Scientists and Theologians Both Missed This About Creation

Christians have been fighting over this question for decades. Is the earth old or young? Billions of years or thousands of years? And both sides are absolutely convinced that they're right. But here's what nobody is telling you. You're arguing about the wrong question. Why? Because according to the Hebrew mind, the answer isn't either or. The answer is both and. You see, the earth can be old and young at the same time. And once you understand this, it's going to completely change how you understand Jesus's first miracle of turning water into wine. I'm gonna give you a hint before we get into it. It's about how our God can bend time. It's about how our God can bend time. Welcome back to Get Into the Word. My name is Robbie Gallaty. Before we get into the wedding at Cana, I need to lay some groundwork so that we're on the same page. Before I get into this, let me just encourage you, do not click off the video early, especially this one. The previous ones as well, but this one. Because I'm gonna show you how the first miracle of Jesus has nothing to do with, is it justifiable to drink alcohol or not? Or did Jesus turn it into real wine or Welch's grape juice?

I've heard that before. It's actually about how God deals with and addresses time. You're not gonna wanna miss this. I wanna begin by asking you a question to make sure that you're thinking like Jesus and the apostles and even the Jewish culture thought. And the question is this, is the earth young or old? Let me ask it another way. Is it young as in a thousand years old? Or is the earth old as in billions of years old? Instead of answering like a Western American or a European would as an either or, could it be that it's a both and? You see, the Hebrew culture has no problem with two apparent contradictions that work together at the same time. I told you this before, but Hebrew culture mindset thinks like this. They don't think on this hand or this hand, they think with both hands, on the one hand and on the other hand at the same time. And as it relates to creation of the world, did God create an old earth in an instant? Now, before you answer that, let me ask you another question and this will help us. How old was Adam on the day God created him? I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but think about this. How old was Adam? If we brought him to a doctor,

how old would the doctor say he was? Now, we know he wasn't a baby. He couldn't have been. A newborn couldn't tend for himself or tend to a garden. He couldn't name the animals. He didn't know how to talk at that point if he was a baby in a crib. Adam was created, we assume and the rabbis agree, fully grown, probably somewhere in his late teens or even early 20s, which means if you had taken Adam to a doctor back then and you would have asked the doctor, how old is Adam? He would have said he is 25 years old physically, don't miss this, but he is five minutes old chronologically. Wait a minute. Adam was 25 years old physically, five years old chronologically, why? Because God just breathed life into him moments earlier. I want you to get this because this opens up something massive for us. If God can create a fully grown man in a moment, what's stopping him from creating a fully grown universe in an instant? What if the trees in Eden already had rings inside of them? What if the stars in the sky were billions of years old in a moment? What if God created everything mature, aged, complete, because he is simply outside of time and can do whatever he wants to do?

And time is simply something God, as the creator, created himself. Here's the point. God is demonstrating that he can create things that are old or create things with age. Or another way to say it is this, God controls time. He transcends it. He engages with it simultaneously. So he's above it and he is bound by it in a moment. We see this in the incarnation of Jesus' son. Time for God is different than time for us. Psalm 90 verse four tells us, for in your sight a thousand years are like yesterday that passes by, like a few hours of the night. The Bible is full of moments where God reaches down into the flow of time and does something that has no natural explanation. We see this in Joshua chapter 10. Israel is in the middle of a battle. Joshua realizes that he's running out of daylight and they need more time to complete the victory. So Joshua prays to God. and commands the sun to stand still over Gibeon. And what does it do? It does. The Bible says that the sun did not set for an entire extra day. Scripture records it this way. There has been no day like it before or ever since.

God, in a sense, paused the clock. He stopped the stopwatch. Isaiah 38 is another example. King Hezekiah is dying. He's praying to God and God gives him 15 more years of life. To confirm the promise, God offers him a sign. And here's the sign. The shadow on the sundial will move. Hezekiah chooses the harder option. He wants it to go backward 10 steps and it does. God, in a sense, rewound time. I'll give you one more. John chapter six, the disciples are in a boat in the middle of a storm. They're fighting oars in the dark. Jesus walks out to them on the water. You remember this? They take him into the boat and the text says immediately the boat was at the land where they were going. They didn't row the rest of the way. They weren't carried by the storm. No, they just found their way there. God, in a sense, folded space and time. Now here's the question you need to sit with before we get into the miracle at Cana. Why does this matter? What does it have to do with your life? It matters because if God is not bound by time, if he created it and stands above it and outside of it, then he also has the power to restore it.

