Why the "Christ-Centered Model" for Genesis is Indeed More "Christ-Centered" Than YEC

Does calling the view of early Genesis described in my book "the Christ-Centered-Model" irritate people? Yes. And I can understand why. Christians are not immune to the trends of radical egalitarianism and relativity which swept over the culture in recent decades. There is a strong tendency for people to say "Well, the view of my faction about early Genesis is just as Christ-centered as what you are saying." There is an emotional desire to believe on some level that all viewpoints are equally "good" while also believing that their particular view is superior. Again, this is an emotional condition, not a reasonable or logical way to view the matter.

There is of course, no intellectual reason why equivalency has to be true and a lot of reasons it could be false. Different views of early Genesis can vary in many respects, one of them being the degree to which they point to the person and work of Christ. Some views for example, arbitrarily deny the possibility that the text could have any meaning outside the cultural environment in which they believe it was written. That's extremely wrong, but that's for another article. My point is that these views would tend to be less Christ-centered. On the other end of the spectrum, the Eastern Orthodox view of the text bears some early similarities with the Christ-centered model- which makes sense because this isn't strictly "new revelation" but rather in large part a re-discovery of things which American Christianity has lost. 

So far as I can find no other view makes the first twelve chapters of early Genesis so much about the person and work of Christ as what I call "the Christ-centered model" does. After all, I didn't tag it with that name just to irritate people. It's the only honest thing which I can think to call it. I didn't even start off calling it that, it was only looking back that I saw what the common theme was. It is the same thing Christ Himself ascribed to it when He declared that Moses wrote about Him (John 5:46).

So what I'd like to do here is give some of the specific reasons that the Christ-centered model does indeed point more towards the work and person of Christ as compared to another specific and widespread model. In this case, Young Earth Creationism as supported by Ken Ham et al. I don't mean to prove that my differences with them on the points below are correct here. I just want to show that they do in fact point to the work and person of Christ better. The list is not all-inclusive.

1) "Day" in Genesis one is not about a twenty-four hour period of time on earth, but rather a result of the Word of God, the Logos, entering creation. When God speaks, His Word enters the cosmos. This produces light without any other action required on His part. And as verse five says, the light is the day. The night isn't a part of the day, just the condition which precedes it. So we can either make it about physical illumination on the planet for a fixed amount of time or we can make it about God's word entering His creation!

2) The "evenings" and the "mornings" are not about literal 24-hour days, but rather describe what happens when the light produced by God's Word brings form, life, and illumination to some aspect of creation- just as it does in our lives when we obey it.

3) In verse twenty-six of Chapter one when God says that He will make Man in His own image, His image is Christ. Christ is the image of God, and unless we are connected to Him we cannot be in His image, only His likeness. In verse twenty-seven it isn't the same thing being repeated thrice, but a list of three things God does to implement His plan in verse twenty-six. First He makes a template in heaven by fusing uncreated God with created man- Christ and the Church. On earth the echo of that, "created He him", is Adam. The male and female part is A) Christ and the Church in the eternal realm B) Men and women generally (male and female who are not said to be in His image to start) and C) Adam and Eve through whom God initiates His plan to turn men and women into Christ and the Church. Even if you don't quite get what I mean here, I hope you can grasp that it is a more Christ-centered view of the creation of man than a view which makes it about man alone.

4) The very fact that I am saying that Christ is the image of God and not something intrinsic to us is more Christ-centered. We have the capacity to bear the image of God when in right relationship to Him. We aren't innately in the image of God. Hitler and Jack the Ripper don't share the Image.

5) I say that Adam and Eve were not the sole genetic progenitor's of humanity but rather Adam's role is to be a figure of Christ. That is, he is a representative or stand-in for humanity and not the father of all of it, but rather was formed later to bring the line of Messiah. Adam is a better figure of Christ if He is formed by special means in an already-existing population to stand in for them with God rather than his role being "father of mankind". Christ is our brother, not our father. 

6) The seventh day, God's original sabbath rest, was not something that happened in the seventh 24-hour period of the universe. Rather it happened in heaven in the beginning, but the manifestation of that rest does not occur on earth until after the crucifixion. When Christ rested in the ground to redeem His creation, that was the rest of God that we can enter into. So these verses are really prophecy, and not just history. You can either make the first sabbath about a literal 24-hour day or you can make it about the Atonement. Clearly one view is more Christ-centered than the other.

7) The LORD God who walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden is Christ pre-incarnate. He didn't hop in and out of physical form throughout the OT. Rather He was embodied (though not in corruptible flesh) back in Gen. 1:27 and all the anthropomorphic forms of God, including the "Angel of the Lord" and Melchizedek, were Him. When Israel looked at God, He was who they saw. This view was shared by Justin Martyr and is an example of the knowledge of God that we have largely forgotten. 

8) The descendants of Adam as "the LORD's special people" in a world full of "others" fits better with the pattern we see of Israel in the OT and the Church in the NT.

9) In the flood account, "Yahweh" is the pre-incarnate Christ and "Elohim" is God the Father. This is not, as the critics claim, two accounts which have been merged but rather represents a stress-point between heaven and earth where the LORD has to destroy His people, mirroring the NT stress point where He has to be destroyed for them. Clearly an account which has a pre-incarnation Christ as a major figure and points to the Atonement is more Christ-centered than one which instead stresses the global nature of the flood and doesn't include any of that about Christ.

10) A local flood aimed at the descendants of Adam via Seth instead of all of mankind is better connected to baptism than a global flood which destroys all of mankind. Baptism isn't where the unbelieving world is wiped out, but where we submit to God's judgement so that what is unbelieving in us is wiped out.

GRAND FINALE: YEC take Gen. 3:20 as some kind of proof that Eve was the physical ancestor of all humans born. The Christ-centered model takes Genesis 3:20 as talking about The Seed discussed a few verses prior- IOW all who are IN CHRIST will be in the living. The LORD God shared with Adam and Eve His plan to redeem mankind and fix their mistake by being "born of a woman". It isn't about human origins, this verse is about Christ.

These are just some ones off the top of my head. There are lots more. Some of them would require a more intricate explanation to tie them in, but ten should be enough for the fair-minded person. The "Christ-Centered Model" laid out in the book below really is more Christ-centered than the YEC view of the text.

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