I think the church is conducting the wrong argument when it carries on about a so-called “Six-Day Creation.” Likewise, it insists on a literal 6,000 years for the history of the earth, while deriving that number by lifting certain texts out of context (Psalm 90:4; 2Pet. 3:8); converting days to years when it refers to the history of the planet, while insisting on literal days when it speaks about creation. Now, don’t get me wrong, I find no validity in the evolutionary hypothesis (and/or any of its confounding “big bangs” or the like). The six-days of Genesis Chapter one are not so much a “creation” as they are a “making out of material previously created.” It is possible that the earth is millions or billions of years old (not because the empiricist irrationally demands it) and, that the six-day account is historically accurate as well.

In the beginning God created the universe and the earth (Gen. 1:1). And the earth was chaotic and in ruins (Gen. 1:2). God does not create in chaos and ruin (or whatever two-word combination your translation may have). These two words, in the Hebrew, speak of judgment. God destroyed the verse one creation, by-the-way with a flood, in judgment. Incidentally, He then spoke forth light (Gen. 1:3), which is the Resurrection Life of Christ (John 1:4-5). The “light” counter-acts the darkness, which was never a part of God’s creation, but a result of that which God judged in the “gap” between verses one and two.

Notice, during the Six Days of Genesis 1:3-31 that God does not “create.” According to Gen. 2:4 this is the account of “heaven and earth” when they were “created” and “earth and heaven” when they were “made” (notice an initial creation and a secondary making out of that creation). Created and made are two completely different Hebrew words. One speaks of a creation ex-nihilo (out of nothing) and the other describes a making out of previously created material. God made Adam out of the clay of the soil (Gen. 2:7), which clay God had previously created (Gen. 1:1). Likewise, out of that which was previously created did God cause to grow every living thing on the earth (Gen. 2:5-14).

It is beyond the scope of this writing, but it could be argued that it is here, in this gap between Gen. 1:1 and Gen. 1:2, that the dinosaurs are found. It could also be that here, in this gap, is where one could argue for the fall of the evil one (the source of the uncreated darkness – Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30; Luke 22:53; John 3:19; 8:12; 12:35, 46). The possibility of an old earth, however, is within this writing’s scope. It does not contradict the Scriptures (or itself) in any way to understand that God created the material (and the immaterial, for that matter) innumerable years ago and then, more recently, made out of that creation, in a literal six day time frame, the present universe and earth.

It would be easier to argue that humanity has only 6,000 years of existence than to argue it for all of creation. One could at least find more support for it in the Scriptures.

The cross must be occupied. It cannot simply remain an object in the misty recesses of time. Because it was the instrument of death that day, all those years ago, it must maintain its killing power today. That which became the Cross of Christ must remain the cross to bear by humanity. While it is true that Jesus Christ was crucified for the sins of humanity, it does not necessarily follow that humanity is not still in need of the crucifixion.

The Theology of the Cross insists that Christ carried the sins of humanity to, and took the punishment for those sins on His cruel cross (Col. 1:20). It mandates that Christ nailed sin and death to His flesh on the tree (Col. 2:14). Justification accomplished! Reconciliation and redemption achieved! All who believe these facts are in right-standing-with-God, it is true (1Pet. 2:24). But the theology of the cross also demands the reality of sanctification, as well.  Now that we have been justified – sins forgiven; punishment due, paid in full – we must walk out our new relationship with God (and others and ‘self’) becoming more like Christ every day. Sanctification is the process of becoming Christ-like – not in His life, but in His death. It is the Form of the Crucifixion (Phil. 3:10).

The Resurrection Life of Christ can only come after the crucifying death of Christ. “Resurrection” necessitates, by definition, a dying. The Resurrection Life of Christ is only afforded to us after our own crucifying death to ‘self’ (2Cor. 13:4). Jesus hanged on the cross built for Barabbas (Matt. 27:16-26), but Barabbas would still have to claim his own cross (Matt. 10:38; 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; 14:27; Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:19-20; 5:24; 6:14).

Christ was crucified once and for all those many years ago (Heb. 7:27; 9:12, 26; 10:10), but, today, we die daily for the killing of the flesh (Rom. 8:36; 1Cor. 15:31). He pioneered our faith on His cross (Heb. 12:2). He pioneered perfection – Entire Sanctification – through the suffering of its killing power (Heb. 2:10). If a Pioneer, then, He is the first of many who will occupy the cross.

