* Made in God's Triune Image: Rebroadcast from a couple years ago, and after some science news items, Real Science Radio hosts Bob Enyart and Fred Williams talk about God who said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness..." (Gen. 1:26). God exists as three persons in one Trinity. Man also, as it turns out, has a triune nature.
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* Three in the Bible: Consider the Bible's extraordinary use of this number. Christ was three days in the tomb, which Jonah’s three days foreshadowed, as did Abraham’s three days of thinking that he would sacrifice his son Isaac on that same hill called Golgotha, the Skull, and Mt. Moriah (Gen. 22:14; 2 Chron. 3:1). Israel's three patriarchs are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The priestly tribe of Levi is from Jacob's third child (Gen. 29:34), as Leviticus is the third book of the Bible. And the day the law was given, the sons of Levi killed “about three thousand men” (Ex. 32:28), whereas the day the Spirit was given, “that day about three thousand souls" were saved (Acts 2:41; and see 2 Cor. 3:6 and The Plot).
The Hebrew Scriptures comprise three sections, the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings (Luke 24:44), and God created three archangels. The most noteworthy women are Eve, Sarah, and Mary. The magi brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. Three persons (one being the Son) started their public service at thirty years of age: Joseph (Gen. 41:46), a deliverer of his people; David (2 Sam. 5:4) seated on the messianic throne (2 Sam. 7:12-13); and "Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age" (Luke 3:23). God could have led Esther to fast for two days, or four; and He could have kept Jonah in the whale for one day, or a week, but three days and three nights prefigures God’s plan of salvation for Christ’s time in the grave. For Jesus "rose again the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:4). And thus, the triune Christian God, the mystery of the Trinity, Three Persons in One God, is the only true God. And even theoretically, unlike the unitarian Alah and any of the alleged pagan idols, the God of the Bible is the only one whose testimony we would be able to trust, for His triunity answers both the philosophical problem of the one and the many and it answers Socrates' challenge against theism titled Euthyphro's Dilemma.
* Three in Nature: God has imprinted our world and even ourselves with His triune nature. The number three manifested in Scripture turns the Christian's attention outward to see space existing in three dimensions, height, width, and length, as does time in past, present and future. The electromagnetic force operates in positive, negative, and neutral, and in light, red, green, and blue blend into the hues of the rainbow whereas and in pigment the three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. We human beings on this third planet from the Sun are made of atoms built of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Further, three generations of elementary particles underlie all matter, which mankind initially experienced only in three states, solid, liquid, and gas. The strongest shape for building is the triangle. Writers often give three examples and artists group in threes as in interior design, sculpting, and even movie directors, as they have the word trilogy (1, 2, 3) but no word for any other number of films. Physicist Richard Feynman in his book QED asked how many fundamental actions are there to account for nearly all phenomena in the universe regarding light and electricity to which he answered: "There are Three!" And in his Nobel prize lecture Feynman listed the three unique ways of "describing quantum mechanics". Photographers use the rule of thirds. Genetic scientists discovered that the language of DNA uses only three-letter words. And so we humans are body, soul, and spirit (1 Thes. 5:23), made in the image of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Human beings live here, in heaven, and in hell. Those who love God cry, "Holy, holy, holy." For mankind is made in God's image and likeness, image referring to our form, and likeness to our essence as sentient, morally-responsible persons. Regardless of Charles Darwin's hope for evidence that apes eventually began standing erect, the thousands of kinds of animals made by God, along with all the four-footed beasts, have a stooped stance and look to the ground, whereas men and women stand upright with a heavenly gaze. For the first thing that God created was a form, that is, an image, for the eternal Son to indwell (Col. 1:15; Rev. 3:14: Heb. 1:3; 5:5; 10:5; 2 Cor. 4:4; John 1:14; Phil. 2:5-6; 1 Tim. 2:5; Rev. 1:13-18). And in that image "He made man," and not in the image of apes (see AmericanRTL.org/Darwin). But He made them "male and female" as Christ affirmed (Mark 10:6), "from the beginning of creation." Moses wrote in Hebrew and the Latin translation is imago Dei: "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them (Gen. 1:27). And because a fish is not made in God's image, one can eat another without guilt, and it is impossible to "murder" a tomato or a turkey, but murder can be committed only against a human being. For God prohibited the shedding of innocent blood, "for in the image of God He made man" (Gen. 9:6).
Post-show Thought: If you divide a triangle by a side, you get three sides, if you divide the Trinity by a person, you get three persons. If you divide anything by zero, the result is undefined for it is irrational to believe that anything, let alone everything, came from nothing. See also Bob Enyart's debate with theoretical physicist (emphasis on the theoretical) Lawrence Krauss, author of the admittedly mistitled book, A Universe from Nothing.
Today's Resource: Trading Genesis (for Secular Theories)
Pepperdine University in California has long enjoyed a reputation as a leading conservative Christian institution. Today, however, Pepperdine’s faculty teaches theistic evolution. Though affiliated with the Church of Christ, the theistic evolution of the school’s science and theology professors is indistinguishable from the methodological naturalism of the atheist.
In 2015, the administration denied a request by some Pepperdine alumni to present a lecture on biblical creation. Not deterred, both longtime and recent graduates organized their own creation-evolution conference on the school’s campus and advertised it in the Malibu Times newspaper.
The organizers invited Bob Enyart, the host of Denver-based Real Science Radio, to speak at the event held concurrently with the school's heavily-attended Bible Lectureship series. Enyart demonstrated with seven examples that the atheistic materialist worldview does not even have a theory of origins for anyone to side with. And thus, Pepperdine University has traded away special creation (and many other biblical teachings, also listed in this presentation) for absolutely nothing.
See also Bob Enyart's debate with an acclaimed British author at rsr.org/theistic-evolution. Enjoy the fun science facts at rsr.org/young-earth. And see more about this Pepperdine event at rsr.org/trading-genesis.