Now this is gonna encourage some people like myself who have a past like mine. God is able to compress it, to give back what was lost in the past. The prophet Joel records one of the most tender promises in all of scripture. Joel chapter two, verse 25. Let's look at Joel 2, 22. I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust have eaten away or ate. God doesn't just forgive our past, God redeems it. He makes up for lost time. And I'm gonna come back to this before we're done because the promise is personal for you and for me. But first, I promised to explain the festival or the wedding feast where Jesus turns the water into wine because everything we just covered is about to collide with this story and most people don't know what's happening. So let's go to John chapter two, verse one. And I wanna show you what Jesus is doing here. On the third day, that's important, on the third day, a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee. Now John tells us the specific day, it is the third day. Now to a Jewish reader, that makes sense, why? Because that number lands differently than it does for us. In Genesis, God gave seven blessings over creation. The only day that received a double blessing, do you know what it was? It was the third day.

It was considered to be doubly blessed. That's why the third day is the day most weddings fall on a Jewish calendar. John is signaling from the very first sentence, pay attention to what happens here, why? I want you to see it's something deeper than just a random wedding. Notice the setting, a wedding in Cana. It would have been a community-wide event. You see, weddings back then were celebrations that lasted not one day, they lasted upwards to seven whole days. The whole town was invited. This is not a Saturday afternoon reception. This is a social event of the town. The village comes out. Everyone, in a sense, is excited. And at the center of it all was wine. Running out of wine in the middle of a much-anticipated celebration was probably the worst nightmare that a host could have. In a culture built on honor and shame, you have to get this, this wasn't just embarrassing, it was devastating. There's actually some evidence in the ancient world that a groom could be taken to court, don't miss this, by some of his guests at the wedding for failing to provide adequately for the feast, if you run out of wine or run out of food. So Mary comes to Jesus and she says,

listen, son, I have a question. We need your help. They have no wine. She doesn't ask him, she just states the problem. And then she does something that tells us everything. She turns to the servants after Jesus says it's not my time, almost like she's oblivious to Jesus' response or dismisses it, and she says in verse five, do whatever he tells you. And the servants listened. Now six stone water jars had been set there for Jewish purification, each one carrying 20 or 30 gallons, don't miss this. Jesus says, fill the jars with water. Now what's interesting here is this. Mary tells the servants to do something. She says, listen, whatever this man tells you, Jesus, you're to do it. Jesus says, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. Did you catch it? Right in the middle of the conversation with his mother at a wine party, Jesus is using the word hour. In John's gospel, this word is never casual. Jesus uses this word hour throughout the whole book in a reference to the appointed time of the moment of his death and his glorification to honor his father. My hour has not yet come is a signal to the hearers, if you're looking at it from a Hebraic perspective,

that the clock is running. The stopwatch has started. There is a moment set in eternity when everything converges. And it isn't my time yet. It's not this time. But something is about to happen that points toward it. And this is the first clue that I want you to see hidden in the story. And that clue is this. It's just the beginning though. Because Jesus is going to do something next with these specific vessels that he chooses and fills up that it's a symbolic act that most people actually miss. Don't miss this. Jesus says, fill six stone water jars to the brim. Now here's the million dollar question. Why six stone jars? Let me slow down here. I want you to get this. These were large stone containers, each able to hold 20 to 30 gallons used for ceremonial Jewish cleansing. They would cleanse their hands before meals. They would cleanse their hands for religious rites. This is important archeologically. Why? Because during the first century, Jews commonly used stone vessels

to observe the purity laws. Stone, unlike pottery, could not become ritually unclean. They weren't decorative. These were the instruments of the entire Jewish purification system. And every time a guest arrived, they washed their hands in these jars. Every time someone prepared food, they washed their hands. Every time the jars were present, they were a picture of the apparatus of the Old Testament law, the external washing, the ritualistic requirements, the religious system that had been in place, you ready for this, for thousands and thousands of years before. Think of the Judaism that got them there. And there were six of them. And this number, as you know from watching this channel, is not by accident. To the Jewish mind, seven was the number of completeness or perfection, the number of God. Six, on the other hand, do you know what six symbolized? Six was one short. Six was one less than seven, indicating that it was less than perfect. It was insufficient. It indicates that the Jewish period of time, typified by this ceremonial water, was partial. It was imperfect. It was incomplete. It wasn't going to get you to where God wanted you to.