In Romans (12:1-2), Paul explains that we, as the Church, are to “present ourselves as living sacrifices, which is acceptable and pleasing to God” and that we are not to be “conformed to the religious patterns of this economy [which is unacceptable and unpleasing to God], but we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we can figure out what God’s will is.” This transformation comes not by attempting to follow Christ by our own best efforts – this is the religious pattern – but by experiencing the killing power of the cross by taking on the Cruciform (the Form of the Crucifixion of Christ on the Cross).

In Philippians, the founding principal for the Form of the Crucifixion is Chapter 3:10-11: “…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” (NASB)

“Being conformed to His death” is the means by which we know and experience Christ. It is necessary in knowing the power of His resurrection – in this life; the resurrection life of Christ lived in us. In the sharing of His sufferings (the pain of the flesh being killed) we attain the resurrection from the dead – the resurrection that is eschatological, at the end of things – as well. Thus, in the Cruciform, we live in the power of the resurrection life of Christ, now, which then ensures us of the resurrection of the body, later, in the end. God’s plan and purpose is for the “Christian” is to conform, not to the life of Christ, but to Christ’s death (Rom. 8:29).

How we conform to His death is explained in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in my body, I live by faith, indeed, by the faithfulness of God’s Son, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (CEB)

While it is true that Christ was crucified for our sins, according to Paul in Galatians 5:24, Christians are also crucified, as it were, to kill the power of the flesh: “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (NASB)

Speaking of his-self as an example to be mimicked, in Galatians 6:14 Paul says: “But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (NASB)

And again, speaking collectively of all Christians, Paul explains in Romans 6:6-7 that: “This is what we know: The person that we used to be was crucified with Him in order to get rid of the corpse that had been controlled by sin. That way we wouldn’t be slaves to sin anymore, because a person who has died has been freed from sin’s power.” (CEB)

So, the means of escaping our sin nature – our religious patterns – and to really knowing Jesus Christ, then, is to experience the killing power of the cross (Rom. 6:1-5; 8:6, 10, 17; Gal. 3:27; Col. 2:11-12, 20). We – our old fallen natures – are still nailed to the killing cross. We – our new natures – are really Christ living in us in the power of His resurrection life. “Always bearing in the (individual) body the deadness of Jesus, so that the life supply of the resurrected Christ may be apparent in our (collective) body” (2Cor. 4:10).

There seems to be a common misconception (I’m being kind) in the church, which insists that the church is over against the world; and by “world,” so the misconception goes, church-folk mean “sin, evil, lusts, ungodliness,” and the like. Implied also, here, is the condemnation of the people living “worldly;” that is, the people living according to this definition of “world.” If this notion is true, then how and why does the church suffer the same “sins, lusts, ungodliness,” and the like in its own people? According to the definition offered, the church is just as “worldly” as the “world” and, therefore, incurs its own punishment.

In Romans Paul declares that we should “present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice that is holy and pleasing to God” (12:1); that we should not “be conformed to the patterns of this world” but that we should “be transformed by the renewing of [our] minds” (12:2). The context of this passage (and the entire Letter to the Romans, in fact) speaks to the killing of the religious nature that is found in our flesh. Paul explains that the only acceptable means of pleasing God is by imitating the Form of the Crucifixion of Christ (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20). Thereby, we do not conform to the religious nature of this world, but we are transformed by the Faith of Christ.

By “worldly,” then, we should understand that aside from the Faith of Christ there is only religion, and that it is religion that is “worldly.” This religion is as a result of the fallen nature of humanity. God made human beings to relate to Him through faith. But with the fall of humanity came the sin nature, and with the sin nature came the perversion of faith – religion (Romans 1). Faith was to be a spiritual, mystical thing that empowered us to walk again with God, but that faith has been counterfeited; it has become, in the unregenerate person, a religion of the flesh, enabled by the flesh, to serve the insecurities of the flesh.  Religion is worldly and, therefore, not of Faith. Anything that is not of faith is sin (Rom. 14:3).

So, the one who does not have the Faith of Christ is “worldly” in the sense that he or she is religious in their own right, by their very nature. Likewise, many so-called “Christians” are “worldly,” not because they don’t live by some ridiculous church culture, but because they, too, are simply religious having denied the Faith that rescued them (Galatians 3:3; 5:4).

Thus, the misconception is not in the fact that the “world” is filled with “sin, evil, lust, ungodliness,” and the like; but that such church-folk think that because they are in the church they are not “worldly.” The fact is that they who attempt to please God with the religion of their flesh (Gal. 5:24) are suffering under a common delusion, whether in the church or without. “Worldly” is not being without the church, but being without the Faith (Gal. 2:8-10).