:10 [18] Jhn 14:17 [19] Jhn 1:12-13; Jhn 3:3” [20] Col 1:13 . [21] 2Co 5:17 |