The washings couldn't actually cleanse what was needed to be cleaned. Six jars, close, but not complete. And here's what's staggering. Jesus doesn't go find empty wine cast to fill. He specifically chooses the purification jars because he's making a statement I don't want you to miss. He takes the vessel of the old system of religion, the water of law, the incomplete purification, and he transforms it into something new. Scholar Leon Morris writes it this way about this miracle of the water into wine. Here's what he says. He says, Jesus changes the water of Judaism into the wine of Christianity, the water of the law into the water of the gospel. And then there's the quantity. Did you catch this? Six jars, 20 to 30 gallons each. We're talking about 120 to 180 gallons of wine. At the end of a week-long wedding celebration, when most of the guests had already drunk their fill, Jesus comes along and does a miracle. And this is not just a just-enough miracle. This is an extravagant miracle. This is an over-the-top, a lavish provision. This is a picture of how Jesus gives to us, not sparingly, not sufficiently, but abundantly, amen? We've covered the jars and the staggering quantity, but here's what most people walk right past,

and this is what you've hung around for to the end to get. The most important line in the whole story isn't even spoken by Jesus. It's spoken by a man who has no idea what he just witnessed. Stay with me, because this is where everything's going to land. When the master of the festival, the wedding feast, tasted the wine, he realizes that it's the best wine. And he responds back and says, everyone serves the good wine first, and then after the people are drunk, he freely serves the poor wine. But you, my friend, have kept the good wine until the end. You have kept the best wine until now. And here's what you need to know about wine in the ancient world. A vineyard owner would tell you it takes. four to five years of growth and fermentation to produce high quality wine. The complex flavors, the depth, the quality, that is the product, you ready for this, of time. And Jesus in a moment, in an instant, produces wine so good that the master of the festival thinks that the bridegroom has been hiding it. Jesus collapsed four to five years in a second. How can he do that? Because he's God. Because the time is his to do with whatever he pleases. And there's a second thing buried in the master's words that most people miss entirely.

He said, you have kept the good wine until now. That phrase until now is a hint about the shape of the whole story. Jesus began his public ministry at a wedding. And John tells us that his ministry in the book of Revelation 19, nine will culminate the same way. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb. The whole arc of redemption, you're gonna love this, from the first miracle of Jesus to the final chapter of human history is framed by a wedding. Jesus is the bridegroom, we're the bride, and the best is being saved for last. I told you earlier I'd come back to Joel 2.25, and here's why. After I got sober at 26 years old, after years of addiction to drugs and alcohol, I looked at my life and I thought, man, I wasted it. The years I should have been building and growing and learning, they're all gone. I couldn't get them back. I couldn't go back and do them again. And I carried that weight with me for a long time. But God gave me Joel 2.25, which says, I will restore to you the years that the locust, the swarming locust, have eaten or taken away. Now, I want you to understand what God's doing here.

This is not a metaphor for crop insurance. No, this is how God, who sits outside of time, who created time, who controls time, promising to compress the blessings of our life into seasons and make up for the loss that we created. Not because we deserve it, not because we earn it, but because that's who he is. He keeps the best wine until now. And I would say right now, if you think you blew your past or have a checkered past like me, or you think God's done with you, let me encourage you. If you're watching this now, you have breath, and if you have breath, you have hope. Come in close. The final chapter of your life is yet to be written. And if you're carrying years of wasted life in your mind or years of addiction running through your mind, of making bad choices you can't undo, I want you to hear this. We serve a God who turned five years of fermentation into a second. He's not limited by the time you and I have lost. He can do more in this moment than any man or woman can manufacture in a lifetime. The locusts don't get the final word, God does. And if you've never surrendered your life to Jesus, the one who controls time, the one who redeems the lost years, the one who is preparing a wedding feast right now for those whose name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life,

today is the day for you to respond to that invitation, not just with words, but with a transformed heart. Would you acknowledge your sin? Would you trust Jesus as your Savior? And would you give him everything? After all, time is under God's control, which means your story is yet to be written. Let me encourage you today, if you've been affected by this video or you feel like someone needs to hear it, would you send it to them, share it with them? Also, would you like the video? It really helps us get the word out and share it with others. And if you haven't subscribed to the channel, now is the time to do so. Until next time, get into the word, until the word gets into you.